BUDGET weddings, can they really be done?

What is your budget? Where would you like to get married? What is most important to you (e.g. the food, having a hotel rather than a restaurant, etc)? Make a list of things which are "must-have" and a list of things which are merely "nice-to-have", and see if that helps.

Don't be upset, there are many areas where you can economise and I'm sure you will be able to have a lovely wedding.

Depends what you mean by 'budget' really. I think its doable on most budgets as long as your happy to compromise and do things yourself ie make stationary!

Any budget is doable, you just have to focus on what's important to you for your day.

in broad terms quick ways to get budgets down include

get married out of peak wedding season venues and suppliers often offer deals in the quieter times. In addition to this look at weekday weddings which often have special offers attached.

If you want fresh flowers use blooms that are in season.

hitched ladies (and gents) are great for hints and tips on how to save money, so hopefully people will give you lots of advice

Ps i love the picture of ur horse (im guessing its u riding). I may be making a few comprises due to my horse! Im from Cambs too!

Hi, getting married on a budget is very do able and doesn't mean it's not going to be a good day ?

We're doing ours on a budget, we found some lovely venues with varying prices but knew we needed to accommodate my large family (with family & friends our evening guest list came to 195 !!!) for next to nothing.

Our venue is the function room of a ymca sports facility (the bar and refurbished function room are as good as any mid range hotel or restaurant), the room is costing us £160 hire for the day, dj is £130, buffet in evening is £8.75 per head (to include usual sandwiches, quiche, salad, goujons, crisps, sausage rolls, pork pies, etc, plus 2 desserts). Decor is costing us about £65, basically from shopping around and finding really good offers (balloons, table confetti, wedding cake bubbles, etc).

Our local register office has moved into the town hall so we get the town hall for register office fees instead of the higher rate registrars charge for going out to the venue you are marrying at.

We're having a 3 course meal & drinks package at a local 4 star hotel for just 18 of us who will be at the ceremony. We're using silver candelabras for the table decor as they are free at the hotel, we're paying £36 per head all in, kids are £18 per head all in. They've given us a room for the night at a promotional rate with extras of wine in room, dressing gowns, slippers, fruit, chocs, etc.

Flowers, we are getting from a friend of h2b's sister, who is doing us a special offer. Dunelm have some lovely artificial flowers that are reasonably priced, which may be of use?

My mum makes & decorates cakes, so is doing the cake for us. Do you know anyone or have a relative who could help you out with a cake for free or for cost of ingredients?

H2b's sister is doing the photo's & an album for us as their wedding present. Again, how desperate are you for a photographer or could you ask someone in the family to take charge of doing your photos for you?

Rings, we've bought both for £225 (h2b's is titanium which is very reasonably priced, mine is palladium which belongs to the platinum family but is similar price to white gold and doesn't need the re coating/dipping that white gold needs).

My dress is from Monsoon bridal range, was £225, i got it for £67.50, picked up a chrug/bolero to go with it half price form Monsoon too. Look at Bhs, Debenhams & John Lewis too as they do a bridal range.

My h2b has found a great suit hire shop that is loads cheaper than some of the big chain suit stores.

As for venues - the posher or smarter the venue, the more expensive (which may mean inviting less guests) but by downgrading a little you will pay less (and be able to invite more guests to share the day with you). Paying more usually means that the venue will do a lot of things for you, but if you go down the village hall route, whilst it'll more cost effective, it may be that you will have more running about to do to organise things.

You can get a lot of information from visiting local wedding fayres, ask other brides from your local area for advise as they may have found out some information that they didn't use but may be useful to you (do family or friends know anyone who has married within the last year or so or even ask for info for brides to be in your area on here), ask family/friends/work colleagues for venue ideas (consider & visit anything - our evening venue isn't a stunner from the outside, but once inside it's lovely), it could be worth looking on your local council/registry office website to find out what/where local premises are licensed to hold weddings, some of the places may surprise you).

I'm so sorry that you feeling down about your budget but I still think you can have a great & memorable day. Let me get the thing I know most about out of the way first: the wedding rings.

