Honest question: how did you pay for your wedding?

Congratulations! daunting isnt it...but exciting too.

We're getting married next year (date to be confirmed) but actually found a package for sale on Facebook Market Place, would you believe. Sadly a wedding that was booked and no longer required. The couple concerned couldn't get a refund, because they originally booked their day using a groupon voucher and needed to sell it privately - I never knew you could get Groupon weddings

We've saved a fortune and feel comforted that we've been able to help the couple get some of their money back. The hotel have been fabulous at tweeking the Groupon package to provide what we want too. Originally it was about £1800 - in a hotel - midweek - and included ceremony/reception room hire, Chair covers and colored bows, 2 course set wedding breakfast (for 50), wine, evening finger buffet (for 80), bedroom on the night for the bride and groom..You could add more guests for a fee....quite a package.

So keep an eye out on Market Place, Groupon and Wowcher, I think wedding packages sell extremely quickly...but you never know your luck. x

I'm looking at 10k max for my wedding. I borrowed the Venue cost from a friend and the rest we're paying ourselves x

We have a budget of 5k and so far sticking to it
The only thing I will say I'm getting my hair done by my friend who is professional hair dresser and my husband to be uncle is a professional photographer so we got so lucky

Hey! I literally had no savings at all, and my wedding is a year since my engagement. We have basically just discussed all our monthly income/costs and put it all on a spreadsheet which helped us to work out where we can cut down. For example ive stopped buying coffees at work and i bring my own coffee and lunches, etc. I'm saving a set amount each month then anything extra is just nice. We are paying for our wedding from our monthly salaries. At first I was overwhelmed but now Ive managed to save so much easier just by not going out as much and not buying things I dont need. Hope that helps and its totally normal to worry about money, my wedding is turning out way more than I thought and I still have my masters degree to pay for x

Look around for a cheaper venue. The places we were originally looking at were coming in at £10,000 for venue and catering. But I had a look on a Hitched article about cheap wedding venues in the UK and saw the most perfect place. We went to see it last week and it is amazing and exactly what we wanted. We’ve now booked the venue and paid the deposit. Venue and catering/drinks for 50 guests came in at only £2023!! It can be done you just need to look around a bit more for some good deals ☺️

Congratulations, such an exciting time! We were sadly let down by a photographer friend who was going to do our photography, but then was unable to make the change of date due to Covid.

By this point we had verrry little left in the budget, but found a company called Big Day Productions who out-source their photography packages. We had a photographer called Daniella Martinos and she was just absolutely amazing, I really can't fault her or the company! We went for the image only package to save on costs, and also went for a 4 hour slot (I know this isn't much, you can go for more but we needed to keep the cost down) and we managed to get SO many fantastic photos in that time! I think it was around £400.

With venue decor, we bought a load of good artificial flowers and a load of fresh flowers, and decorated ourselves - but I know this is completely dependent on the venue giving you the time to do this.

Hope you have an amazing day

Good question! We were hoping to stay under 10k but that is definitely not happening. When we got the quote for the place we had been looking at, my parents then offered for us to use some land that they own and get a marquee on it, thinking this would save some money. Unfortunately, it is going to work out a very similar price. However, we do have full rein on who we can use as suppliers for everything else. I would say food is probably where we've been able to save the most as we've gone for fish and chips followed by Ice-cream and a buffet in the evening. This all fits well with the rustic/festival style we have gone for. DIY has been a lot of hassle and stress though. A lot of work for my fiance and his parents, who have been getting the land more presentable. I do feel sad we've missed out on the full experience of visiting venues as we got engaged in February and places were still locked down. I've ordered my dress online and it is being made for me. This is a lot cheaper than the bridal shops, at just over £600. Fingers crossed it works out, all the reviews are fantastic. I would have gone to web2b otherwise as their dresses look lovely and only around £500-700. The ceremony is at the registry office so that's only about £600. Our photographer and florist are not cheap though, and we are having 2 bands play the evening (one of them is mates rates though). For the whole wedding, I think we're looking at about 17-18k now for around 50 day and 100 evening guests. We've been very lucky to have financial support from our parents so only (?!) need to save about 6k ourselves, which we are doing by putting some away monthly, plus any overtime we do. I think it totally depends what you want. We've been together over 6 years and my partner wasn't sure about marriage for ages so it was such a lovely surprise when he proposed. He always said that he'd want a big party if we do it so we are. Enjoy whatever works for you. I know it can definitely be done cheaper 😊

Oh, I should have said our wedding is a Saturday in September so definitely peak.

Congratulations! We are paying for our wedding so cash is limited. We've gone for an afternoon wedding and evening reception. We've swapped out a sit down breakfast for a buffet. We found a place that has various packages which include decorations, dj, food, photo booth etc. For the amount of people we have coming it's worked out the best for us at £5k for the the evening.

Congrats! We have just got engaged also!

I'm surprised no one else has said this but my Mum & Dad are gifting us money and we are putting in around the same amount ourselves

We're looking at around 10k all in, give or take. A friend loaned me the money to pay off the vast majority of my venue (that's including ceremony room, wedding breakfast buffet and evening do) and I've made my own flowers and bouquet. My favours, decor, suits, bridesmaids dresses etc will all be from Amazon or similar and the dress I've picked is only around 250 quid. I'm not paying for hair and make up as I'd rather do it myself. My photographer cost less than £500 and I'm making my invites with good old Word and printer. There's so many ways you cut costs, it all depends on whether you have strict ideas/standards on what it is you want x

I'm at the early stages of planning (venue with in house catering provisionally booked and now researching photographer/band/decor) and our budget is currently coming out at about £16k.... really need to get it down more than this.

It's crazy how quickly it starts to add up so we're really thinking about what we want to prioritize. For example, good music is non-negotiable for us as we're both very into live music and my partner has a musical background. We also have a BIG guest list... about 150 due to big families and different friendship groups who we want there. However neither of us are bothered about fancy transport in the slightest so at the moment are literally thinking taxis or getting driven by friends or family- our ceremony and reception is all in one place so it's only one journey. I'm planning to get my dress from StillWhite and my partner will probably rent his suit. I'm going to give my bridesmaids a £50 contribution towards their dress and guidance on colour but otherwise let them pick something they are comfortable in, and they can top it up with their own money if they want to.

At present none of our family have offered to help so we're assuming we need to pay it all ourselves- if someone does offer a contribution we'll gratefully accept and can be a little more relaxed. At the moment we have £10k put aside and need to make up the rest in the next 11 months.

The money side is the bit that stresses me out the most so it's really reassuring to read all your stories and how you're managing it all!