Advice pls: is it possible to have a wonderful wedding for £5k (or less!) ??!!

Welcome.

Well, you'll be pleased to hear that there are ways to save money and have a great day.

1) Get married midweek - much cheaper all round. Outside summer months helps too. Shop around for venues - and although it's more expensive to have a registrar come out to a licensed venue rather than your local registry office, you may find it works out cheaper to hire the room(s) there all day rather than the cost of a church if a religious ceremony isn't important to you.

2) Look at 'previously enjoyed' dresses at a fraction of the cost of new ones - after all they've only been worn once haven't they.

3) Keep the numbers small - it's the food and drink at the reception that are most likely your biggest expense overall, and forget about a free bar all night! If you have a local pub with a function room they'll probably do you a good deal.

If you want a minimal registry office 'legal wedding' you could probably do the whole thing for a few hundred, but that might not make it special enough for you and your partner's needs.

A lot of savings can come from doing things yourself - flowers, invites etc - if you know people or have the skills yourself to do these things.

Uncle Bob and his new camera might be ok for snapshots but I would recommend getting someone in to do it - you might find a new photographer or student in your area who wants to build up a portfolio and is willing to do a wedding very cheaply or even free - and if you can make do with a £25 album from Smiths to put your photos in, you don't need a £500 designer Italian leather one so compare the packages if you go professional, you may be paying plenty extra for things you don't really need.

Don't worry about being 30 and time ticking on for kids etc - we're 37/38 and getting married in 2011.

I bloody well hope it is as that is the amount I have to spend!!

I am getting married in Feb next year and so know the price of everything I am having and I am under budget so yes it is most def possible. We are having just over 50 guests during the day this is then going up to about 85 in the evening. We are paying corkage on all the drink (and there is plenty of it) so everyone will have a couple of drinks after the ceremony and before the meal, a 3 course meal at £35 a head, champagne toast, buffet in the evening, DJ, flowers, hair and makeup etc etc. The only things not included in my budget are photographer - not having one and my dress - my mum paid for it everything else that would normally be at a wedding is included. There are lots of ways to save money or cut costs and you will get lots of ideas and help on here.

Welcome by the way. xx

I have to agree with AJ on this one. You definately have the 'perfect' wedding for under £5k. Maybe consider getting married 'off-season' or on a weekday. Hunt out every single bargain you can. Go sale shopping and online shopping (ebay is my best friend). You will probably have to do a lot of it yourself, but it will all be worth it in the end when you see it all come together.

ETA: maybe even consider a later wedding so you only have to feed your guests once

Hi Welcome,

Regarding your budget ,not sure if this is achievable or not,this would depend on what kind of venue you would require, the amount of guests you wanted to invite, and what time of the day you was getting married.

What day you decided to get married, and the month.(Just remember that the main spend can be on the catering for your guests)

What I would say is, if you have got an absolute maximum budget, stick to it.(I agree with you, you shouldn't get into debt for your special day)

Elizabeth

Absolutely possible for under £5k but you need to have realistic expectations like not having a posh castle, or 5 bridesmaids that you'd maybe need to buy dresses for etc.

My wedding including my dress was around £6k. I had 65 guests during the day for a sit down meal and another 30ish for night with a hot buffet. I only had one bridesmaid, the car did a double journey as the venue was 2 miles from the house, I didn't want anything too fancy but I had exactly want I wanted. Have a look here to see how things turned out - www.jbdavies.co.uk/boyle/album2 .

x

I also got married on a Saturday at the end of May so not exactly out of peak season so don't be put off looking at weekends. It does depend on your venue but for me the day was more important to accomodate guests than a 5* posh venue.

I initially planned for a 5k budget. but little things add up. I have done ALOT myself and were not having a flashy castle wedding just approx 65 church guests and 140 evening.. Things mount up that you dont usually think about and my budget rapidly went over 5k... now I feel like i have done extremely well to get a nice wedding for less than 10k!

I would advise a wedding abroad for 5k or a very intimate wedding x

I have a posh castle and 4 bridesmaids, so almost right but mine is a 'budget' wedding and wont cost much more than £5k.. Hopefully! ?

