Budget Ideas please - DJ, Centrepieces etc

Do what I am doing, go through clothes, shoes, the loft sell everything you dont want or use.... Its amazing what people buy just sold loads of really old mobiles and got 50 quid for them all, 150 quid for my old lap top.

DJ seems to be about the right price.

Suits seems to be about 65-75 to rent out (I'm in the south east)

Thats a good idea. I have lots of books, clothes and bits n pieces I could sell.

I'm in Essex/London area. Thats a lot cheaper than i thought. Where abouts are you going?

I've not booked any suits yet just called a few stores to get an idea of prices (I live in Reading & wedding is in Brighton)

For centre pieces I'm buying little bits each month, last month scatter diamonds and social stirrers, this month I got a good deal on glass fishbowls and mirror plates. It does however mean I have to store all this in my house for the next 11.5 months but I cant afford to do it otherwise.

I have loads of Lavender in my garden so will be using that as dried flowers for part of my decorations as well.

That is a really good price for flowers compared to what we were quoted in SE London. We ended up using hurricane lamps with sand and a candle that came as a set from M&S. I personalised them by adding in shells that my mum collected for me (she lives near the sea). My mum and aunty both offered to buy two of the lamps from us after the event by way of 'sponsoring' them - if you look at this kind of idea of your centrepieces you can then sell them on afterwards and get some of your money back. We decided against flowers because although they look pretty, very few people will remember them after the event and rave about how amazing they were and they were a lot of money for one day.

As for the suits, we went through Debenhams and the grooms set was free if we ordered a certain number (there are five others but I can't remember what the number was to qualify for the free one). Also, where I got my dress from, they had a grooms hire place attached and we could have got a deal from there if we wanted. Worth shopping around and asking for their best price. One thing I've learnt in the whole wedding prep thing is don't accept the price offered - there is always room for negotiation even if it is just £10 off but that is then £10 you can spend elsewhere

Some good ideas. I will look around for suit prices too

I'm wondering about getting some interesting looking potted plants for centre pieces - maybe scatter some of the table sparkles on top of the earth - and will save quite a bit compared with flowers.

Also - have a think about who you know that could make something for you - any cake makers in your friends or family, etc.

And definitely get yourself a budget spreadsheet to keep track - I'm struggling to keep ours below £8 with initial ideas so looking to cut costs where possible.

We're using jam jars with tealights in surrounded by scattered petals as centrepieces

Another jam jar & tealight here! its gonna look amazing and cost just over £3 for 2 packs of tealights from ikea! we are having some flowers aswell but not many as its costly.

I'm growing my own flowers for the centre pieces and general decoration flowers- I will get a florist to do the bouquet as whilst I know how to grow them I have no idea how to arrange them!

I'm a gardener and adore flowers and plants so the place will be filled to bursting point with flowers. I am also growing lavender, rosemary and thyme in little pots to dot around the place.

Stuck on centrepieces myself, I like the idea of calla lilies inside a bowl. Found some cheap ones (Wedding Table Bowls) but they are all different sizes so a little stumped and like you I am unsure if I will have enough or someone else will have enough time to set it up. What does your centrepiece look like?

£350 is reasonable.... I like a band to break up the entertainment though, not sure if we can afford it though.

Havent thought about the suits or stationery yet :-s

The dj price sounds reasonable BUT have a think through your friends - any of them able to do it? it could be their wedding present to you. One of our friends is doing ours and we've had a laugh getting together and finding music we'd like played. equally you could see if any of your friends are brilliant at photos though i felt this was somewhere i didn't want to cut costs on.

Anyone who could bake your cake? OH's mum is making ours. we also have a friends dad playing some live music. we're making our table plan and place names out of the left over materials from the invitations so don't throw anything away - even the smallest scraps might come in useful. my mum is going to sew some wraps for the bridesmaids.

That price for flowers sounds good, but there are cheaper alternatives as others have suggested.

