Confused and upset!

First of all - congratulations and welcome to the wonderful world of hitched ?

As to sticking to your budget, it's easy if you just look around. You may have to change your plans of how you actually want your wedding to be - if you were wanting a church wedding with a fancy reception at a posh hotel/manor house, then you've got very little chance with that budget unless you go for a Tuesday in November and only invite about 30 people!

But if you're open to hiring a village hall or local sports venue or something less obviously 'wedding-y' then you've got all kinds of options.

Also, if you make a lot of the stuff yourself - stationery, favours, jewellery etc - it can help to keep the costs down.

Good luck with it, everyone on here is super helpful and have brilliant ideas so I'm sure we'll help you.

It's also a great place to just rant when you need to as well ?

xxx

WSS! I've done a DIY wedding before with a register office wedding and small do for 50 in the day for about £3000. The guests said it was lovely.

I just want the works now so have allowed myself a bigger budget Lol Doesn't mean you can't have a great day, just means you have to bargain hunt

Thank you for your replies. Its so nice to have somewhere to get advice/comfort!

Just wondering about that £3000 wedding-what type of place did you have for your party?

Thanks

Toni

Our budget is around £3,500 and we are having rhe full works church wedding, followed by a buffet in the function room of the local pub for about 70 people and a DJ , smaller buffer and an extra 50 people in the evening.

For us, people were more important than sitting down to eat and that's how we saved onthe total costs. Also calling in all favours we can and getting free cake making, musiciands at church, phoitographer etc. And i'm making a lot of things myself, including stationery, veil, jewellery.

Yes, you can do it!

That was in Peterborough and it was a hall attached to a tiny italian hotel. It was beautiful, but a blank canvas. I hired tables and linen from a company, and got outside caterers in to do a roast dinner type thing, and the evening buffet. Tbh I didnt hunt round much, still bought a wedding cake and hired cars etc. The only thing I didnt do which I recommend you do is sort a photographer. They dont have to be mega expensive, but are well worth the money. I had a friend taking photos and they were rubbish,plus I was organising the people for photos!!

We just waited a bit longer to get married so we could save enough to have the wedding we wanted. Is that an option?

Aww tl331!!!!, dont worry pickle, itl be fine i promise, our budget was/is the same as yours, and weve done it, its tight but manageable you just have to be smart with your choices, and prioritise what means the most to you, heres very roughly what we done with our pennies

2500, venue, we r getting married there, and having reception too, oh and 1st night, tht includes a deluxe bbq buffett for 100 people, its a help yourself jobby but we still have table plan etc etc, it include 3 bottles of wine on each table, welcome drinks and strawberrys and cream for everyone in the evening, we r getting married late in the day 3pm so we arnt having evening food just the strawberries

our favours work out 25p per person, weve got tiebetan silver heart and star charms these will be tied to a pretty luggage tag type thingy with the names on so they r doubling up as name places, u dont have to have favours nor do u need to have ppl sat down at tables with table plans, just plan the basics and add extras depending on how much is left, the flowers we r having are wild flowers not in displays just put loosly into vases (1 on each table, 4 on top table) with alot of ivy and gyposphilia, to fill them out those and my bouquet come to 170,

my dress is preloved so was 200 for a mori lee, really not worth worrying bout cars as its the same place so a friend is taking me

friends are making cupcakes for us for our cake, we r using tht as our pudding

the guys arnt having matching suits, just the same cravat and buttonholes, (although i dont like fake flowers iv got 12 button holes for a fiver) and they r very pretty some of the guys have hayfever didnt want them suffering, my entertainment is a disco, local guy tht also sings brilliantly for 200

IT CAN BE DONE, as i said just plan the very basics first add add as u go, i has 14months to plan, i brought the favours 1 week out of my own money, the vases the next week etc, tht way 20 quid out of your own money every month u wont miss, (1 less takeaway) leaving the actuall budget for the big things, its fun too in the evening just looking for bargains its the little things tht add up remember, enjoy it, dont panic, and please dont get upset.xxxxxxx

The one thing that eats the money is the amount of guests. If you aim to have say 20-30 guests, and have a quality day you will find things so much easier than trying to deal with 100's of guests on a smaller budget

Many smaller hotels can do a package where you can hire 1 or 2 rooms, and provide a small party with an excellent service, and then invite a lot of firnds in the evening for a bufet / party

Hello, just to assure you that you can have a lovely wedding for £5k!

We have a similar budget and have found it to be cheaper (and better value) to organise venue and catering yourself.

We are having 120 guests and are spending £150 reg office, £275 venue (village hall), £2000 on caterer, £1000 on booze, £500 on my dress (bought on ebay and paying for embellishments).

We do not have to buy booze for our guests and can have a bar if we want (so this is a way to get it even cheaper).

We are having the chocolate wedding cake made by a friend, this will be pudding, we will be doing our own flower arrangements (picked from mum's garden and bought at florists to arrange ourselves), have a friend drive us in his nice car, my uncle has a fancy camera and will bedoing photography, the ushers will wear their own suits, I am having no flower girls only bridesmaids, we are making loads of our decs, designed our own invites and getting them printed cheaply (hopefully)...

You don't have to take any of these ideas, just suggestions. We are going to have an amazing day and it will feel better as it will be so personal. I am making the decs in my spare time and am really enjoying it.

Our only extravagance will be the live band we are hiring- 50s rock n roll.

My tip is to decide what is important to you and spend the money there. For us it was to have lots of hearty food, lots of free alcohol and a good band.

For some it might be a nice venue, for others it may be the dress, or an arty photogrpaher...

Have you thought about getting married off peak? I'm paying £10k for my wedding at my venue, however for dates in Jan feb and Mar they'll do a deal for £2000 for room hire, wedding breakfast and some drinks. Its really worth shopping around and looking for these little offers.

Hello, congrats on the wedding.

I am planning a 'budget' wedding, it will definately come in at alot less than £5000. We're having a church wedding - this is the only thing I have been adament about as thats what I have always dreamed off and is costing £515.

We have hired the local community centre for the reception at a cost of £150 which I think is very good as we can go in the evening before to set the tables, then we have full use of it on the wedding day and the following morning.

We are inviting approx. 70 people as day guests including children and about a further 60 to the evening. We have OH's distant relations doing our catering for both the day and evening and are planning on having a sit down meal for the day guests with a small buffet for the evening. She reckons she'll be able to do this for under £500.

My dress cost £750 but its the one I fell in love with so...

We are planning on being tight with drinks though, providing Bucks Fizz and orange juice when we go in, with water on the tables. Arent providing wine as this will cost us a fortune but having bar open for drinks if they wish to buy - we decided this would be more beneficial as not many of our lot drink wine anyway!

I am buying all my bits and pieces - invitations, table runners, name cards, ribbon from ebay which if you have a good nosey you can get some bargains on there!

BIL2B is a baker so making our cake, OH's uncle is a professional photographer (he takes photo's of the queen!) so is doing our photography for us - we will have to pay him obviously but at a cut rate, not sure what yet!

DJ is an old work friend of OH's so got him for night at £200.

Cars - we are using MIL2B's car for bridal car - nothing fancy, just a Renault but its brand new and saves on paying for cars! OH's uncle will hopefully be chauffer and auntie will decorate. Another distant relation of OH is going to do our flowers for us. Centre pieces will be borrowed vases with simple flowers, probably from Tesco's!

Basically, I have found that the more 'handy' people you know the more you can save!!

Good luck x