Have you considered pre-loved/pre-owned wedding rings? They are all associated with divorce. If you want to consider yellow gold there are some lovely vintage yellow gold wedding rings around and, occcasionally, vintage platinum.

Your husband-to-be might like the idea of something in titanium: very hard-wearing, lightweight and much less expensive than precious metal.

If vintage doesn't appeal, and you both want the white metal look that's so popular at the moment, then palladium might appeal. It is part of the platinum "family" with all the benefits of platinum but not the high price. It's now hallmarked and therefore has the "respectability" of other metals.

My other "non-professional" suggestions:

Have a smaller guestlist and host the reception on one set of parent's home? It would be a lovely intimate day and saving money on a venue and few guests might mean you could spend a bit more on a quality caterer.

A buffet rather than a sit-down meal? You'd be able to manage with a smaller, less expensive venue.

Cut down on the number of official photos. Do you know a competent amateur amongst your family/friends? They could maybe do that instead of a wedding present

Someone else suggested making your own invitations. My cousin did this and, honestly, I'd never have know. If you know someone with lovely handwriting & go for a small guest list, they could hand write invites, again in lieu of a wedding present.

We know someone who bought their niece's wedding cake instead of a present as she too had a tight budget.

Sorry I've gone on so long but one last suggestion and I'm not joking here. You have a horse; do you know anyone with a pretty cart (or whatever they're called). I would have LOVED to have arrived at the church in a horse-drawn vehicle.

Have a lovely day whatever you decide. Who you're marrying is much more important than how.

Elaine

I guess that what is a 'reasonable budget' is relative, what is a 'small' budget to some would be way beyond the wildest dreams of others.

As everyone else has said, it really depends what you mean by a small budget!

The main way in which we've saved money is by keeping the number of guests down to 25. I have to say, though; even if we won the lottery I would still keep the numbers the same. I just don't understand people - sorry! - who invite hundreds of people to their wedding. Maybe I'm anti-social but I don't want to pay a load of money to feed and water a load of people I haven't seen in years and won't see again for at least a few more!

Wow! There are some great ideas on here! I'm 'cutting and pasting' on to a 'Word doc' as we speak!! Thanks all! xx

We've managed to get the whole thing for under 1800 xx

Mine's a budget wedding, albeit not as budget as I first planned. We didn't want to spend more than £5k but in the end it is more like £9k as I've chosen alot of pretty and fun extras now, it soon adds up! We could have easily kept at £5k if I had stopped looking at extras. This includes an 'alternative' venue (I think) as it's a castle.

Yes weve spent about 1500 on ours that included all the food, the church the tog/vog d my outfit! x

If you want some ideas take a look at this one:

https://www.alexbeckett.co.uk/2010/04/07/wedding-tracy-and-andrew-radnage-nr-high-wycombe

They blew the entire budget on me and a 16 piece swing band, one of the most fun wedding's I've ever photographed though.

Alex

If you cant have the day you want would you consider putting the date back? to give you more time to save?

Im on quite a low budget really. our family has helped ever such a lot and so has ebay ive been able to save lots of money by finding things on there

Hi, yes it can be done! We managed to have a celebration, wonderful photos, gorgeous buffet with waitresses to do all the running around and clearing up for 150 guests, wine beer and soft drinks, music all day and all evening, in a marquee for under £5k. My budget range of invitations will certainly help if you want good quality at a very reasonable price http://www.invitationsetc.co.uk/7.html

Ours is a very budget wedding and I am so looking forward to it.

We are having a regestry office wedding and then heading to a local farm so we can have a champagne picnic, everyone is going to bring a little something towards the picnic so we just need to provide the drinks. (there is a barn option if it rains) We are going to have lawn games, and our horses are going to be there so we can ride and have photos, this will be about 3 hours. There will be about 40 people to this.

