Ideas to cut costs, but keep the magic!

Sounds like you have a lot of things covered. Maybe for the music have Itunes or spotify on a playlist on a laptop that way you have no hire for the DJ family members can add to the list as the night goes on. x

Shop around, dont just look at the first page of google search a few pages.

ebay to get some things

- we went to a local party shop to purchase favour boxes and as she wasnt going to stocking anymore she gave us the ones she had at a reduced price.

- buy little things each month for the wedding and you wont notice the costs as much

I'm fortunate enough to have a fairly decent budget but we still need to cut corners in places to stay within that.

I think the key think is to pick three things that are really important, and three you don't care much about. Focus on the former and then try and do the latter as cheaply as possible.

For us; important was the venue, my dress, the tog.

We didn't want to spend much on the cake (a friend is kindly making it), favours (we aren't doing them) or cars (we'll just use an executive taxi).

As we're paying for most of the wedding ourselves, cost has been a big thing to be mindful of.

Before looking at venues we discussed what aspects of the day were important so that dictated what venues we looked at (e.g. wanted everything all in one place and could stay over). I was also very keen to have a really good photographer so we set a clear budget for that.

The detail is less important to us - invites etc will be from Vistaprint, cake will be from M&S, will do my own make up etc. I'm not into wedding dresses so will be getting a high street one (that alone has saved us at least £500).

Weddings can be ridiculously expensive but they don't need to be ?

Great ideas everyone thank you! Particularly love the toy car idea! x

A few more budget saving tips...

1) If you're booking your venue/suppliers over a year early, ask them whether they will accept this year's price

2) Wedding dress - Consider Oxfam, bridal dress outlets and pre-owned. Also keep an eye out for sample sales at your local bridal shop

3) High Street + Summer/January sales = bargain bridesmaids outfits

4) Consider commissioning a student from a local university for your wedding photography/jewellery/dress etc

5) Wedding albums: save money by going for a disc only photography package then create your own album. I love Blurb.co.uk

6) Beware DIY stationary doesn't always work out cheaper!

7) I'm getting ready at the venue so not having any transport. H2B can roll up in his Fiat 500

8) Re use bridesmaids bouquets to decorate top table.

9) My ceremony and wedding reception will be at a different rooms so already asked venue whether decorations can be moved from one room to the next after the ceremony... they're happy to do that.

Our venue is a bit more expensive per head than I thought but there don't seem to be too many extras that need to be added on.

I'm making my own invitations / save the dates / place names / table plans etc. But I already make cards for family etc as my hobby so have stash of bits & it turned out a stamp & embossing bits I already had were perfect. The works is good for card blanks - it was 100 for £8

I'm going to buy plain cakes from M&S / Waitrose type store and add decorations myself (or convince talented aunty's they would like to help )

My friend is going to make my wedding cake topper

I'm going to make my own table decorations and favours

I want the cheapest dress possible - saw one in TKMAXX that was nice but not buying the first one I see & it was only £39.99! Probably look in the sales for bridesmaids dresses.

Pay bar in the evening as I think certain friends of my fiance would take the mick on our tab & I'm not having that!

Doing my own makeup as I don't often wear much anyway & have very sensitive skin so can't risk being allergic to random makeup!

I can't think of any other ideas for saving cash at the moment.

One that hasn't been mentioned is flowers. If you want fresh then find out what is in season around your wedding, they'll be cheaper and will probably last better than sourcing an out of season one. Also,try to find a flower wholesaler & keep your centrepieces easy so you can do them yourself. I'm having cream jugs filled with tulips, the jugs have cost £70 (will be going on eBay afterwards to recoup some money) and I've been quoted around £30 for 100 tulips!!

Great idea for a post. We decided to spend most of the budget on the things we cared about (venue, food, music), and are DIYing pretty much everything else. So, in no particular order:

- Instead of a wedding cake, how about having a cake show where your guests can bake cakes to bring along on the day? We're having a judging with (home made!) prizes for the best cakes on the day, so our cake costs are precisely zero and everyone's really excited about it.
- Have a go at DIY stationery. Ours ended up costing a bit more than we'd hoped, but that's mostly because we ended up going a bit overboard and it was a LOT cheaper than buying something in.
- Home made decorations - we've wrapped wool/twine around letters and shapes cut out of cardboard and foam, planted up old welly boots, made our own bunting out of old potato sacks from freecycle, and a load of other things. Once the wedding's over we'll sell the lot and hopefully end up making some money
- Wife-to-be and her bridesmaids will be picking all the flowers and making all the bouquets the day before the wedding. There's a place close to our venue that does pick your own flowers for £50 a bucket, and they have all the bits and pieces on site to cut and wrap them afterwards. Then at the end of the reception we'll give the flowers to our guests as favours, so it's two for the price of one!
- Charity shops are great for clothes - all our clothes and shoes for the groomsmen are from charity shops. We've gone with a rustic tweed look, and picked up 4 complete designer outfits for £100