Where are you saving and where are you splurging!!

Splurged:

Photographer & catering/booze

Saved:

Everything else! My dress was £75 and flowers/buttonholes were £40. Cake was free (made by my step-mother). No bridesmaids/groomsmen.

10 bridesmaids? wow fantastic?

We wanted to prioritise a good band for the evening, as my worst nightmare would be an empty dancefloor, and a venue that allowed us to do everything easily. We both work full time and then some, so decorating venues, DIYing table decorations, etc would not be practical for us, so choosing a stress free venue was important.

We also wanted a good and reliable photographer. Photos are really important to us anyway, so we actually increased our budget to cover this rather than accept our (very good) friend's offer to do them for us.

I had a budget in mind for my dress, and having been married before in a dress I didn't love, if I had had to increase my budget for this I would have done. As it is, it came in £1 under - it was meant to be as I hadn't looked at the price tag before trying it on!!! That said, it is quite expensive still, as is OH's suit, but it was important to us.

Things we have cut back on - I wanted a photobooth, but the cost was not justified....we will provide props and just hope we get some good snaps from people's phones on facebook!

We have provided wine etc for the meal, but can't run to money behind the bar. If, however, we find some money down the back of the sofa, this would be where we direct it to.

Having chosen some lovely invitations, we have decided that we can get some nice ones for a third of the price. Nice though the originals were, most people won't want to keep them, so it is money better spent elsewhere.

I've cut back on things like shoes - bought some Kurt Geigers in the sale at £29 (bargain) rather than the £495 Laboutins that I had in mind......and got my tiara and jewellery from Debenhams.

I think were saving on most compared to the prices when you say 'wedding' but one area I bet will cost alot in entertainment, good bands dont come cheep and we want the best we can have

alcohol will be one main im cutting back on, no way am I paying for others to get pissed an ruin my day (which has happened at every single wedding ive been to) if they want to get blottoed they can do it on their own buck and if they cause a scene their gone because I dont want drunken behavior around the children... most my friends and family dont actually drink either (medical conditions, tea total and some just dont like it) think Ill have 1 table out of 5 on my side that drink anything more than 2 drink but some of OH friends can drink like fish an arent very nice when they do

the rest will just be done as cheep as what we want can be done (including DIY bits and bargain hunting)

We're still very much in the early stages of planning so I'll be following this thread with interest!

Well our venue was a pretty good price and my hairdresser is making our wedding cake. We're not having a videographer but didn't want one. Our entertainment which is a barn dance with caller is a fairly cheap price compared to what people we know have spent on entertainment. Our venue doesn't allow fireworks so they probably saved us some money! My SILTB is making our invitations and place cards. Our best man is doing the hand fasting rather than hiring a ceremony person and I think that makes it more personal. We are waiting until 3 weeks after the wedding to go on honeymoon as prices will come down a lot when the school holidays are finished. We are not having a DJ as we wanted to play exactly what we want and then we've got the barn dance anyway. I am only having one bridesmaid although it's not purely because of the cost!

We are splurging on a photographer and our wedding rings are coming from the boutique my engagement ring came from so they aren't cheap either. As someone on here pointed out the rings and photos are normally only what you have left of the day so it's a shame to scrimp on them. We will be putting on a decent spread of food I know that much although we've not settled on anything yet. I just know how awful it is when you turn up as a guest and there's like a couple of trays of dried up sausage rolls and some crisps and you're starving hungry!

I am still umming and ahhing about transport as I had my heart set on horses but it's a great expense. If I don't get them I will just book a taxi as I have no interest in arriving in a fancy car!

Only half way through the planning, but here's my thoughts so far... the venue was very important to us, we both had very similar ideas on what we wanted and love the package deal they provide. They have been incredibly flexible, letting us basically mix and match different things like food choices, drinks at the wedding breakfast, etc. It's important to me to keep everyone well fed, hence adding canapes to the package. Entertainment is another thing, a good DJ to get guests on the dancefloor, and other amusement yet to be booked.

Photography is another area we were willing to pay a bit more on, plus we got a nice discount due to her being a family friend I am yet to find my dress, hoping it will be within budget, but we'll see!! I would also love to buy rather than rent OH's suit, so he too has something to keep after the wedding.

Things we have / hope to save on are venue decoration, i am more than happy to keep things simple, our venue has said they will do the decorating for us for no extra cost, which we are thrilled about. A family friend is making our cake, very much looking forward to this, her cakes are fab! I don't think i want a veil, and will most likely keep accessories simple, so happy to save there. We don't need any transport, as the whole day is at the same venue. Love a bit of DIY, so as long as i can make them look good, hope to make the invitations myself, with some help from my friends.

