Budget wedding

I am in the midst of planning a budget wedding myself, and a budget doesn't mean that things can't be amazing Things we have done to cut costs:


- We're getting married at the registry office.

- We're having our wedding later on in the day, so we only have to feed people once.
- I've made all of my own invitations, favours and confetti, only having to buy card, envelopes, organza bags and cellophane bags for the confetti online.
- We're having a retro inspired wedding, so my partner and I are wearing mostly second-hand items from charity shops and my dress was from Ebay.
- Our reception venue already has a lot of character and requires little decoration.
- I'm not having flowers, with the exception of a bouquet, which I'm going to buy from the supermarket.
Good luck with your planning! Hope this is in any way useful!

View quoted message Thank you, We are most probably getting married at the registry office too,later in the day is better for me too although there is another place we have in mind as we want it to be a lil different and unique an quirky to match our personalities but not sure if they have a wedding license so going to enquire about it this wk. Supermarket flowers are defo a must on my list thank you. Are you having bridesmaids and flowergirls/pageboy etc? Just trying to find a reception venue that don't charge over the odds lol we are thinking like a nice relaxed theme for the evening so everyone can wind down after the main event.

Guest numbers can be a big influence on budget as you need to find a bigger space and feed more people.

I don't know what you are classing as low budget but we spent £4k. Ceremony and reception in a hotel private dining room for 30 people. We had a 3pm ceremony, so like you say, we only had to feed people once.

View quoted message We definitely have a much lower budget an guests will be limited as it's only going to be close family and friends invited. I'm not sure if I'm inviting my paternal side as of yet ie my dad an his wife an kids/grandkids as of yet nor if I'm inviting my uncle but they don't get on with each other an me an my dad seems to have an issue with me atm for giving his address out 2 deliver presents because I couldn't get there due to chemo an there was postage delays so asked my maternal half brother to deliver them for me but he has an issue with it. So in all honesty it probably be just my maternal half brothers,a few close friends an their children, then my partners brothers & sister's & some of his nieces an nephews an grand nephews and grandneices really. I need to write it all down an tally it up but probably only be like between 50-100 guests. Maybe even less Thank you

View quoted message I'm not having bridesmaids because I'd end up having about five! Instead I've just asked my female friends to help me with various tasks on the day. No flower girls or pageboys either - just a best man, who is wearing his own suit. We're having our reception at a local sports club which has had a recent refurb and looks great, but is pretty inexpensive thankfully!

View quoted message Think we only going to have my lil girl dressed up as brought her a costume for world book day that she wanted but school are now having a pyjama or last years costumes world book day to help with the cost of living so going to put that to use she wanted to be jasmine so we will let her wear that but otherwise it's just probably going to be peaky blinders or come as you are as long as they are their. It's their presence we want but if we were to have a theme it would be peaky blinders or pyjamas lmao as we well I'm the most untraditional bride you can get lmao. No wedding dress for me but we are both fans of peaky blinders an I'm definitely a fan of pyjamas. 😂

All you 'need' to spend on a wedding is the payments for the legal bit - everything else is optional, so work out what is important to you and spend the money on that.

We planned a wedding for 30 guests for under £3,000 including our honeymoon.

Flowers - Flowers for the church were from local gardens. I had my bouquet and OH buttonhole made by a florist, but we could have saved £40 if I'd bought a supermarket bunch of flowers instead.

Clothes - OH hired a kilt and I bought a mail order dress - total cost was around £350 for both. Again, we could have saved money by wearing clothes we already had.

Wedding party - I didn't have any bridesmaids and the best man wore a suit he already owned.

Wedding car - we didn't have one, just used our own cars.

Reception - booked a private room in a lovely country pub which had beautiful gardens. They only charged us for the food, not room hire, and it was ££££s cheaper than the cheapest 'wedding venue' in the area.

Cake - supermarket cake with a custom topper. The cake was £6, the topper was £15 - could have spent a lot less on the topper, but we loved it and we bring it out every year to stick in our wedding anniversary cake!

Favours, menus, signage, decor - we didn't have these. We felt that as long as the setting for the meal was nice, we didn't need to dress it up.

Wedding rings - we waited until there was a sale on and got a BOGOF deal - saved £100!!!

Photographer - we had a midweek wedding and found a photographer who did part-day packages midweek. Again, saved around £1,000 on the cheapest full day/weekend package in our area.

View quoted message Thank you we will probably opt for a taxi or limo there an back due to my health issues. My friend wants to do catering for the reception but it's trying to find a venue that allows external catering but I want the venue to be able to accept external djs as well as my brother runs a dj company, want a dance floor an just want to be able to sit guests down an have their presence there but i need to fit the all the guests there,some might not turn up but at least i know they were invited and given a second chance. I also have a friend who does photography but we might just go with using mobile cameras instead yet 😂 We definitely want to keep the budget as low as can be but we really want to get married ASAP after 23 years and especially after what we have been through thr last year.

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Try village halls/community halls - they often have decent kitchens and a good sized floor, plus you are usually allowed to use your own caterers. And they tend to be quite cheap too.

View quoted message Hi! We’re looking to do the same as you but I’m stuck on where to start. It’s very easy to get sucked in to big wedding scenarios but our list is around 30 people. Do you have any advice on what to do, where to go what to ask for? Thank you! X

View quoted message Hi 30 sounds my ideal lmao but if only lol my family and his family are big but they wont all be invited. We are just listing down what we want ie who we really want there, what to wear as I'm not traditional an hate dresses. See if one of the guests can do photos on mobile an edit them later if needs be but I like all the natural. We are most probably going with registry office as that seems the only cheapest viable option for us at the moment and then we will probably hire a function room at a pub or at our local charity an maybe just have something as simple as fish and chips for a sit down meal or my friend does catering an wishes to do it. We are probably going to have a bit of a fancy dress ie peaky blinders or come as yourself but in the evening dress in pj's an have a pyjama party especially as we will need to wind our 2 youngest children down as they will be very overwhelmed.

View quoted message We were wanting more of a family dinner vibe for our reception so looked into private dining rather than wedding venues. TripAdvisor has a private dining filter so we used that and one of the top options in our area was a hotel that also did weddings. It meant we could get married there and could use their wedding coordinator but with no fixed package, just a small hire fee and then a price per person menu.

Biggeet way to keep costs down is cut the guest list and add those peope to the evening.


Facebook marketplace, B&M, Ikea have been scoured daily for items we need.
Spotify play lists for day, during the meal and a DJ for the evening.
We got our booze from Sainsbury on Buy 6 save 25% for Prosecco.
Favours we bought jam jars from Hobbycraft and we bought 3 bottles of foreign spirits.