I am venue dressing next May for a bride on a budget, every couple of weeks she sends me a paypal payment, she is selling all her bits and pieces on ebay, it suprising how quickly the little sums are adding up

I just bought my centrepeices SWEETS!!! they were more than i was going to spend at £200 for 9 but double up as favours or extra favours in our case although i have 23 tables so in between these i am having trailing ivy with tea lights and twigs in vases with fairy lights mostly from the garden and raiding the crimbo box, i love the jam jar idea and when i went to wedding fair on sunday the florists there had these with straw bows around the top and garden flowers rather than those you would expect to see at a wedding it all depends on what yyou really want like the others i have sold everything i can to pay for bits and peices each month and have got loads of bargains by trawling the net good luck x

Ebay will be your friend both selling to raise funds and buying.....car boot sales is another fund raiser.

someone posted a while ago about getting her suits for something like £20 in the sale and then a further 20% discount from tesco or asda. If something is marketed as "wedding" it will be twice the price so shop around....

[View:https://www.hitched.co.uk/chat/forums/p/252312/2425791.aspx:550:0]

found the link about suits

I'm a jam jar and tea lights person too. I actually bought all the jars from a hitcher who used them at her wedding and am currently spray etching each one so they're opaque.

Costing me about £40 total for 15 centrepieces.

In Herts/North London here. I've gone "suits direct", and I think I'm paying ~£85 per suit, with my suit "free". If your Wedding Party are all local, you can probably get a better deal from a small local business. We've got family all over the place, so needed multiple outlets to ensure we all get the same look.

We've found that the table decorations really start to cost... I think we were considering just chair covers, but now there are centerpeices, favours and probably more things...!

We had to trim some ideas back, and we're still a little bit over budget.

Regarding DJs, speak to them. If you find one you like, and they sound helpful, AND are in your budget, try to meet them or at least have a decent chat.

Good questions:

-Have you played the venue before?

-How long have you been DJing?

-How many Weddings have you done this year?

-What will you wear?

-Do you have back-up equipment

-Can we request some songs for you to play?

-What is your booking process? (they should confirm the booking - just as the venue and other suppliers will)

However, do speak to them - don't make a decision via email, based purely on price.

There isn't much point in paying a low rate for a poor quality supplier! (or a high rate for a poor supplier!)

You may also find new Brides selling any extras they have brought. I know Carmen brought some tea-light holders off another Hitched Bride a few months ago, and I guess she'll sell them on when we're done with them so the actual cost will be very low.

Also, if you're a bit creative (or want to try!) there are plenty of couples making their own "bits", and its a great way of personalising the day.

A few months ago, I did a Wedding for a couple very much into their Alternative/Indie music (which I played for them).

The table names were made from CD Sleeves, I loved the idea and we're thinking of something similar for our Wedding.. (but probably more mainstream music!)

I hope this helps!

Jason

Little miss,

I'm London / Essex too. We have brought vases from a wholesale place in Waltham Cross and got a candle to go in them. The shop is AMAZING. It has lots of really cheap bits for weddings. Think it's called Whittingtons, but I can dig out the details if you are interested. Our large hurricane vases cost £4.50 and candles were £2 I think?

L x

Hi

We are a company called K M Design and one of the things we do is table centrepieces have a look at our website is www.k-m-design.co.uk if you go to our facebook page and look under photos for table centrepieces there a quite a few ideas on there, prices start from £1.50 if we can be of any help please get in touch. email **********@*****.***.

You could ask the men in the bridal party to wear their own black suits and just buy some hankerchiefs/ ties etc that will all match??? x

I’m having fishbowls with water crystals and a silk gerbera head in it. It’s cost me £3.99 per bowl from Argos (in the ½ price sale), 50p for each packet of water crystals (ebay) and £1 for each flower (ebay). so £5.49 in total. We’re hiring our suits from Formally Yours - £57 per suit, not masses of choice but it has what we want. Our DJ is only £150 and the hotel where we’re having our night do has recommended him.

I’m having personalised love hearts as my wedding favours which are £13.99 for 50. And they’re going in organza bags, which were £2.99 for 50. Both from ebay.

We’re not having Ushers which has brought down costs in terms of suits. We're paying for the Groom, the best man’s suit and my dad’s suits but we’re at a wedding this weekend where the Best Man has paid for his own suit.

