How to cope with a budget disater

This has happened to us too. My beloved dog got very ill at the end of November, and unfortunately we had to have him put to sleep on 2nd January. All in all it cost us £770 - out of our honeymoon budget! On top of that my oh is a roofer and has had next to now work this year so saving up is out too at the moment as we're only just managing the bills.

Originally we were going to postpone our honeymoon, but my parents have given us an extra £500. If people want to get us something then we would love a donation towards the honeymoon. We're planning on getting married on the Saturday, packing Sunday and then turning up at the travel agents and booking a last minute cheapie on the Monday.

When are you getting married?

Well me and h2b were planning on saving 500 pounds a month every month until the wedding. this would have given us 8 grand and we have worked out wedding will be about ten. family are making donations to get the other 2k. now h2b has had to take a paycut becasue of the stupid recession and we prob wont be able to save the 500 a month anymore, without it being extremely tight as this was our maximun. but we cannot cancel now as we have laid out to much in deposits so dont really know what to do. will have to try and cut corners somewhere along the way. at least h2b still has a job, unlike alot of people so we are lucky in that respect . when is your wedding dianne? what have you got organised so far x

Our big day is the 16 aug. Mum and Dad have paid for the hotel and catering so that has helped us a lot. We planned on the whole day not costing more than 2000.

We haven't booked a honeymoon yet, but I like your idea. Turn up and just go anywhere-brilliant!

We both still have our jobs, and in this respect we are lucky as the company we both work for as recently had redundancies.

I have only organised the hotel, catering and hairdresser. Trying to save money wherever I can now. I wanted fancy sweet favours for the children but I'll leave that till nearer the day and see how far my budget stretches.

How are ayou getting along with your plans?

Providing you dont go looking for a honeymoon and just book a holiday you can get some rally cheap deals , dont think it has to be a traditional honeymoone cos thats when the price jumps up x

Hi ... its shyte when something like that comes along at any time - unexpected car repairs / vet bills etc - but will always seem worse when its taking a chunk out of your wedding money ...

First thing to consider is what you were doing on the day that might have required that money that if you think reeeeeally long and hard about it, if it wasn't there it wouldn't take away from the day? Dunno what you've got organised, but I know we could have saved about that if we'd not given everyone 3 free drinks on arrival and canapes ...

If your budget is already tight tho', it might be harder to find ways to cut back even more .... why not list what you have organised / what you're planning to organise and lets see if we can help ya thru' this .....

Well hotel and catering paid for. That includes a drink for all guests on arrival. (They buy their own for the rest of the day.) The honeymoon suite for a night. The room for the ceremony and the hall for the reception and a buffet for night.

I would like to have favours, flowers, dresses, cake, hair dresser, shoes, photographer and a vintage car!?

Oh and to decorate the hall and ceremony room.

I am prepared to do without some of these things and can try my hand at making my own. If anyone had a recipe for wedding cake I'd really appreciate it. I'm not bad at the decorating part.

H2B getting married in uniform (Ex Royal Navy-Yummy!!!) Best man will be matching. So at least we don't have to fork out on grooms attire.

I think if you think about what you REALLY need, and concentrate on that rather than things you do't really need, such as favours, then you may be ok. Then if nearer the day you have got some spare cash, then get the little extras.

We had a bad car crash in July, and had to buy a new car, so £8000 (OUCH) went just like that, so we knew our budget was going to be hit hard, we looked at areas we could cut down.

i asked around friends and family to see if they could help as i have relatives who are into photography and could do our pics.

making own invites is an obvious one, get a friend to do hair and make-up etc. There always seems to be someone who has some skill they can put to use.

in the end we decided to skip the big bash everyone expected us to have, and go to Vegas, LOADS easier, lol.

Ok - as others have said, you'll have to see if you can do without some of those things. Favours is the obvious one. I doubt anyone will notice if they're not there. Flowers. Have you considered smaller bouquets and fewer of them? Don't know how many people you're dealing with, but We're not having buttonholes for all the guests for example.

I'm making my own cake. Using my Mum's fruit cake recipe. I'm also getting roll out icing which should (fingers crossed) be easier to do than royal icing. That saves cash.

Shoes - if your wedding dress is long, no one will see them. You don't need to spend a fortune. Try ebay.

Hairdresser - cheaper to go to your local salon in the morning if that's possible than having someone come to you.

Photographer - have a look online. Prices vary wildly. If you don't have an album and just have the pics on cd, that makes it cheaper in general.

Vintage car. Do you really need one? Does anyone you know have an interesting car you can use?

And as for decorating the hall, there's ways and means of doing that on the cheap and it will look lovely. People on here can help you with that.

The thing to remember is that although it's a blow to suddenly lose that money, the most important thing is that you're marrying the man you love.

Don't sweat! It'll be fine in the end!

Ali x

My sister got married two years ago and instead of a gift list asked her guests for Thomas Cook Vouchers, then on the Monday after they were married they went to the local travel agents and booked their honeymoon last minute, they got a great deal to Mexico.

