Fed Up

(Hug) I agree. We are only inviting 18 people to our wedding as if we invited x we'd have to invite y and so on... It snowballs crazily!

Even with our tiny guest list I'm annoyed at prices of things, I was told the registry office ceremony would be a certain price but then told that as we had more than 2 guests and wanted a Saturday it would be £300 more! It's not huge amounts of money but I hadn't planned for it.

It's easy to say 'do what YOU' want but not always so easy in practise.

Totally with you on this one! Why don't you literally just have your parents & siblings....Make it a real intimate wedding. Or go abroad to get married?

I know the feeling we have gone a little outside the box with trying to reduce costs - it is possible but you have to be really strict with yourself and be prepared to walk away from things.

We have a DIY venue and were horrified by the cost of hiring crockery - so have bought everything from car boot sales at about a third of the price and can sell it after. DIY photo booth with props found from car boot sales again another good one, I was horrified by cost of name settings so we are collecting stones and hand painting them (double up as a favour too). We have borrowed items (fairy lights), roped people in - e.g. friend is making the cake, another friend is playing during the ceremony and BM car is being used to get BM to the church.

I even refuse to pay to cost of wedding dresses in the UK so going on holiday to Vietnam with my BM's at the end of the month to a famous tailors area, also getting their dresses and wedding rings, even with flights and accommodation it works out cheaper then buying the styles I liked from the shops here!

What I'm trying to get at is you can get around the costs of things but you have to be prepared to stick to your guns on things and spread things out. Venue and catering is also the most expensive but after that everything is an optional extra which can be DIY'd or done cheaper and nobody will notice!

I totally understand where you're coming from - we're having quite a traditional do and the biggest cost for us is also our guests food & drink, but we're so frustrated with how expensive everything is - we're not having cars, got a great deal (£150) on cake, skimping on any extras - but with venue costs, florist, and photog accounting for 80% of budget its really frustrating! Recently got prices from the church as well - I've always sung in choirs and my mum & granddad are music directors, so it was important for me to have a choir/organist - which the church is charging us an extra £500 for! I know that goes into the music funds and the organist is a professional so deserves to be paid well, but its just so frustrating, it feels like the hemorraging of money will never stop!!

would it be feasible for you guys to do a week's all-inclusive package deal? not the most indulgent of honeymoons but at least you'd both still be able to get away for some "you" time post-wedding?

I'm totally with you on this one. I was trying to keep to a budget and soon realised this was unrealistic because of our large famillies so have ended up blowing the budget and can no longer afford a nice honeymoon which we both really wanted.

I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling like this.

We have our date set, church arranged, caterers booked (although menu not confirmed) and photographer booked. None of these have been particularly expensive bookings apart from food which is looking to cost £7000 for 90 people.

I think it's gonna have to be the guest list that gets cut otherwise we will be starting married life in debt which is not what we want. Trouble is we have already considerably cut out so many people I'm not sure where else we can make the chop.

I'm beginning to wish we were eloping more and more every day. The pressure to have all this pomp when it should be about marriage is overwhelming!

I completely understand how you feel. We are probably not having a honeymoon either - maybe a minimoon (I hate that phrase!) and something fancier for 1st anniversary? I just want it to be over!

We didn't have a honeymoon or a minimoon. As much as it would be lovely to have one, you don't have to have it straight away. Why not plan something for later on when you can afford it.

Sit down together and work out your priorities - is it to have the guests there or to have the honeymoon afterwards? I know your first priority is to get married, so what else could you do to cut costs? Are there friends who could help out by making the cake or doing some DIY for you?

Also, don't forget that a honeymoon doesn't have to be abroad. I know there is a tendency to call a honeymoon in the UK a minimoon, but there are some beautiful places in this country of ours that are perfect for a honeymoon.

You could always have a lovely holiday abroad later on xxx

Totally agree! I'd always said I'd rather have a big honeymoon than expensive Wedding but it's so easy to get carried away, not sure if we'll get a honeymoon at all xxx

Oh, i completely understand! We had a conversation just yesterday about how we're going to cut back on it all!

Glad it's not just me feeling like this - we have similar numbers to you and have tried to be as ruthless as we can be! We started with a budget of 10k which we thought was way too much than we wanted to spend, but quickly realised that it wasn't going to be enough! I find it so frustrating that you can have that amount of money to spend on your wedding and you STILL have to cut corners, choose lesser options or not have some things that you wanted. We also realise that we're lucky to have that amount of money and some people have a lot less to work with. I'm sure though that on the day you won't be feeling that you had to cut back, or even remember that there were things you would have done differently! Good luck

Could you not have a small wedding with your closest friends and family then follow that up with a party for everyone else?

Hi Hun, sorry to hear it's getting you down. We are having our honeymoon just over four months after we get married. This works well for us as we have budgeted for the wedding up until the last pay day before it (using interest free credit card for those payments which have to be made more in advance). This then leaves us 5 more pay days to pay our honeymoon without being under too much pressure and we've picked a destination which has amazing weather that time of year so it doesn't feel like the budget has dictated when we go away, if that makes sense. Is this something you could consider? The honeymoon was really important to us and we were disappointed when we realised how bloody much a simple wedding is going to cost but this seems a good solution and also something to look forward to once the wedding is over with.