Hi everyone, I joined UKBride a few years ago when I first got engaged (long engagement intended) but now my partner and I are starting to consider planning our wedding so I've decided to make use of this site. I've bought magazines and read articles but I am honestly still clueless as to where to start. Ideally we would like to aim for June 2015 but money is the key issue - we graduated from uni last year and although we both have jobs we don't have much in savings to work with. My OH seems to think that we'd be able to plan and book things and pay for it as we go or arrange for payments to be made at different times but I'm not entirely convinced. I'd much prefer to have enough in savings to just plan the wedding and be able to pay for stuff there and then but I fear this will take another few years to do and we've both been saying this year we'd actually start planning properly. Just wondering if anyone had any money saving tips or general advice on the situation? Thanks :)
CommentAuthorprincesspixie
best advice i could give you is to sit down with your OH and figure out realistically how much you could save, then decide what it is you both want from the day (i.e a huge wedding with all the trimmings or an intimate wedding with close friends and family or anything in-between) from there you will be able to figure out what you can and can't afford… then the planning starts first thing i'd look at is a venue check they have your date come within your budget and provide the things you want/need… after that you just start marking things off. Most companies whether it be a venue caterer photographer etc will request a deposit this can differ between them some ask for a percentage some just a small amount you will need the deposit before they will book you in (most companies anyway)…
Hope this has helped a little
xx
Officially married my best friend 2/5/2015 (secretly)
Big wedding 18/06/2016
CommentAuthorThe-Future-Mrs-B
We are paying for our deposits as we go along and then balances aren't due untill close to the wedding date.
CommentAuthorPrincessjebbie
Also if a Saturday wedding isn't important to you, why not consider a week day? We are marring on a thursday and our Reg. office is £200 cheaper, and our venue is charging for food only and not room hire taking our cost for that to £300 for 30 people. We have no savings we pay for stuff as the bill is due, and as above only had to put deposits down on things. X
CommentAuthorWhovianbride
Start saving NOW, like £50 a week each If you can manage it! into a separate account that you know not to spend on anything other than the wedding. Me and my oh started saving a year ago for our July 2015 wedding as we were limited on what we could save due to lots of stuff being paid off on credit (Car and bed) Now we have booked and paid deposit for our venue, £450 and our registrar £50 and now have saved £940 saved so far and have now upped our saving to £50 a week so will have saved £4000 in the 80 weeks till the wedding! woop!
Met June 2009 on my Birthday,Met again July 2009 and got
together, May 2010 Moved in,Jan 2011 got pregnant,
August 2011 Got our own place, 2011 Had our Baby Girl,
Dec 2011 Got engaged, July 2015 Getting married! Yay!
Thanks for the advice, we're considering a weekday wedding as a friend of mine got married on a Thursday and it was so much cheaper. Between us we have £3000 in savings which would help with deposits but my concern is whether or not we'd be able to save for the final amounts. I guess it's just a case of talking it all out properly and giving it a good thinking through.
CommentAuthorBethanyS
I can only echo what the others have said, its just sitting down and talking to one another. See what you can both save some money on. Mine and my H2B's is not to go out so many times for dinners and stuff. There is always something we can all cut back on. I also suggest looking around at what you want, get some quotes from places, just to see how much money you're going to need to be saving to get what you want for your wedding. Look out for packages too, they always save some money. x
CommentAuthorMrsThomson2B
I have saved almost £3000 by having a monday wedding instead of a saturday wedding. We have made use of the glasgow fair weekend as many of our family and friends will have the monday off already so will only need to ask for the tuesday off. Our wedding is July 2016 and we are putting away £200 to £250 a month. Our total budget is £11-£12k. Like you we have approx £3k put away.....kind of....we have paid out almost £2000 already and have another £1700 in savings.
That may serve as a wee guide for how much you will need to put away. If you need any help or advice just message me and I will try and help xx
CommentAuthorlovelylainee
We used a spreadsheet to keep track of everything once we had booked stuff so we knew what deposits we had paid, when it had to be paid off in full by and how much we had left to pay/save for.
Getting quotes for all the things you want and finding out when they would need to be paid by was really crucial to our saving plan as it helped us make sure we could do it by our wedding day and not owe anyone anything when we got back from our honeymoon.
Don't forget to include stag and hen dos in the mix as lots of people forget to budget for these. Having that initial checklist and discussion is so important so once you have the budget and costs established the rest falls into place a lot more easily as you then have a better idea how much to put aside for everything.
Good luck planning x
I married the love of my life 23/06/2012
Our little boys are so cute!
CommentAuthorlovelylainee
Oh and keep an eye on Groupon if you haven't got a venue sorted yet as they often do packages for weekdays or off peak season weddings at great discounts. Especially if you're not planning to have tons of guests during the day as the deals on there are usually for 50-60 guests plus extras in the evening
I married the love of my life 23/06/2012
Our little boys are so cute!
CommentAuthorThe-Future-Mrs-B
As others have said, work out how much you can save between now and just before your wedding date, then break this down to what money is going to be allocated to what and then that way after you pay your deposits you will have already calculated that you will have saved enough money for the final bill.