That's pretty much all i can think of for now! x

We have saved on TOG as she was cheap and fortunately, one of my fave 3 during research. Furthermore, we have gone for a weekday wedding which has allowed us exclusive use of the venue for 3 days and 2 nights and booking weekday saved us around £2000; the venue is where the ceremony and reception will take place so no need for cars. Plus, it's got decorative items there already i.e fairylights so savings made there also. My mum has offered to make the wedding cake (already started practisiing, bless her!!). Plus, my OH's friend studied media at Uni so can ask him to be a videographer.

We are putting the money into entertainment and food - looking for a live band and having a hog roast/bbq. Probably some money into the dress as well but haven't really looked into that yet xx

Nature Bride, we sound very similar!! x

I'm not sure we're either saving or splurging, we're sort of sitting in the middle by researching what we are after and finding the best prices locally for that, but also not letting price determine our choice if we like things.

I suppose that's to do with our personalities, as we're very much bargain hunters by nature. It's also an element of luck: not long after we booked our wedding, our venue put prices up by about 20% so we timed it well!

Slight splurge on my dress, and I do feel extravagant spending that much money on one piece of clothing in the first place, but it's top of the budget, not over it, and even then it's not expensive as dresses go.

Reading all this back makes me think I really ought to have been more princessy and thrown money at something, just to use the "but it's my wedding" excuse!!

Saving:

Outfits - my total outfit budget is £600 for me, £200 for BMs inc shoes & accessories; men's suits will be hired or ones they already own

Cake - we're having a naked sponge cake decorated with some of the origami cranes I'm making and, if necessary, we'll make it ourselves (quotes have still been in the region of £300 for 70 guests, which I just object to on principle)

Transport - I'm stopping at the venue the night before, hopefully with the BMs, and the rest of the wedding party are driving themselves

Venue - we've gone for a weekday wedding out of season with their basic food and drink packages to keep the costs down

Splurging:

Wedding rings - total cost about £1,400. Total value, about £2,000

Photographer

Possibly the decor, now I've set my heart on ikebana. I'm not sure my £640 budget for 7 centrepieces, 3 bouquets and 3 buttonholes will be enough, so I might have to look at more for that.

I thought that too Happy red when I read your post. ?When are you getting married?

We've tried to keep to the idea if we can use our own skills or family skills for anything to do it so we've made our own invites uncle is photographer etc so when we need to splash we can we've also made sure to ask for discounts on everything we can or shop around wherever possible. I would say our splurge has been our honeymoon and wedding rings we've economise as I say on invites and we're going to be using a lot of diy for paper based items table plans etc I'm not crafty normally but even I can print stuff off and add a bit of sparkle :-)

Splurges for us so far have been

Entertainment- bumper cars during the day, band in the evening

Decor- We're having a bit of a theme going on and we've been collecting bits and pieces for the last 2 years so that everything is "perfect". I dread to think the total cost there, but it's important to us that everything is just so and how imagined it.

My beautiful Jenny Packham dress ❤️

We've saved on;

Ceremony: We're having a no thrills (but most importantly, cheap) ceremony with just 2 witnesses in a side room at a local registry office and having a "blessing" on the wedding day where we'll actually say vows etc

Rings: Neither of us wanted wedding rings, so big saving there

Wedding cake: We've booked someone who's fresh out of college and just starting out. Her work looks fab and whilst it's a bit of a "risk" cake isn't something we're bothered about and we've gone for something so simple that if it all goes Pete Tong who cares

Transport: Haven't booked any. As long as I get there I don't care if it's in a wheelbarrow.

Wedding film: Our very good friends who are professional VOGs are doing it for us with a discount

Stationary: All DIY

Food & Drink: We didn't want a sit down meal, so we've booked a gourmet burger van and BBQ. We're also able to provide our own alcohol.

I feel like I have ended up splurging on everything! Having said that, we discounted venues at the start of planning that were over a certain amount so we've saved there, and we've saved on entertainment, as I know it isn't an area we needed to focus on too much with our guests! Ooh, and stationary. Our wedding invites came from the card factory and I printed the inserts myself, I'll be printing off our order of the day, and I managed to get the venue to throw in the place names and table plan I have actually just realised that I will have a little money left at the end of all this, so I'm pretty happy!

So impressed with some of you and am feeling very indulgent and a tad guilty! I have bought the most basic cheap cake I can and we're not going to spend more than £100 each on the rings. I also got my bridesmaid dresses for £85 in Coast sale rather than the £250 ones I'd planned.

Everything else I think I have splurged.... eek!

