Budget worries already....

DoesI does your venue include catering as part of a package?

is getting married later an option and just having one reception that way you only need to feed everyone once. (Although in Feb you obviously restricted for daylight hours for pics)

could you move your date back to later in the year to have longer to save?

Is reducing the catering an option? eg do away with canapés, how many people do you have in the evening? You might not need to cater for 100% of guests.

Do you need a band and Dj could you not have either or?

Thanks for your reply and suggestions ?

Yes the venue hire includes the wedding breakfast and the canapés. They will also provide the buffet in the evening but we need to pay extra for that. As we are going to be eating at 4pm we were thinking of going for a cheaper buffet option and also cutting up our wedding cake for guests to have on the night.

In terms of the date, we went for February as we could get a much better price by having it then, once we got into the spring the price was much more, so we would have longer to save but more to pay if that's makes sense.

We really want a band as that is more of a reflection of us and the music we love, but we are worried that the band won't play all evening, so thought we would need to get a DJ too to play for the rest of the night. The bands we have contacted have said they will play two 45 minute sets so this would mean the dancing would finish too soon. I have found one band who also offer a DJ package, as one of the singers is a DJ too, so offers his set at a reduced price if you book both....

We have a similar budget and numbers to you. Ours is roughly divided up as:

Venue hire - £500

Registrar / Ceremony cost - £270

Drinks - £475 (fizz for reception drinks, half a bottle per person with dinner)

Canapés - not doing them

Sit down meal for 85 - £2150 for 60 dinner guests, 120 total for evening (evening food is sausage sarnies and a big tower of cheeeese!)

Evening buffet for 100 - see above

Band and DJ - not doing them, using our tablet with cousin's PA as a jukebox

Photographer - v few formal photos, friend is doing them

Suit Hire - £350 (only providing OH's suit, he bought it)

BM dresses - not having them

Rings - £900

Insurance - didn't bother

Flowers - £100 (doing them myself, cost includes vases for dinner tables, plan to re-sell them afterwards)

Invites (making myself but have costed in the resources costs) - £60 (OH designed them, cost is printing and postage)

Dress (present from my mum so not needing include this) - £75

Cake (my mum is making this) - £140 (OH's mum is buying this)

Things you haven't mentioned

Hotel night before/after - £420 (we're staying 3 nights, and paying for my sister's room as well)

Bride's accessories - £240

Table decorations, table plan, etc - £170

Hen and stag - £950

Hair, makeup, nails, etc - £100

Travel to/from venue - £20 (taxis)

Gifts for parents, etc - £150

I can't thnk of any way to do what you've listed for any less - I think you've done amazingly if you've got things like a band, DJ and dinner for 85 in that budget!

The only thing I can suggest is to concentrate on the things that are really important to you and your OH, and try to cut down on the rest. We prioritised our venue and good food, photography is not important to us and we wanted personal control of the music, which is how we've ended up with our budget split. Oh, and he really wanted to design the invitations and I really wanted a bling-tastic wedding ring!

The money side IS a worry, I agree that it's a lot for one day, but you only plan on doing these things once so there's no point being half-hearted about it - have the day you want, that you can afford.

Can you list your budget for each so we tell you where you might save on each one?

Yep I agree. My budget is £6650.

Maybe a little cull on the sit down meal? That's cant be cheap.

Totally understand that you don't wanna wait any longer. I'm in the same boat just had to do some compromising.

What do you want more the day or to be married?

Yes good idea thanks ?

Venue hire - £180

Registrar / Ceremony cost - £440

Drinks - £300 (fizz for reception drinks, half a bottle per person with dinner)

Sit down meal and canapés for 85 - £2200

Evening buffet for 100 - £500

Band and DJ - £700

Photographer - £700

Suit Hire - £300 (providing OH's suit, Best mans and my Dad's)

BM dresses - £300 (for 6 dresses)

Rings - £500

Insurance - £70

Flowers - £200

Invites (making myself but have costed in the resources costs) - £50

Dress (present from my mum so not needing include this) - £0

Cake (my mum is making this) - £0

Things you haven't mentioned

Hotel night before/after - £0 (included in venue hire)

Bride's accessories - £0 (friend makes wedding jewellery so am having them as a wedding present from her)

Table decorations, table plan, etc - £50 (Making myself / using flowers)

Hen and stag - £500

Hair, makeup, nails, etc - £100

Travel to/from venue - £0 - getting married at the reception venue and staying there the night before and the wedding night.

Gifts for parents, etc - £50 - making them myself.

Hmmmm...with the things I hadn't thought about that now adds up to £7140 so looks like I need to look at where I can save....need to read through all the posts again!

Photography -We've got my cousin doing ours but she's an undergraduate final year photography student. My friend is also I highly gifted and well-equipped natural who will get some more shots. Do you know anyone like that?

Invitations - spent less than £30 on enough materials to do 100 invitations and 100 orders of service.

