Dream Wedding or save the money?

It doesn't have to be either a £15k celebration or no celebration at all - there are a lot of options between those two things!

Since you have already booked and paid deposits on your venue and vendors, are there any areas that you have not yet committed to where you could cut back on cost or skip completely?

If not, then you need to consider how much you have spent already, any further amounts for which you are liable if you cancel, plus whatever you might spend on a cheaper wedding (and whether you could put anything you have already paid for toward that new, more scaled back wedding) to work out if it is worth cancelling or not.

Thank you so much. You are absolutely right there are things we can cut back on at this stage. We only have 2 vendors with deposits and happy to keep those. A celebration is so important to me and my partner. We’ve given ourselves until the summer to work everything out. Planning has just been a whirlwind - like nothing we have ever done before.

Hi! I am in the exact same position, but a year ahead of you (and only close by, I'm right next to Essex in Kent!). We set ourselves 3 budgets 'Desirable' (£18k), 'Standard' (£16k), and 'Budget' (£14k). We are currently on track to spend about £15k and I have cut back everything I am willing to. The main ways we cut back were:

- Wedding cake and DIY sweet cart instead of desert & hire fee for sweets

- No canapes just champagne. It'll be hot (hopefully) anyway so food won't be such an issue

- Suits, hiring instead of buying

- Dress, I went in with a strict budget of under £2k. Make sure you go to Wed2B *before* bridal shops! This will help you gauge whether a dress is really worth the thousands...you may have seen a dress that's a duplicate for £950 in Wed2B....

- Bridesmaids, we have ordered from JJs Direct, quality is way better than you would assume

- Cars, this was a hard one for my fiance...but it was cut the cars of scrimp on the honeymoon...so he is driving our Vauxhall Crossland to the venue haha! I am going in a family friends black cab.

- Evening entertainment, I am very blessed that I am a musician, so many of our gifts will be my friends performing a few songs live in a band set up (and I own a full PA system that we can use). We have cut back on a DJ by having a Spotify playlist between live sets that we have curated ourselves. There are settings to have songs fade into one another, and you can change the order/add songs as required. We are actually looking forward to letting our guests queue up songs from an iPad!

- Scrapped favors - I've never kept a favor from a wedding! If we have budget left, we might purchase a lucky dip lottery ticket each for day guests.

I'm not sure how much help this will all be, but I didn't want to miss out on the wedding day either and we have managed to make it work. We have also created a savings plan that we will stick to after the wedding towards a house deposit. We are planning to ask for cash gifts to go towards our dream home savings pot too, although it took a lot of convincing for me to ask for cash!! But it was actually guests that encouraged me to be specific with a gift list. Final thing I'd say is if you really want to cut back more, consider hiring your bridal gown and buying things you can sell on. Avoid personalised cake stands/bridesmaid outfits for the hen...if it's more general you can sell

on. xx

View quoted message Hello! Thanks for replying, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for breaking it all down! That’s so helpful and I feel so relieved! I’d just started creating 2 different budgets for what we could do. I think we’ve come to agree on one that is do able. I’m so glad I still have time to plan otherwise I wouldn’t have the time to factor in ways to cut back or save. A savings plan for a home makes absolute sense. Sometimes things just happen one step at a time. Selling on items is a great idea as we will be DIY-ing some of the decoration at the venue. Thank you for suggesting Wed2be, I’ve seen a few dresses online that I already can’t wait to try on! So much cheaper than other boutiques. I hope all is well for your wedding! Wishing you an incredible day xx

Hi lovely, firstly congratulations on your engagement.. so very exciting. It's great you have put down a deposit for your venue too... it can be tricky when you have 2 big goals (funny enough mine is the same, I'm engaged and my other half and I are wanting to buy our first home!) You have to think which one you want to do first and if they do overlap and you have to cut down your budget, work out a new budget that is within what you would like to/and can pay.


Are there things you can let go on your wedding list, i.e any extras you would really like but don't really need? Any DIY things you can do/have help with?
I am a wedding planner and coordinator so it's my job (well part of it) to fit a wedding around a budget. There are lots of ways you can have your dream wedding but keeping within your budget. 🥰 making a list of everything that you would like and need at your wedding is a great way to start and price everything up as your budget. If it fits, great, if not then maybe cross off things that you can afford to loose or have a little cheaper.
Hope that helps lovely x❤

View quoted message Thank you so much! That’s super helpful. Trying to do both can feel impossible but we can work to make it bit cheaper. My ideal would be a more intimate wedding which we might end up doing. Fingers crossed ♥️

View quoted message Oh bless you. Yes if a more intimate wedding is what you would like then that would cut the cost right down. As my job in planning I always suggest if you are on a budget it's either reduce your guest list right down to immediate friends and family (so you still get to party) and have the wedding of your dreams OR if you have alot more guests you really would love to be there, then the budget has to be cut down for your wedding, i.e catering, venue, dress, flowers etc. Maybe if you have family or friends who are florists or a cake maker that could do that for you as their gift to you both. Another way to cut down the budget.


Good luck and I'm here if you need further help.
Love and best wishes Kimberley ❤www.timelessweddingsuk.co.uk

Have you thought about cutting down your guest list? We're getting married at a gorgeous venue, that I wouldn't want to give up, but have opted for their smallest package (50 people) to keep our costs from getting out of hand. It's amazing how much money this saves - it affects everything from catering, table decorations (because you don't have so many tables!), stationary, the list goes on. Celebrating with friends was super important to us too, so we've drawn a hard line at immediate family only to avoiding having to cut friends from the list.

The other thing was that we've gone for a small wedding party - best man, two ushers, maid of honour, two bridesmaids. We realised that even with trying to be frugal we were looking at probably £150 per outfit for each person in the wedding party, which really adds up, so limiting numbers hear has again really helped our budget.

Everyone's different, but to me the wedding day is something you'll look back on forever and can't do over - cut the things that aren't crucial to you, cut everything that feels like an obligation rather than what you'd love for yourself, but don't turn it into something you'll be disappointed that you skimped on. A house or anything else you might want will still be possible down the line, and you could go cheap to start with and then upgrade later, but that's not really the case with a wedding...

Me and my partner have been ruthless and i am tight as a ducks arse with money so we have managed to get the whole thing for under 5k , including gorgeous ceremony venue, a beautiful reception with secret garden and rustic cellar for after do , even all the decor comes with this.

Shouldnt be spend 15k or dont get married at all, make it your day even if its a tent with hay bales, youll make it work and it will be amazing

View quoted message Thanks for this. £5k is amazing! Well done! I’m managed to get our budget down further and figured out what are absolutely necessary items. My parents are kindly saving for us too which is so lovely of them. I feel like I can get it down further! I’ve got some time so will be trying out some DIY too.