Well that just shows that it can be done then. When I looked into castles I was getting quotes £6k just for catering ? x

We are having an afternoon tea party at the Castle for 36 of us then a proper hot, sit down meal at the evening reception for upto 160 as I didn't fancy a cold buffet. £5k is definitely do-able.. Just takes lots and lots of searching and deciding lol

Sorry to be a bit of a bore but if you're not engaged yet then try not to think of the details.

This will make me sound like a weirdo but I'll explain what I mean. I have been hoping for about 1.5 yrs that OH would propose and was giving subtle hints. I kept having little daydreams about the day and the run up (eg girlie shopping trips etc). I had 4 wedding scenarios in my head up because I didn't want to plan our day without OH's involvement. Does that make sense? My best friend's now fiancee had it all planned out (eg even the guest list on a word document) by the time he proposed. I think that's not fair on the bloke since he might have ideas!

My little scenarios were: a hotel wedding down in Tintagel, Cornwall (The hotel looks like a castle); a wedding in the local Abbey where OH's parent's were married; a wedding in my Mum's parish church; or a wedding in Italy

I daydreamed about these vague scenarios until this summer when OH hinted that he was proposing this Christmas and we decided to start secretly planning before we announced it to everyone (Squeee that's this week!).

Yeh it absolutely is!- i am getting married in a hotel, 60 guests, hot and cold buffett, photographer, videographer, casino games (poker table, giant jenga, giant connect 4), dj, cupcake cake, 3 bridesmaid dresses, suit hire, my dress, wedding car, gifts for bridesmaids & ushers & best man & groom, flowers, wedding rings. all for £4 grand.

Just wanted to say that 5k is more than double our budget, easily. We've managed to have everything we want for not even 1.5k

I've done a lot of it myself, craft wise. Most expensive thing for us is actually our wedding rings lol

So yes, it's possible to have a fantastic wedding for 5k.

Oh also, we planned our wedding for May 7th.... and we were trying for a baby. I'll be 8 weeks pregnant in a days time, so we brought our wedding forward to February 19th.... only cost £25 to move the date. I'm 29, and we didn't let planning a wedding stop our baby plans. xx

Hiya! yes its definatly possible, our budget is 4 and half, we have 100 people spending the day with us food etc, ceremony at 3, sit down meal (deluxe bbq buffet) then reception, we r saving money by... inexpensive dress, groomsmen wearing own suits, we have brought matching cravats for them so they look similar, and of course buttonholes help, no bridesmaid, just my daughter as flower girl, wild flowers from florist loose not made into displays, friend doing the cake, not having cars, really dont c the point for ten mins up the rd, excellent bargin on favours/placenames, (30p per head), and rather than loads of champers we have halfed it and put pimms instead, and no honeymoon abroad, just wedding night in hotel then 3 nights in a countryside guesthouse.....ta da!!!!.xx

Please tell me it wasn't Camelot Castle...

Er... Maybe? It was only a vague recollection of a hotel that was next to a campsite we stayed at two years ago...

I am planning on having a wonderful wedding for £5k, we are having a church wedding on a saturday in august and then a hogroast with salad buffet reception at the local village hall, and this is pretty much exactly what i would have wanted, (in daydream land - I would book a huge castle in a remote location in scotland and have everyone stay for the week...... never going to be possible without winning the lottery for 60 people) I have a new dress, dj, favours etc etc we have had lots of help from crafty people and done lots ourselves and stuck our heads in numerous charity shops in the off chance of seeing something useful. Use your contacts - your mum may know someone one knows someone, this is how we have found alot of our supplies and got mates rates....

Thx for your words of encouragement....you and everyone who has left a msg, I feel a lot better now I was planning on getting married around halloween which would be in the week so hopefully that's the first cost cutting exercise done! I will take on board everyone's comments and will let you know how things progress.....think my bf is happy for me to carry on planning at the mo despite no sign of a ring! lol x

Belated Merry Christmas x