Where do i start

Personally, I wouldn’t get a loan for a wedding. Each to their own but I don’t feel that getting into debt over a wedding is right.


I’d suggest realistically sitting down and working out what you can afford to save on a monthly basis, also accounting for savings you may have and if anybody is helping contribute. Once you have a budget, explore venues which align with the budget. It is definitely worth having a look when you find a venue on their instalment programme as we found that these come thick and fast and it can be completely unrealistic to save money as quick as they ask for it. We booked our venue with 18 months to go but the first few months I think we paid something like 4K between the venue and the catering but then have a massive 12 months before any other instalments, although in this time frame saving needs to happen, deposit for other suppliers and things.
Good luck! Drop me an inbox if you need any help :-)

Definitely looking at venues first sounds sensible. Much easier said than done but probably even before that it’s a good idea to have a rough overall budget in mind then have a think about how much of that you anticipate being for your venue.


All down to personal preference with wedding loans as I have friends who have taken out loans and may well end up doing that myself (getting married September 2023). I think as long as you are realistic about how much you can afford to pay back each month and how long you’ll be paying it back for then it’s an option. There seems to be a bit of shaming around taking out loans for weddings but you do what works for you! Equally if you can manage to save without one then happy days

Me and my H2B have planned our wedding for Sept 2025 .. we've picked out a venue, DJ, photographer and looking at caterers. Only way we are able to do it without a loan is picking them now and setting up a payment plan with them. It makes it so much more affordable and doable for us. Where everything is picked - we're not paying monthly, my venue next payment is in March, but it means Jan and Feb we can still put money aside to help with it. Nothing wrong with a loan if that's the route you take, just letting you know what I've done. Hope it helps x

Congratulations on your engagement!


It does seem daunting at first, but the key for me was to get ourselves organised so we could figure out what was realistic. The first thing to figure out is how much can you save per month (specifically for the wedding), and the second is when do you want to get married. From there we then created a spreadsheet of all the things we’d need to pay for, and started putting indicative costs against each item (Google is your friend). The fun part here is that you can start researching venues, flowers, photographers etc., you don’t have to use these suppliers they’re just indicative costs (but keep all the links on a separate tab of the spreadsheet, so you save yourself time later trying to track them all back down), this gave us a rough idea of how much our wedding would cost. Add a 20% buffer. No project ever really comes in on the initial rough budget. From here we had 2 main numbers, what we could save and what it costs, and then if it was you, you’ll be able to see whether you need a loan or to push the wedding back a bit etc. I know it all sounds very dull to do it this way, but it does offer peace of mind to cost it all out up front to a degree (you can also use the same spreadsheet to adjust as you go, keep a note of actual amounts rather than budgeted, and part payments, so it’s all in one place). Once this is done, you’ll have a budget for venue and catering, and you’ll be able to start narrowing down and going to see the venues you want. The other thing I’d do is create a dedicated wedding email address, then you can sign up to anything you want and all the supplier’s information will be under one email account, rather than connecting it in with your day-to-day email.Hope that helps

Huge congratulations!!
Everyone has there own opinion and rightly so...but here's mine.
With a loan it's easier to plan, the moneys readily available, but, I think its easier then to get carried away with the spending, and then after once you've had your day and everything feels a little flat you've got to start paying it all off.Do what feels right for you and your H2B, good luck with the planning.I'm getting married 2024...booked my venue and photographer so far xxxxx

Consider your guest numbers as well before you start looking at venues. You don't want to find a venue you love to realise it's too small/large for the number of guests you want to invite.

Everything that has been said about budgeting is good advice, I created a similar spreadsheet to Lisa. I would just add to bear in mind that, although your venue will be your single most expensive cost, it is by no means everything you will have to pay for. Don't blow your whole budget on the venue alone.

Start off with a budget. Personally, I wouldn't take out a loan to pay for a wedding, I'd rather just have a smaller wedding, but if you do decide to go for a loan, still make out a budget first. Work out what the maximum is that you want to spend. And stick to it!

Next, think about the 'must have' guests at your wedding - the ones you can't consider getting married without. Once you know how much money you want to spend and how many people you are catering for, you can start looking at venues - there's no point looking at a venue that is way too big or small for the numbers, or one that is over budget, which is why cost and numbers need to be worked out first.