I'm worrying already about my budget too. I have worked out that the whole wedding will cost around £9500 (thats not including the honeymoon) and I really don't want to have to spend all that, this thread is really useful for helping to try and cut corners.

x

We have been very fortunate as i sold my home which has paid for the wedding more or less. OH has decided this evening that he wont buy himself a new car just yet (he sold his last sunday) and will use mine instead. We have had to buy a new tv and tonight OH came home with a new microwave - not that we needed it...... I am now reigning in my spending big time, no more frills are required......

I havent even looked on ebay for week!!!!

Hi couple of things are

Favours if you can stretch to £1 per guest buy charity Pins

Cake M&S, Asda, Tesco all sell perfectly good fruit cake decorated very simply to be an occasion cake I have seen these at numerous weddings. Our how about fairy cakes/cup cakes any one can rustle them up or even asda sell them cheap

Invites definately make them yourself see if you can locate anyone who has a trade card for places like country baskets etc you can get your cards from there

Dresses The sales that are on recently you should be able to get some bargins from the high street! or some bridal shops do buy 2 get the 3rd half price etc

Shoes Highstreet can provide great deals

Photos how about a uni photography student who could use the experience? or ask guests to be the photographer i have seen this before and you get a million more photos than you would normally and asda online can put them in a magazine style book

Flowers Cut costs by making your own table centres (country baskets card will help here too!) this will reduce florist costs greatly

There are so many things out there!

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I have been doing a bit of research. H2B's daughters are being bridesmaids and don't really need bouquets. I could arrange to get them closer the time if the budget stretches.

Hairdresser problem also sorted. Mum's neighbour is a hairdresser and is willing to do my hair and the BM's. I'm not going to have favours for everyone. Only the best man and Groom will have button holes.

I'm looking into making my own invitations. There are so many sites on card making that are giving me ideas. Do I really need a table plan?

Not sure what I'm going to do about transport from Mum's to the Hotel. That can wait till later, if i can afford one then great, if not it's not the end of the world.

Hi I know what its like to be on a tight budget and planning for your wedding the hotels always mark things up as soon as you mention the word marriage. I am a wedding photographer from North Devon and Iam sure that I may be able to help you out with any photos you want , if you want have a look at my web page

www.photographybyseanphillips.co.uk and let me know if you are interested like i said i hope can help you out.

Thanks for the offer Jules. I would love that recipe.

I'm getting married in Glasgow. Where are you?

I work in a school so I have a few weeks off before the wedding for decorating the cake etc.

We were doing ours on a bit of a budget anyway - purely because we don't want a big wedding and don't want to spend that amount of money!

Things we've cut back on:

Dress -got my perfect dress half price in a sample sale.

Bm dresses - got my 2yr old daughters dress for £30 in same sample sale, bought two others (aged 6 & 12) party dresses from Next as I didn't want full on bm dresses - £50 each.

Invitations -£3.25 for 6 in Clintons sale

Table/venue decorations - going to get Ikea/ebay vases and fill with whatever pretty flowers I can get from Tesco/Asda at the time.

Can't think what else - have grumpy toddler shouting at me!!

It is always the way that things come up when you are not expecting them/cant afford them. I agree with the others that you can still do it, it iwll just require some shopping around. Favours are not an essential but if you had your mind set on having something, I am doing a special offer which may interest you. 100 Personalised green and blacks chocolate squares for £30 (pics attached of some recent ones).

Try the bay of e for bits and pieces or put a post on here to see if anybody is selling any of the things you need. As people have said, the important part is getting married and your true friends and family wont care if bits are missing.

Keep your chin up x

I really do feel for you, its horrible knowing you can't have what you originally planned. If you have things booked already perhaps try speaking to your suppliers and see if you can downscale slightly.

Have you sent out invites already? Perhaps cutting back on the guest list would help.

For fear of similar circumstances what we have decided to do is book the absolute minimum that we would want for the day, pay all that off first and then book all the extras after.

I would definitely recommend selling things on ebay, car boots, extra work, anything because it all adds up.

Hope you find a solution to this

L x

With your invites - I cant recommend Parafanalia cards highly enough. I order all my birthday cards etc from there and they truly are stunning. They do 80 invitations for £32 so probably cheaper than making your own. Here is the link to their shop

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/110347083008QQihZ001QQcategoryZ98738QQtcZphoto

I have also used this lady in the past for change of address cards and she does some for 35p an invite

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Hand-Crafted-Heart-Ribbon-Save-the-Date-Cards_W0QQitemZ380105721021QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Home_Garden_Celebrations_Occasions_ET?hash=item380105721021&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1683%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

If there is stuff you have that you no longer need, is worth selling it online or as somebody else said at a car boot sale. Wont make a fortune but it all adds up and may pay for some of the things you like rather than need if you know what I mean.