Anyone's wedding plans been affected by the credit crunch?

What shop do you own diamond star halo?

We haven't had to make any changes so far, but we are noticing how difficult it may be to save as much money.

At work we are as busy as ever making items for brides, but are noticing that they are leaving it last minute to order. I am also noticing that the shops dont seem as keen to get new samples in right now. The one thing I have noticed on here is that the majority of newly engageds seem to be going for 2010+, maybe its so they have longer to save. I know that's how it is in our case.

Aliya Rose (bridal shop) up in Fife.

What about you Zippy - what do you do?

We will be affected in a roundabout way. I am a nurse and brought my house under the keyworker scheme with a housing service and they own 25% of the house.. The drug service i work for has been decommisioned and is now a charity. As a result - i have to buy back the 25% from the housing provider within 2 years. I was going to remortgage as that would have given me enough to remortgage and ad the money i owe as well - but due to the credit crunch the banks wont lend 95% remortgages anymore in kent. Therefore if i cant get a job back in the nhs by next september we will have to sel. We cant afford to rent and still save as the mortgage i have at the moment is minute and renting would be a huge leap. Therefore savings would go and wedding have to be indefinately postponed.

Having said that, i have til sept 2009 so i am keeping fingers crossed housing prices go back up by then - wedding in 2010 so i may be ok.

Hiya liz,

its affecting us in that we were saving £600 a month for the wedding and in the last two months, we've only been able to manage £400. We've been buying the same shopping, using the same petrol etc but we are def about £200 worse off at the min.

I heard yesterday that some venues have contacted couples to put their meals up by a couple of pounds per head due to the rising cost of food and suppliers passing on fuel charges.

This has happened to two couples that are friends of ours and getting married early next year in glasgow

I have discussed this with a few brides but most of them seem to bable to cope with it.

I have found that more brides don't have the full deposit for their dresses and are going onto payment plans - or they are buying cheap shoes and jewellery - and usually they don;t even go with thier dresses-they just asssume that we are more expensive than the likes of Debenhmas etc,... infact in most cases we are cheaper and better quality with our tiaras and jewellery. What I have found is that they are opting for alot cheaper veils ( sorry Zippy it is mostly ur viels that are getting by passed) .

But I think most people think nothing of getting themselves into debt to get married - ie credit cards, or loans.

Bx

Yes!

When we first booked our venue (2 years before the date) We worked out how much we could save each month based on our outgoings at the time. This gave us quite a healthy amount put aside by the time the wedding came around.

This hasn't happened!! With the rising cost of EVERYTHING and the lack of overtime available for h2b the only money we have towards the wedding is what we have spend so far (just over £1000) and have no extra money left at the end of the month to save.

We are very, VERY fortunate that h2b's parents are making a (rather large) contribution to the day. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to do it.

Hi there

I'm a planner and I have to say that I've noticed a difference. The main things being, more people are having to save for longer so a lot of enquiries for 2010, I don't usually get that many enquiries with 2 years notice. Budgets are approx 10% lower than the last few years and people are saving not borrowing or remortgaging to pay for the wedding (which personally I think is a good thing anyway).

Ruth

x

I work in the sales department at Richard Designs, in fact besides the 2 sales reps its just me, so you can probably say I am the sales department!!

Which shop are you? Have you seen the classics range?

To add to what I said about last minute orders, the majority are for veils, so much that the workrooms are having a job to keep up with the orders right now!

I can understand why people might want to opt for the cheaper option though, even if it might mean compromising on quality though ?

I know where my veil is coming from, just going to be a bit spoilt for choice!

HI Zippy

We are Perfect Day in NI - but ur right most girls think they don;t want veils and then at the last minute they change thier mind.

Unfortunatley some brides will compromise quality for price !

Bxx

I have been busier than ever this year & like Ruth have bookings as far ahead as 2010. Budgets are a lot smaller than they were but I think that the credit crunch hasn't really kicked in yet, I predict that once Christmas has been paid for it will be the New Year before we will see a drop in bookings & budgets being reduced.

We were lucky in that our parent's are giving us the majority of the money but as that is all we ahve we are already on a tight budget.

All of the "nice" things, the extras, I've been paying for each month since we got engaged last May, which I'm glad I did as at the minute, I have no money left at the end of each month to buy anything...so am glad I started when I did (even though H2B thought I was mad!)

We have a tight budget of £7000, not much to spend when you consider we're having a church wedding and a reception for 65. Have had to cut back on lots of things, not having the elaborate flowers I would have liked, no video, 1 wedding car instead of 2 for my bridesmaids ( we will use our own car for them ) only 1 bridesmaid and 1 flower girl ( whose parents are buying her dress anyway ), my dress and tiara are from e-bay, shoes in the bhs sale. I have to buy bits and pieces as I see them to spread the cost. Done well so far, am pleased I've managed to get so much without breaking into the budget too much. A friend's mother is making our cake at cost as a gift to save money too.

Feel a bit sad when I see these really fancy weddings in the magazines and know that there is no way I can afford a fraction of that, but then I remember what it is all about - me and h2b getting married, not about what favours I have and how much free drink there is.

I could never afford to buy a dress in a bridal shop, I'll be honest not even been in one to try dresses on. Don't want to be disappointed if I fall in love with a dress and know I can't have it. Still, I love the one I've got. Paid £50 for it ( & £80 dry cleaning ) and its beautiful and I will feel lovely in it.

