Cost saving tips?

We are not having cars, flowers in venue and cake as these are huge unnecessary costs in our eyes. We are lucky as my SIL does floristry as a hobby so she is making our bouquets and BM flowers. We will have a cake but we are getting a couple of plain supermarket ones just for cutting and will just add some flowers to it. Make your own table centerpieces, place settings and table plan (we have a cheap 9 frame picture frame and printed each table detail and put in the frame). We have done our invites as e-vites on Canva which is free and we prefer it for sustainability reasons as well. We emailed them out with a link to our website for RSVP. for suits it is sometimes cheaper to buy than hire as cost is 10 or 20 quid different and then if you wanted to you could sell on afterwards. the main thing is to set a realistic budget for each element and then review what you actually need/want. we felt Photographer was important and didn't want to scrimp on this as it will be the lasting memory of the day, but we decided not to have videographer as they are a lot of money for 5-10 minute video which I doubt we will watch much after the initial excitement of the day. When looking at venues look at hotels that are not specific wedding venues as they often wont charge a massive hire fee like a bespoke venue, as they have other revenue sources. We have a Hilton Hotel which is simply and fresh décor and has a lake and green space so will get lovely pics but the cost was only £6k including 3 course meal for 55, 100 evening buffet, wine with meal, reception drink, toast drink and a DJ. we also got overnight accommodation for us and 2 spa passes and 2 gold passes chucked in for use the week before. If you are looking at DIY wedding in a blank space venue cost it out as often by the time you have sourced all the suppliers and requirements it can cost the same or very little saving so weigh up your time and stress element of having to manage all the suppliers, I have a planner as part of the package and she is great and I don't feel stressed as she manages it all for me. Good Luck in your planning

View quoted message Thank you that’s great x

We’re having an afternoon tea rather than three course meal as it was cheaper. We’re also making our own place names which will double up as favours (knitted hearts with guests names on), we’re sorting our own table decorations, my aunty is making the wedding cake and we’re having dried flowers rather than fresh. The whole day is being held at one venue too so we won’t be needing to hire a car.

The biggest cost saving we did was decide to only invite immediate family and people we would class as 'best friends' which isn't for everyone!

We're not bothering with cars, made our own invites, not bothering with the disco portion and are using a restaurant for the reception so we don't need to rent chairs etc or pay a caterer.

Midweek wedding (this also meant we could book photographer for only part of the day which also saved costs)

Low guest numbers

OH hired kilt & I mail-ordered dress as much cheaper than any boutique options

No makeup and hair done by local hairdresser

Florist for my bouquet and OH buttonhole only - other flowers DIYed from garden

Reception at local village pub - way cheaper than 'wedding venues'

Friend offered to make cake as gift (we were previously going to have a plain supermarket one and just stick a topper on it)

(The last two didn't happen as our reception got cancelled due to Covid, but our whole wedding was due to cost under £2,500 - that would have been for 30 people)

Biggest thing for us is keeping to only 50 guests (all day, ceremony through to evening) - it's amazing how much this affects as it's not just your venue package costs but food, stationary, table decorations, etc! Also a small wedding party (again reduces costs of dresses, suits, flowers, hair/make up, gifts...). As a result we're trying to hold firm on no "obligation" invites and including just the people we genuinely couldn't imagine the day without.

We're thinking we'll go for artificial flowers too, they look the same in pictures and as our ceremony is outside in summer so real flowers can wilt super fast anyway. Haven't confirmed exactly what we're going for here but the quote is half the cost of real!

Generally we've just really thought about what's important to us, and cut costly traditions if they're not our thing. For example, we won't be having a traditional wedding cake as neither of us were bothered about this; FH hates wearing a suit jacket so actually he's just gonna have a waistcoat and tie and that look will filter to the rest of the wedding party men (saving the cost of all the jackets); no cars as ceremony and reception are in the same place and I really don't care what I rock up in as everyone will be seated at that point so won't see it anyway! On the flipside, the venue and photographer were huge deals to us, and we've been able to book what we wanted here as a result of saving money on other things; the dress is crucial to me so I'll be splashing out a bit here, but I'm completely not fussed by the shoes or accessories and undecided about whether I want to spend the money on a hair/make up artist at all.

Hope that helps!

View quoted message Hi,


So sorry to hijack this post. But where are you getting your supermarket cake from? Have been looking but can't see any. M&S don't appear to do them anymore either.
Thank you

View quoted message Costco, they do plain white sheet cakes for 20quid and then will decorate ourselves. Or we are looking at Asda as the have a few options

Work out which traditions are really important to you both and scrap the others. I'm going for a second-hand dress from stillwhite or eBay,
-we've chosen a caterer for an Indian buffet meal because that's food that we love to eat & have enjoyed travels in India (bonus that it happens to be cheaper than a three course sit down meal)
-MIL is making a simple cake we'll decorate prettily, -we're not having official bridesmaids just asking people who are extra special to us to be involved in different parts of the day eg doing readings, giving speeches, walking with us at different points, organising hen do etc - there are different friends who will excel at each of those elements anyway, and it's almost impossible to find matching dresses that suit everyone's different body shapes, so we've saved on dresses- aiming for multicoloured glassware on the tables so we've tasked car boot loving FIL with sourcing these instead of buying off the shelf or hiring