You can do it with £5k, it'll just be more hassle and take more time. You might enjoy hunting for a bargain though!

Definitely do car boot sales or similar to add to your budget - I made £150 doing one a year ago.

Buy wedding stuff on ebay, gumtree, preloved etc. Ebay is amazing and I am getting all my artificial flowers through a seller on there.

Go to Hobbycraft and get ideas for DIY activities you can do (stationary, for example).

Instead of hiring suits, have the ushers wear their own suits. We are doing this because I don't like matching suits and we have seven ushers, so they are all wearing a grey suit of their choice and we'll provide them with a buttonhole or a hankie for the pocket that is the same for everyone, to bring it all together. With BMs I also don't like completely matching outfits so I bought their dresses on the high street (in the sale luckily) and they are all wearing their own choice of shoes and jewellery. I'm hoping for big variations in colour!

Have you looked at cakes at M&S and Waitrose? You could get a plain style and decorate it yourself with real flowers from the supermarket or cake decorations from websites like Confetti.

I got my handmade tiara off ebay for £5.99 and it is beautiful. I also got my Amanda Wyatt veil off ebay for £16.

It was me who posted about the suits.

We got trousers and jacket, shirt and in the end a silver waistcoat too for a total of about £25 each from tesco - I then got a matching cravat for 99p on ebay.

My page boy suits were second hand on ebay too cost £20 (inc postage) each instead of £45

I am making my cake myself which I have worked out will cost about £55

invitations I am making myself.

Favours - Chair shaped favor boxes doubling as place names, containing a lindt chocolate - work out about £25 for 80

Tiaras - i brought these of ebay for about £5 each...

but am not using them now as I made this the other night and can make 5 of them for about £12 so will do that instead

My flowers were artifical off ebay and cost less than £80 for the lot ( see this thread https://www.hitched.co.uk/chat/forums/t/263151.aspx)

My dress was from a outlet store (brand new with tags etc but reduced to £499)

5K is certainly doable - ours should come in around 4ish

Firstly don't panic!

Take one thing at a time.

Our centrepieces were ivory moroccan style lanterns - £7 each from eBay, haggled down from £9 each. Will the venue set up centrepieces along with the place settings? Ours were happy to do this for us.

If you want flowers, think about silk, you can sell them on afterwards to recoup some money.

DJ who did my birthday party last week was awesome, he is based in Luton, can get his number for you later.

We bought our suits, the groom was £110 from Next, the Best Man's was £50 from Matalan and was a lovely 3 piece grey number.

Do you mean that you have £5 of bills to pay or £5k worth of budget left.

Don't leave yourself in debt, work out what you can save in the next 10 months (most bills due a month before).

This is what we did and it looked great. We will now ebay the waistcoats and cravats to recoup some money.

We made all our centrepieces so they only cost a few pounds and then gave them away as presents so they did two jobs.

To raise money we e-bayed lots of stuff and we used all our points and vouchers. For example our tesco points were used to get Goldsmith vouchers which bought OH's ring. If there us nothing you want to use them for for the wedding you could use them for other things like presents, meals out etc and then put the money you saved towards the wedding. I also used my boots points to buy disposable cameras, and if your doing your own make-up you could use it for this too.

Im probably going to make around 5 table centres and they should cost about 10.00 each to make

im doing a mirrored plate with battery powered fairylights with coloured rosepetals scattered then in the middle im having a curved highball glass with more coloured rosepetals in and an electric tealight. they should look good.

I found some fish bowl type vases that you could use and put the calla lilies in https://www.watchshopping.com/watch-guide/best-wedding-watches-for-the-bride-and-groom/ . I like this idea. I was thinking of doing the same but with clear pebbles and confetti in the water as well. What do you think?

Ebay Ebay Ebay! I don't need centrepieces as my venue provides floral table arrangements, (and actually I'm a bit sad about this because I had them all planned out, lol, but I won't complain about saving the money!) but the bits and pieces I had looked at to make mine were all a few pounds from ebay. My MOH is planning her own wedding just now and her centrepiece bits are all from ebay too, saved a fortune compared to what the shops wanted to charge. Fishbowls are very popular now, and are very versatile!