Wedding on a budget...can it be done?

When you say you have gone for winter is it 2010 or 2011?

As the second is more do able if i am honest

Hello and welcome to hitched!

Welcome to hitched!

A wedding on a budget is certainly possible - there are women I know getting married on £1,500.

If I was to do our wedding on a lower budget I would have to compromise as I'm an accountant - clearly none on my contacts can knock up a wedding cake / photograph a wedding / video a wedding / make rings etc. I don't know whether the same is true for you or not? And again it depends on what matters to you.? It you want a day surrounded by family and friends thats certainly do'able - what are your "dreams" about the wedding? I wanted lasting memories and a day to celebrate our love - so the video / pics / wedding rings (the lasting things) became very important quickly.

In contrast my cousin who is getting married on £1,500 has made significant sacrifises.. Eg: She is wearing her sisters old wedding dress, had to have a registry office wedding as the church was over half her budget.

It will all be down to your expectations, If you want a formal affair, church do all the frills then you are sadly going to be disappointed. I am getting married next year with a budget of 5k, but we are not having anymore than 50 people and it is an informal garden party type affair with a buffet meal at the local village hall and then on to the pub for the evening. But we are having this wedding because it is what we actually want! I am making my own invitations and lots of the decorations. Please take time to save rather than a loan and starting married life in debt. There is no given deadline to when your engagement should end and you should be married (previously i was engaged for 8 years, no marriage)

all the best wishes

It just depends on what budget you do have and what sort of wedding you want. If you want a 3 course sit down meal for 100 and then a buffet at night for 200 then most of your budget will go on food. You could do a hog roast type meal but not sure that would work in winter.

Could you hire a hall and bring in caterers as that would be cheaper than a hotel.

My wedding was everything I wanted it to be and didn't cost nearly as much as people think. I think it's all about expectations so when you say you don't want to compromise on what matters then what are the main aspects?

x

My first thought on hearing this was that yes it could be done. At the start, before I was fortunate enough to be offered money by all 4 of our parents, our budget was tiny. The only way I had found that I could have done it and not cut down my guests (a similar number to yours) was to go for church wedding and reception in a nicely decorated old church hall catered by family and friends. I think I could have done it, it wouldn't have been my dream wedding as I had never imagined it that way, but I reckon it would have been pretty cool.

Just an idea

xx

I know a couple who got married on less than £1000, but this was a very small do with a handful of guests and a reception at home.

If you really need and want 100-200 people then you will need to organise catering and a hall/room for this many people and this will cost.

Apart from asking your guests for help or to chip in with costs I would suggest finding a cheap room, thinking about getting friends or family to do the catering and finding another friend to do the photography.

Otherwise you will need to start saving the pennies ! ?

I had a budget of £3000 and am having a church wedding with a buffet afterwards for 90. We were never interested in a sit down meal so that saved a huge chunk of money

a budget wedding is very dooable. you just have to work out what is most important and compromise on the things that arent!

Welcome to hitched!

Wow, what a welcome! I feel like I've joined a club with very happy, excitable members.

We're planning for 2012, so we have over a year to save. I work in marketing, and have done work for caters, jewellers, hotels and florists so I'm going to be ever so cheeky and email them to see if they can help, but I have to work on the assumption that they will say no for now.

From my initial research it's the food that's going to cost the most, and there's not a whole lot you can do about that, although I've had a great suggestion from someone on Netmums saying that she had her wedding at 4pm, so she just did a 6pm meal and no evening buffet, which I may well consider.

We're entering every competition under the sun (as I'm sure you all are lol) and saving our Tesco vouchers for Goldsmiths for the wedding bands.

I love working to a budget, and have no problem at all with buying things from Ebay and Primark (totally using them for the jewellery) but I'd love some ideas for all the little things that make the day special.

For me the HAS to have the following:

A dress and suit we are comfortable with

ALL my family, friends and their plus ones (so they are happy)

A venue that will fit all of us in

and the Wish List includes:

Michael Buble tribute act (well, Michael Buble himself but not even I can wish that hard!)

Christian Louboutin wedding shoes

But to be honest,these are things I'm happy missing out....a girl can dream though!

Eleanor xx--xx

Hi and welcome...

Our wedding isnt until 2012 and so far working out the costings on the budget page here on hitched works out about £7000, which only is saving £300.00 per month or thereabouts which isnt too bad..

We still have the mortgage etc to pay and still can afford to save £150 per month each, it is do-able to have your dream wedding. Go on to the "my budget" page and add your costings etc and then divide that by how many months you have to save and hey presto... a wedding to dream about!!!

Hope this helps x.

I wish I could save £150 each, but he's a student and I'm not paid great, but we're doing car boots, I'm teaching dancing and doing what I can to earn extra money, so that, plus creative spending should help!

What i think you need to do in the first instance is work out how much money you can get your hands on then try splitting it up into sections for dress, suit, etc etc I think you might need to be a bit more conservative on your guest list or come up with an innovative way of feeding people..... I would recommend trying to find a village hall or similar so that you are not paying high venue fees and can use whatever catering ideas you fancy

Hi Spry,

I'd say you diffinately could!

I'm lucky because I did my own Wedding Photography (honestly!) but I' say the Reception Food is the most expensive part of your day. The easiest why to save money is to get married as late in the day as possible (3:30/4pm). By the time your ceremony is doen and the photos are taken you won't be getting to the reception until 5pm-ish.

Why not then have a buffet rather than a sit down meal?! Much cheaper and people are much more relaxed too! Hire a reception venue with house DJ, often their kit is integrated into the room and cheaper.

Hope that helps to start!

Hi Eleanor,

I once photographed a wedding where for the evening reception, rather than asking for wedding presents, the couple asked all the guests to bring some food (cakes, sandwiches etc). What happened was the 100 guests bought so much food there was enough for probably 500! Rather than spend £15-20 a head getting it catered, you could even just pay each guest £5 to go and spend at the supermarket to pick up some food. That way it actually SAVES you money, since you are not paying prices per head.

For dresses, have a good look on Ebay - theres some amazing beautiful dresses to be had online from China for less than £100! Ebay wasn't invented when I was married otherwise we would have gone with a dress on there!

For decorating the reception, the bride put tea-lights on each table, with holly leaves, and wild flowers she had picked. She put Xmas lights on the walls, and then red sheets and pinned them up on the walls and ceiling to create arches. She also got some cheap upstanding lights from Ikea. The reception looked amazing and she only did it for less than £50! I was amazed!

Be creative, be inventive, be cunning!

It certainly can be done. Planning is the most important. Plan wisely sou that you will not be surprised with some additional unplanned costs.

Save some more money and make a plan. Good luck!