Saving:

venue - even though it's lovely it's not the teepee wedding I would have loved

cake - being made by family member

ceremony music - friend singing and playing the piano

invites - family member drawing us a picture that we will scan and get printed

entertainment - DJ no band but to be honest I don't really like cover bands anyway

Splurging: (see how I try to justify these lol)

my dress - never intended to spend that much but intending to sell it after!

my wedding ring - engagement ring is diamond set and plain bands did not look right

grooms suit - fiancé is really in to his suits and has lovely suits for all our friends weddings so couldn't scrimp on his own wedding suit

decor - having a stylist but she's not that much more expensive than buying different bits and saved me the time/effort of this

marquee letters - have no justification for these other than that I love them!

I'm currently trying to decide which category my shoes will fall in to! Watch this space lol!

Saving- dress (sample sale), favours (non existent), transport (non existent), cake (friend is making), flowers (minimal).

Splurging- venue, photographer, band, rings.

Saving: favours/transport/mua/hairdresser/drinks for guests/florist are non-existant. We are diy-ing decor and flowers and the fire performance in the evening will be free :-) cake will also be free :-)

Splurge: photography, dress, suit and rings

Catering and venue will be cheap in the grand scheme of things, but not exactly a massive saver either. Not sure about bands yet.

Saving-- BM dresses which were £25 each in the Debenhams sale

-flowers and venue decor which we (read me!) are doing ourselves but this probably won't make it really cheap as want lots of flowers

-hopefully on my shoes, don't really want to spend more than £50

-videographer, one of my BMs has a younger brother who will be just out of uni having done a media degree so getting him to film the important bits

-DJ, a friend of my H2B is doing this for us as a wedding present

Splurging-- can't really say we've especially splurged on anything but we probably haven't gone for the cheapest option on anything else either, there's still time though!

I think our only splurges are the photographer (£900) and food and drunk (£1000) everything else has been done on the cheap. The car was a last minute addition a nd I guess a splurge at £320.

my whole outfit is £160, the bms about £50 each for everythin, invites were free as oh works in print, bouquets I've DIYed, cake my aunts making, friends DJing for a discount etc etc

Savings

Decorations - i am making them all myself have started early as doing 5 12hr shifts a week + 18 month old + OH being away with the Paras = Zero time

Cakes - FMIL is making our cakes

Sweet buffet/popcorn stand - also doing myself

Venue - Our venue has only cost £100 to hire with their catering which is cheaper than most places too!

BM dresses - my 6 bm have very kindly offered to pay for their dresses and shoes (amazing friends)

Groom Transport - originally was hiring a ferrari but now he wants to drive himself and groomsmen in his land rover

our transport - oh uncle is planning to pick us up in his helicopter (landing permission needed first) as a wedding present to us

Groomsmen suits - most of our groomsmen are in the Paras so wearing their dress uniform, only have to buy/hire 1 suit

Splurges

My dress - absolutely fell in love with it and cant love another dress

photographer - is abit over budget but i love him

Rings - are over budget too but its something we will have forever

Food - We are adding a hog roast in the evening, not something we had in our budget but hey ho

We splurged on:

- The venue: We wanted to get married in a nice 19th century mansion with beautiful gardens for the wedding photos.

- The photography: One of our priorities as we wanted to remember the beautiful day.

- String quartet: I've always wanted to have one for the ceremony.

We saved on:

- The invites & stationery: I'm a graphic designer so it's quite handy! I'm getting the invites letterpressed and printing the stationery our using our own A3 printer. We didn't get any save the date cards done as me and my FI designed a wedding website together (he's a web developer!).

- The cake: We're just having a simple 3-tier Victoria sponge cake for £165

- The wedding car: As we're staying in one place for the whole day we managed to hire a 1930 Beauford for £120 and the bridesmaids will be picked up in a minibus (£20).

- Decoration: The venue already has beautiful decor and I'm making origami cranes for the centerpieces.

- No veil or new shoes.

- Bridal accessories: I used birthday & xmas vouchers to buy them!

Nature Bride, we're getting married 25th September 2015, so not long after you! ?

Great post, have really enjoyed reading what everyone has to say.

We were thinking of doing this instead of a wedding cake - are you just going to a local retailer to get them on the morning or are your ordering them - how does it work?

xx

Our biggest splurge is the venue/food costs. It's taking up probably between half and 3/4 of our budget.

I would also like to splurge on some surprise transport for OH as I think he would really like that.

Saving wise, I think we've done fairly well:

My dad is a DJ so we will use all his equipment and I will provide most of the music beforehand so he doesn't have to spend much time behind the decks. We will be asking for music requests on our RSVPs so we know that there will be music that everyone likes, and he will spend maybe a couple of minutes each hour adding in any special requests on the night. That's all I want from a DJ really!

