Tight Budget!

I know a few brides on here have had a late ceremony so that they can skip the wedding breakfast and have an evening buffet for all the guests.

Equally, you could opt for a more 'afternoon tea' type buffet for day guests and have a hog roast or buffet for your evening guests.

I guess it really does depend what sort of wedding you want and what your budget is. When looking at wedding venues check whether they allow to bring in your own caterers, wedding suppliers ect as i know some will only allow their recommended and its not always the cheapest option

We have gone with a package deal with our venue and its worked out much cheaper than having the options individually. Also, it doesnt hurt to barter where you feel you can!

Hi,

We are getting married 7th Sept 2013 and are on a £2.5k budget (could probably stretch to £3k) so things are extremely tight!! We are having 30 guests and having the wedding breakfast at a local hotel. We are having a day reception only as the majority of people have children (us included, a one year old) We get married at 11.30 and have the hotel room til 7pm but off into their bar til late I am having my make up and hair done by a student who finishes her training next summer (so will be newly qualified) and a student photographer. The hotel is £30 per head for food and drinks.

My car is actually a local chauffeur service, so it is always an idea to play on google for local services as I saved a bundle on it.

I know our budget wedding is not to everyone's taste, but we can't wait

These are good suggestions. I think you need to work out what is important to you and prioritise those and forget about having any extras that you don't consider as important. For example. for me the dress, photography and videography are really important. but if I had to scale back, I would get rid of the chair covers, favours, and go for a much cheaper wedding cake, etc.

An even cheaper way of feeding your evening guests may be bacon baps but that depends if you have fed your late afternoon guests with something sustancial as they will need something proper to eat at some point

I've actually seen some decent wedding packages on groupon haha. I photographed Woodborough Hall in Nottingham once and it was a wonderful venue with great service, they really took care of the couple, I think it was only £2000 for venue, food, drinks, and entertainment or something.

The other thing is buffet over sit down dinner I guess?

We are on a very tight budget too and have booked the ceremony for 3pm then given time each way we think that after the church and photographs our guests will arrive at our reception by 5 o'clock. We did this to save money.

We've hired our city's football stadium which has cost £400 for the whole day which covers room hire, insurance and bar staff also including stewards who needed to be onsite. The catering is being arranged between myself and my very helpful grandparents who also paid for our photographer saving us money. My parents have been together 25 years and haven't been able to afford to get married but have kindly offered to help out on some things ie; dad has a good friend who is a dj who is doing our entertainment and mum is paying for our wedding cake. So if possible try see if anyone is willing to pay for any extra bits that will make it easier for you.

We got engaged July 2010 and really wanted the whole big white wedding but we also bought our first house at the end of last year and have kind of come to the conclusion now we just want to be married, even if that means doing it on the cheap.

We're on a tight budget too and although my mum and dad have been great with contributing we still only have around £5K to spend in total (which is a lot of money for one day anyway!).

We found a great venue for £1950 all in (ceremony room, drinks reception, 3 course sit down meal, evening buffet and DJ til 2am). It depends where you're based I guess but we're in London so the venue (Southend) isn't too far from us:

http://www.kursaalfunctions.com/weddings/

We looked at lots of others before we settled on this. There are cheap venues out there. Holiday Inn do a £1000 package, as do Old English Inns.

To save more money we're having friends and family do the photos and video (one is a retired photographer), having silk flowers and non-floral table decs and asking for honeymoon contributions instead of gifts. My dress was £450 which is more than I'd budgeted for but not over the top. I've found bridesmaid dresses on ebay which are £45 each.

Ah yes, people have reminded me, if you're not superstitious, it's easy to get a second hand dress from ebay or, when I worked in a charity shop we used to do a wedding special month in Jan, so there might be a dress or even some accessories there. Also, thinking about it if you have a friend who's an amateur willing baker, you can get them to do the wedding cake as a wedding present. I've had two friends do that and the cakes looked amazing and completely like a professional cake.

Since leaving my comment earlier i have since booked my honeymoon .... within my tight budget!!!! We fly to Venice and then fly back from Rome, I booked them seperately costing around £400. Then I've booked accommodation in Venice, Verona , Florence and Rome which has cost me around £700, including 3 nights on a yacht. I am so excited. I know Italy is expensive but we really are the kind of people to just go for nice walks ect. Im estatic, I never thought we'd manage a honeymoon and a wedding in the same year. ?

Hi

Just a few suggestions that might help depending on how DIY you are.

Im doing my own hair and make up, I watched a tutorial on YouTbe to make my own bouquet but since then a friend has offered to do them. By stem vases for centre piece so you only need one flower and maybe candles etc.

We are having a hog roast which feeds alot of people for not much money at all!

Good luck xx

DO NOT MENTION THAT WHAT YOU WANT IS FOR A WEDDING. Say it is for a celebration or a birthday as they add hundreds of pounds just for the word 'wedding'.
I'm making a lot of my own things like invites etcetc. I've also got a friend doing my pictures for my table plan.
I'm looking at buying silk roses and making my own bouquets, button holes etcetc.
I'm getting myself a cheaper veil rather than spending over a £100 on one.
I've shopped around for my dress and managed to find somewhere that can do it for me at £300 cheaper than everywhere else is selling it.
I'm looking at getting married on a weekday rather than a weekend even though I have children coming to my wedding.
I'm getting married out of season.
I'm going to boot sales and looking on ebay to find items cheaper for my centrepieces.
I have found a friend who will DJ for me.
I've got to confirm it but I may have a friend making my wedding cake on the cheaper OR I will buy a 3 tiered celebration cake that is plain iced and decorate myself.

Thats all I can think of right now. I will let you know if I come up with any more ? Hope I've helped