We are affording our wedding by not going over the top with all the extra things. We both had some savings and have been very mindful of budget throughout the whole process. We are planning £8k all in. We've decided not to have bridesmaids, favours, wedding cars, extra gifts for parents, my dress is wed2b and we have artifical flowers. There are lots of things you can save on if you decide they aren't important to you personally. Other ways to save / generate a bit of cash is packed lunches to work, no takeaway coffee, cut back on meals out. Sell clothes/ shoes/ toys on vinted/ ebay/ carboot..... all sounds very grown up amd sensible but think of the end goal. The other thing to do is set up a savings account and regular transfer as soon as you get paid to build that nest egg.
Enjoy planning!

Congratulations on your Engagement!


I personally wouldn’t take a loan for a wedding, you don’t want to be in debt especially at this time of cost of living crisis etc.
I got engaged in October and we are planning a June 2024 wedding. I have booked my local church for the ceremony and am now in the process of finding a marquee company to supply and put up a marquee at our field in the same village as the church. We are going to try and keep numbers small for the ceremony (it is quite a small church) and for the sit down meal which we hope to have caterers come in and do the meal in the marquee (if you keep numbers down for the sit down meal you can save quite a bit of money here I’m told!) and then invite more people to the evening do.
My mum has offered to pay for the photographer and videographer and my mother in law to be is making our wedding cake so those two things are taken care of.
We are getting quotes for everything and then going with what we are willing to spend on them and have hopefully given ourselves enough time (more than a year) to save up to pay for things outright.
I don’t feel you have to spend tens of thousands of pounds to have a lovely day. Look at different options to see what is most affordable whilst still being along the lines of what you want. You can have indoor marquees in venues like village halls and community centres that totally transform the look of the buildings, this may well work out cheaper than hiring a hotel or wedding venue etc.

Congrats on your engagement!

Firstly, remember it's your wedding - just you and your fiance and not anyone else's. I made this mistake with my first wedding trying to 'family please' and still upset relatives.

Secondly, how big do you want your wedding day to be? What type of venue and reception are you thinking of? Numbers you wish to invite? Etc... everything you wish to have will have price attached to it. Pin this down and you will have a rough ball park figure - quite a few venues have all inclusive packages which will help but if you are to have a micro wedding or a small wedding under 40-80 an all inclusive package may not be for you.

As lots of others have said, budget first.

From there, think about what really matters to you. Those are the areas where you’ll want to spend a decent amount. For example, we want to make sure our guests are well fed, so we’re spending more on the wedding breakfast.

You will also find areas where you’re happy to reduce expenditure. These are the areas we’ve lessened the financial burden and why:

- My fiancé isn’t bothered about having a best man or groomsmen. A bit cheeky, but he has lots of male relatives who are happy to help out without us needing to provide a suit etc for them. Think about how much you want to spend on your wedding party and adjust accordingly (I have 3 bridesmaids and when you factor in dresses, alterations, hair, make up etc it adds up significantly).

- Our venue is very flexible with the bar options. If we wanted to we could have an open bar paid by us, a tab system, or just a cash bar. We’ve decided that we don’t want to pay for everyone to get drunk - we’re providing welcome drinks, toasting drinks and wine for the tables, but after that everyone pays for themselves. Our venue’s bar prices are very reasonable, and we’re letting everyone know in advance so nobody has a disappointment on the day.

- Flowers. I absolutely love flowers, but it’s a huge expense and they’d go to waste afterwards. So I’m doing the flowers myself. I’m ordering two huge bunches from Bloom & Wild, getting some floristry ribbon, and making up the bouquets myself out of the stems. I only want small, quite wild looking bouquets anyway. Then I’ll use a couple of stems to make a buttonhole for my fiancé. At the wedding I’ll have vases at the front - as the bridesmaids get to the front, they’ll put their bouquets in a vase, and after the ceremony these will be taken to the reception and dotted around. My bouquet will stay with me for photos, but there’ll be a final vase on my wedding table, and that’s where it will eventually end up.

- Photographer. We thought about what parts of the day we really want captured. As I don’t want the photographer there for the traditional getting ready photos, he’s happy to only charge a half day rate instead of full day.

Evening food. As all our guests will be there all day, we felt a full buffet wasn’t needed, so our caterer has offered to do a job lot of bacon sandwiches in the evening for us. Perfect, and about £10 per head cheaper.

Huge piece of advice: it can be very tempting to say yes when people offer to do things for you, because they’re being kind and it can save you money. But take some time to think about whether you want to accept their offer: all three things people offered to take care of for us have ended up causing so much stress and more money to fix when people haven’t followed through in a timely manner or what they’ve ended up offering doesn’t actually work for us.