My aunt is really good with flowers and has done weddings before so I'm hoping to ask her for her help with that, we'll do that together.

We will do all the stationery ourselves.

My shoes that I always knew I wanted, I got for half price, so that was a bargain!

Our biggest saving was agreeing early on that a summer wedding wasn't important to us so we chose a date in Winter when it was off peak. Also we didn't want a large wedding so we got an absolute bargain package at the venue for 50 people. Everything thrown in.

I did my own invites and will do all the other stationary, table numbers etc. Everything else wasn't splurges as such as we set an agreed budget and have stuck to it. So we haven't got the photographer I wanted but still a good one. Likewise with the videographer and wedding singer. I bought bargain bridesmaid dresses for £50 each and have spent £20 doing all the embellishments myself.

We are having a venue dresser and florist but I'm not going mad so their estimates are fair.

Splurges have been my dress and would have been my shoes but haven't found any Jimmy Choos that go with my dress so have some Dune ones instead. I'm intending on selling my dress afterwards but we will see. Might keep it for SD.

My OH has a huuuuge family so our biggest expense will easily be the wedding breakfast at around £6k ? I was dead set on the venue though, which was £4k to hire. We'll only be having hotdogs and burgers in the evening, no buffet (everyone will pretty much already be there).

Everything else seems cheap by comparison! BM dresses bought already, tog booked, band booked who are also staying to DJ. Will be making all my own decorations and flowers. About £1500 for dress?? I'd really like a string quartet too but will need to assess budget closer to the time.

We've also hired a vintage bus for transport but expect guests to make their own way home.

Saving -

Only having one bridesmaid and she's not having hair of makeup done.

No transport other than taxis.

My cousins making our cake for free.

We're spending about £150 on flowers

Doing lots of D.I.Y including the invites.

My wedding ring is costing nothing and oh only want to spend about £70 on his.

The only splurging so far has been on the photographer (£950) but I haven't bought my dress so we'll see!

I guess our main splurge is the honeymoon which is coming in at about 55% of our total spend.

Our biggest save will probably be my dress as I'm having a Dessy Bridesmaid dress for just £246. Also we're not having an evening reception as such, just piling into the hotel bar which isn't as chaotic as it sounds since we only have 14 guests.

We're not really 'scrimping' anywhere though, we're having exactly what we want. Our guests can drink whatever they like and order whatever meal they want from the main restaurant menu. We're also covering the cost of accommodation for those who want to stay over (most will be due to location).

Saving:

Cake - a friend is a professional celebration baker and is doing us a discounted cake.

Band - a friend of ours is a drummer and has a band, got to get him to quote but it shouldn't be as bad as some of the others we've seen.

Photographer - two ex colleagues are professional photographers, my father-in-law also has an amazing set up, plus we are using the hitched app for guests.

Reception catering - trying to wangle as much as a discount as possible as the hotel has a cash-bar, and there more likely to sell more if people are eating well.

Bridesmaids - haven't decided, but if I have them I am only having children. Adults are where the real expense starts.

Venue - I'm making sure I take a folder to appointments and flashing prices from other venues 'accidentally' to drive down prices. Say their catering is over budget - I'll just flick through and look at another place that is doing it for a lot less. Charging for extras? Open up the folder to somewhere that is all inclusive and coming in under them! Also worked out early that they make their money from the BAR rather than anything else, so I mention that my family drink like fishes.

Dress - discount stores, high street, charity shops, I am raiding them all! I'll even go as far as to order from China - if the dress is awful I have a friend with a back up already!

Splurging:

Venue - it's well over what I can afford, to be honest. My entire budget is £5k and the venue with catering is going to be £4k. ((Puppy dog eyes at the ready when I next see the parents....))

Flowers - I want lilac roses, and my god are the florists going to make me pay for them. My bouquet is just over £120-, the boutonniere and corsagesare running to £120.

We saved where we knew we could do a good enough job ourselves (stationery, dresses, flowers, decorations, guest books, order of the day, activity books, cakes etc, signs), then spent on what we needed to (venue, caterer, entertainment, rings, guest transport and accommodation, free bar). There were some things we didn't even ask the price because we knew we really wanted them (musicians, circus skills workshop).

I don't feel like we have really splurged on anything, but I suppose the invitations - as we only needed 10 I just chose some I liked and didn't worry too much about the cost (they were £3 each). And my ring ended up being £475 which is more than I had intended, I just fell in love with it! Saving is everything else really - no traditional wedding gown, bridesmaids or best man, honeymoon or MUA/hairstylist. We haven't planned a reception yet but we probably will after the wedding, so dunno what we'll end up spending on that.