S

xx

Wow - you are super organised. You put me to shame.
Our budget is similar to yours and I have to say that I have decided this weekend that I am defo buying my dress second hand - It makes so much sense when you realise how much of a saving can be made by such a small sacrifice - I have found the exact dresss I would like for a third of the price, I am going to do my flowers myself with the help of a very good friend and I plan to try and make my own cake as I am a bit of a dab hand at baking, I have two years to practice making it anyway - imagine all the weight I will put on!!!

The credit crunch has most certainly hit our household hard - we are approx £150 worse off a month than we were in January. ☹️

I'm glad its not just me! OH thought I was mad to get the little treat bits as soon as he proposed, But he is glad I did now

Hmmm - interesting read.... maybe not the best time to be starting up a wedding related business!!! ?

Totally not wedding related but I'm a Hitched Hanger On rather than a B2B so can't really comment .. but I can add that we've started shoppin' at Lidl and we spend almost as much there for a full'ish shop on food as we do in 'posh' supermarkets on our cats food! (they don't seem to like Lidls own brand much and it made them stink!)

Last time we were in there, Hubby said 'hope I don't meet anyone I know in here ' kinda joking and I said 'well if you do, its cos they're in here too, dullard'!

? Sounds exactly like my h2b!

Not fully sure how the credit crunch is going to affect us yet. What's worrying me more is the exchange rate with the dollar. Our wedding will be in the US, and with changing rates and economies, we won't know until very close to the time what it's actually going to cost us!!

Where are you getting married?

We haven't got a budget exactly, but have decided we dont want to spend much more than £7000. And we reckon we are going to do it easily. We are having a church wedding. Our wedding breakfast is for 65 and evening buffet for another 50-60. We are only paying for 1 car as we are using our campervan too. We are having the best photographer we could find. I am having a bridal shop dress and 3 bridesmaids, my friend is making their dresses. We are making our own invitations, favour boxes, table plans etc. Ok, I will get all my accessories at wholesale price, but I think its do-able.

Sorry if this isn't the case with your post but when people recommend a company in their first post is isn't looked on kindly. Especially since you have bounced a very old thread I'm thinking that is natural lighting perhaps your own company?

is this meant to be in reply to a different thread....? Or have I missed something....?

?

There were a post that bounced this thread from someone new advertising a photographer but it's gone now. They were referring to the credit crunch. How strange, maybe it got deleted for some reason but it was difinitely this thread. Oh well now I look like a total idiot but I swear it was there but I didn't quote the person either.

Hiya

Not really, we got engaged Sept last year and took a cancellation slot for the venue and I was fully prepared to buy a second hand dress etc, but then both parents put some money in. We are still being v careful with money and we moved house to a cheaper rental area to save, but probably would have done that earlier anyway. ;-)

? no, not an idiot. I was just awfully confused - I re-read the thread three times before I posted to see if I'd missed something - didn't occur to me that a post might have been deleted!

Hi ladies!

I saw the post Linz, I just read it a couple of mins ago and it looked like an obvious bit advertising to me too.

I've not been on here for ages, how are you both doing? x

I saw it too it was by someone who had about 4 posts total and was called jammer or jazzer or something like that. I saw it about 3 hours ago before I finished work. It was about how they saw this article online about a photographer in Cambridgeshire who was freezing 2009 prices.

Yeah it was something like that as it made me think of those wee jazzie sweets, yummy!

How are you Zippy? x

Not too bad thanks, a bit on edge as 19 people from h2b's work get made redundant tomorrow and we don't know if h2b is going to be one of them yet. So we have everything crossed.

How are you and how is the planning?

Oh Im sorry to hear that.

I know how you are feeling, my H2B was made redundant just before xmas which wasn't great.

Savings are obviously on hold for a bit, but Im quite well on with the planning so hopefully all will be ok.

Got my Bridesmaid dresses in the debenhams sale in November and we ordered H2B's kilt in a sale at the beginning of December so we've made some savings!

I hope all is ok tomorrow x

Phew I was beginning to think I was going a bit mad! I'm good thanks, well good kind of but got a nasty viral infection which is just lovely!

I'm sooo excited because I've asked Flo and Percy for a tiara but can't get a bespoke one because I've left it too late but they might have something suitable coming up so I'm ? at the moment. I can't even tell h2b why I'm excited because I don't want him to know I won't be wearing my own tiara design so it's a surprise to him. Oh and I'll be seeing some jpeg's of stationery in next few weeks so finally some wedding things are happening.

How are you getting on?

Lx

Hey Lynsey

What did you go for in the end?

Zippy - hey was thinking about you today, and about your H2B, fingers crossed all is okay for you tomorrow chick.

Re: cost cutting.
Well our venue is quite ££ but we are v. lucky that both sets of parents are pretty much paying for this. However the other costs such as flowers/tog/dj are quite pricey and as a result I never planned to spend much on the smaller things.

My dress was £500 but I plan to get my accessories from the high st (prob debenhams) and ditto with my BMs. Shoes - equally if I can find something nice in New Look/Primarni I'll buy them - as I've got to wear kitten heels, its unlikely I'll wear the shoes again. I like a nice 3 inch heel normally ? but Stupidboy is shorter than me...

Also with make up/hair - planning doing this myself.

Stationery - prob doing self assembly/making myself.

Favours - am considering cutting these, will depend on what I've spent above......