Then then only very close family and a couple of friends are coming on to the resturant for a meal at about 6pm(30 guests in total)

We decided to have our wedding on a friday in term time to make everything cheaper, regestry office is less than a sat at £140, the farm hire is £150, Meal is an early bird friday menu at £18p/p. We have not compramised on anything we want but having it on a friday has made a huge differance in price. We are lucky that a family member dabbles in photography and a close friend is a cake maker. The whole ting including rings, outfits and my dress will come in unter £2000.

It can be done. Good luck x

Thank you so much everyone, i felt awful at the weekend as my fairytale wedding plans were blown out of the window i now feel so much better!

i cant remember who said what so apologies if i dont quote you personally!

cutting down on numbers.....your so right why should i feed people i havent seen in years! this is my first big cut back!

i really still want a marquee, but i like the idea of keeping it to 30ish people for sit down meal as to be honest between us we would probably only have 30 to invite that we see on a regular basis!

my h2b is a wedding photographer so his photgrapher mate is doing our wedding for free...so huge cost saved there!

i think what im worried about is the reception, to be honest i can only budget for £2000 for the wedding breakfast, and all the places i have seen are way over that or want minimum numbers of 50!

i dont mind getting married on a friday, and out of peak season so should save costs ther!

i think i just want to find the venue book it and then relax as everything else we can sort quite cheaply as h2b is in the wedding partners company so has contacts for flowers, chair covers, cake ect.

thank you all again for the advice!

and yes my horse does cost me probably what my reception will cost me for a year....but ive told h2b the horse is staying!! :-)

and rightly so, I am so lucky my h2b has a horse in his life also. The cost of our horses are the reason we only have a small wedding budget lol

and rightly so, I am so lucky my h2b has a horse in his life also. The cost of our horses are the reason we only have a small wedding budget lol

Same reason mine is low pony lover!

im having to cut back on competing and using the lorry to save money! dont think my horse minds....but eventing season is upon us! i am trying to make cutbacks elsewhere and hopefully my horse will start winning some decent prize money for the wedding pot!!!

I am hardly showing at all the start of this season, I am not even going to get the lorry taxed or motd until after the wedding, not that h2b is happy about that! he is desperate to get out. After the wedding in June we will tax and mot the lorry and it will be back to competing in the summer. Although my boy won't be missing out as a friend is borrowing him to do afflitated workers on him.

Good luck with your wedding hun xx

Just seen that you really want a marquee - we have a company in West Sussex that provide really great marquees in varying sizes and at very reasonable prices - I could ask if they cover your area if you like. We got most of our food for the buffet from Waitrose Entertaining which really kept the cost down, wine etc from Tesco (delivered so the only effort was sitting at the pc chosing what to have!).

We got married last April on a small budget and still managed to sneek in everything we would have wanted - as long as you focus on whats important to you then everything is possible.

We got married at the local registry office in the smaller room (28 guests) limiting to only thoes people who really were active in our life. The larger room was tripple the cost.

We had two marquees (proper ones) that we bought and put up our garden. We bought bolts of velvet which i made into drapes and curtains. We sold it all afterwards to recoup some of the cost. Hard work but well worth it - no one realised we had done it all ourselves till it got mentioned at the end.

We shopped around for all the hire things (tables, chairs, cutlery etc).

We had a lamb spit roast for our wedding breckfast (amazingly tasty) and a friend made our choclate cupcake wedding cake as a present.

Evening buffet was from M&S - went down very well.

Flowers were made by the events company we got the balloons and dance floor from - far less expensive than a dedicated florist

We ran a free bar all night (and still have booze left over) by buying special offers from tescos and sale or return wine (for which we also got glass hire chucked in)

We had 30 at the registry office, 34 for the meal and 60ish for the evening with a disco.

Suit hire we got a deal on.

Car hire - we hired a merc from an executive car company for 3 days for just under £200, great value and OH loved driving it!

Dress wise - I tried on some stunning sample gowns.

Hi

Just wondered if you had considered football/cricket/golf and or rugby clubs I work in alot of them and Im still amazed as with abit of dressing they can look fantastic and often dont have a fee to use them just the cost of the meal you generally cant get married in alot of them but if you have a nice church or registry office nearby it might make for a fab pairing!

Claire