Table centres - I've made these for about £1.50 each. They aren't quite finished in the pic because we've made bespoke labels with table numbers on and tied lilac ribbob around the neck

Rings - I hate to admit this but we basically decided to buy in silver and replace them when the financial pressure is off, hopefully, in a few years. I may not bother though. I love the design and look of my ring and I'm sure I'll be sentimentally attached to it the minute it's on my finger. It's what it symbolises. We've spent £50

Hair and Make Up - I think £100 is too little if you're paying for you and 6 BM. However my BMs and I are doing each other's hair so not spending anything.

Hen and stag - would suggest some savings here. I know it's possible to have a great time on just a few pounds where we live in Liverpool but it might not be the same whwere you live.

I would say you are doing really well on your budget. £6500 might be a lot to spend on one day but the value you've got seems pretty good.

I totally get why you would want a band not a just a DJ. We've taken all these savings but then spent a fortune on entertainment instead. Our band offers a dj service too but we probably won't use it. We've asked all our friends to make requests and I have spotify premium, so we'll probably just make a playlist and hook our device into their PA.

We've saved quite a bit by having less drinks at dinner; 2 glasses instead of half a bottle each. I think it will still be more than enough as we have quite a few people who don't drink so those that do will have their share! (we're having a non alcoholic something-or-other on the tables as well as water so the non drinkers won't miss out)

I've been told by the venue they only cater for 80% of evening guests so you may be able to save there if your venue hasn't already factored that in.

You may well be able to buy suits for less than hiring especially in the sales but that obviously depends on what sort of thing you want. I checked out BHS M&S and Debenhams in January and they had loads of bargain suits and you can get a limited selection of waistcoats and cravats/ties or still hire these, they all also have offers on now. If your OH, Dad and BM will wear the suits again then it's not just a wedding cost and your Dad and BM might be happy to pay towards something they'll wear again.

See if the band/venue has a sound system you could just play an ipod through when the band weren't playing. Also newer local bands looking to get established will be cheaper, just make sure you've heard them and like them!

Everything else I could think of has already been said.

Ultimately the best way to reduce costs is reduce your numbers but that's a hard choice.

Yes we do actually, but I'm a bit worried about using him as he's never photographed weddings before. His work so far has been animals / portraits / bands. Here's some of his recent photos:

He's quoted me £200 plus fuel costs, which is great but with him not having done any weddings before I don't know what his style will be like. I'm looking for someone with a very natural style, documentary.

.

That's a good idea, I'll look in to this thank you ?

Thanks for all these great suggestions. I'll have a look in to each of these ?

And just for anyone that's interested, this is my venue....

Beautiful! You have done very well on your budget. Also the photographers work looks great. Could you try him out for an engagement shoot for a reasonable cost, he might be great?

Wow I am amazed at this your venue looks fantastic , I have been panicing about my budget too , tbh I think that no matter what your budget you should be able to stick to so I think there should be no reason you can't cut back on things if you set your mind to it I guess it comes down ( do I really need to spend x anount on this ...? Whatever it is) or would I rather the save the money whichever the answer is you'll be happy ethier way so there's no reason you can't do it got less if you keep cutting back , however you seem to be getting alot for you money , well done you!!

ive only booked venue and already gone over what I allocated for that lol !! I'm crap

Thank you! It's been hard work and I'm still wanting to cut it down as much as I can, but all of the suggestions on here have been great so should help with this a great deal.

That's good idea about the engagement shoot. I'm just not sure how to word that I want to 'try him before I buy him' if that makes sense - he's someone I know and I don't want to offend him if his style isn't what I'm looking for. The photos are one of the important things for me so I want them to be right (but within my limited budget!)

Hi!

I'm not sure I can add much to the suggestions you already have but I didn't want to read and run as I remember how stressful it was for us. The biggest save for us was getting married at 4pm. This meant we didn't eat until half 6 so we were able to do away with the evening buffet. However we did have 2 big cheese boards and wedding cake for people to snack on plus bacon sandwiches at 10.30pm. This worked really well for us budget wise as we didn't have a separate evening reception. We also worked a deal with the venue that meant we were refunded for any guests that did not arrive although I appreciate this is really unusual!

Another option to maybe consider is getting married mid-week. Admittedly we did this by accident (our honeymoon flights were on a Thursday so we were hitched on the Wednesday) and this saved a lot on registrar and venue fee's.

It looks like you have a lot to mull over and I wish you nothing but good luck with your planning!

Sx

Regarding photography, there is a deal on via groupon at the moment but it's only running for a few more days. I might contact the photographer with some questions and to ask to see some of their albums other than what's on the site. They are offering a package for £380 Which includes 6 hours photography and the images on DVD.

Also, I have just bought myself a bargain dress via eBay. It's an Alfred Angela 7016 brand new with tags and I got it for £23 including postage! It's exactly the style of dress I've been looking for for my bridesmaids. I know it's only one but it's in my size and I have a wedding reception next weekend which I needed a dress for. My thought were that it will serve two purposes - it means I have a new dress to wear plus I can see the style in person and get my other bridesmaids to try it on to see if it suits them all, before I commit to buying it or a similar style (was going to order the dresses online to save money.

Here's a flash...

That's the dress I got for my bridesmaids and I got them both at a bargain price on ebay too! I found they're lovely quality and I got that style because my bridesmaids are quite different body shapes and I think it's a style that suits most shapes.