Bride On a Budget! Venue and General Help Needed

How many guests are you wanting because that could make a big difference?

Agree with hayley if you know how many guests you want for ceremony and reception this will help in your search x💗

It's absolutely possible to have a great wedding on a budget. One has to not be scared of planning though! Embrace it and enjoy it. It's so much fun to think through all the small details.

Here are some ideas we used:

- I stayed at a lovely venue the two nights prior to the wedding, and my husband came to join me once I'd got ready the morning of. We had a wonderful photo session. It was very special, just the two of us, when we still looked our best, and the pictures of the day make it look like our wedding was in a castle when it totally wasn't. Plus, my getting ready pictures look great too as in a fancy bedroom.

If you find you can't get a countryside venue for all your guests, your husband and yourself and can always incorporate a venue you like that way.

-Flowers: aside from my bouquet, we raided all the aldis and Lidls and Asdas the morning prior to the wedding. We had bought a wedding arch structure off ebay, some floral foam, and made our own wedding arch and floral decorations. Yes it took time, but it's a great memory of something my husband and I did together the day before.

-Bought our own chair covers and sashes off amazon. Much cheaper than renting. Fitted them ourselves 2 days ahead of the wedding. They can always be resold.

-Made all our own stationery.

- Made sure our actual venue was self-catering so we could provide the food and alcohol rather than having to pay a caterer.

-Accepted help from friends but made sure those who were pros in their fields got compensated. For instance, an amateur cake baker made our cake at cost in lieu of a wedding gift but our professional musician guests played for a fee (lower than usual as we didn't have to cover travel / time as they were guests anyway + this was their gift to us).

-shopped around for every small thing. From the ribbon tying up the napkins to the custom aisle runner to the dress, didn't compromise on quality but found the ultimate best price for everything by being creative.

-Paid a cleaner to clean our self-catering venue the day after so none of the guests / family felt obliged to take that on

Just out of curiousity - why would you want an event manager? What do these people do? I suspect the vast majority of people getting married do without them.

Anecdotally, due to covid rules constantly changing the venue of our wedding was only fixed 4 days ahead of time. Really stressful but we had prepared absolutely everything else to be moveable / flexible so we were still able to have a lovely, detailed wedding that didn't look like it was last minute at all! You don't have to start with the venue

PS: it occurred to me that if you want a country wedding on a small budget, the best venue might be an acquaintance with a field / big garden. We were going to do that ourselves until Boris said no gardens, has to be a licensed venue with less than a week to spare...

Then they could allow your guests to use their bathroom, and you could get in a food truck or simply borrow some BBQs.

Also look into church halls. They can be in picturesque locations and often come with kitchens and bathrooms.

We had prepared picnic baskets for each family / couple, and just ordered 1 hot dish per person to go with it from a restaurant next to our venue. We also had the cake be the main dessert, along with strawberries from the picnic basket.

You also absolutely don't have to have a separate evening reception and evening do. If your ceremony is mid afternoon, and your food is not from a caterer but sourced independently, it will be cheaper to have everyone at the same event rather than invite more guests for extras in the evening.

Have you looked at the Plough at Eaton. They have some very reasonable packages, especially if you go for an off peak date.
https://theploughinncheshire.com/weddings/


Alternatively, Newcastle under Lyme registry office has nice gardens and you could look at somewhere in the countryside for your reception, which would save you money on the registrar's call out fee.

Hi everyone thank you so much for taking the time to reply. You've given me some good ideas and things to look in to. I was hoping to get help from friends/family e.g. mum has offered to help me do the flowers, best friend has said she'll do hair/make up/nails for us, and I'm actually looking forward to doing little things ourselves.

Oh and Watergirl, I love your picnic idea

Haz, we've looked at The Ashes Barns in Endon which is actually quite reasonable if we go for Jan/Feb/Mar and a Tue/Wed so I might look in to there, it would stretch the budget to the max, but an idea.

That's great! And yes if gatherings outdoors had been allowed that particular week of Boris' whims, we would have had a 100% picnic I think it allows for a memorable meal without the crazy costs of a caterer. It was a lot of fun putting all the basket items together. We managed to source homemade wicker baskets from my husbands' home country on ebay for really cheap and lots of food / drink items that represented our origins - things the guests could choose to eat straight away or bring home. For instance, drivers still got a little bottle of bubbly to drink at home.

It's great that you're getting help too. It makes for good memories / bonding time with friends and family.