Wedding Forum - How do you stick to the budget?...

Bartering and getting quotes from different companies so you have something to barter with.

Also, if you get more than one thing through the same company find out if you can arrange some kind of discount.

DIY is also very good to stick to your budget with sites like the bay and Am@Zon.

Most suppliers have offered us a discount for paying in full, ie our venue dresser has given us a 10% discount.

ALWAYS haggle, if they say that they can offer a discount then push further or see what they can throw something in as well. We haggled our venue from 1800 to 1200 because they base their costs on overall guests for the evening instead of the amount for the majority of the day (day max 60 evening 90) we also got discounts off our photographer as well because we didn't want to pay for wedding albums made by themselves when we could do it ourselves for a fraction of the cost. Family are helping us with DIY's and with building up the sweetie bar in the evening. My wedding dress is off the rail and was discounted from 1k to £250 because it was already a sale item (down to £500) never sold so was in their back room ready to go where those dresses go that aren't sold and by chance it was PERFECT for me. You don't necessarily have to buy a "Bridesmaid dress" for the BMs. Try high street stores or sites like lightinthebox or jjshouse.

Also, make sure everyone is up front with their costs, we nearly were caught out by a caterer we were considering and just before we literally went forward with the contract H2B asked an offhand question and we were left saying our "sorry but no thanks's" dodged a bullet there.

As well as haggling prices the thing that has helped me most was setting up a spreadsheet - all the essential items go at the top and then go down to the 'would like to have items'. Next to each item I put the estimated/quoted cost and then I had another item for the actual cost. I didn't want to pay anywhere near the estimated costs so haggled, looked around for the best price and DIY'd where possible and have so far managed to slash £9000 off the budget. Its so easy to see something and think 'oh that'll look nice' but then I look at the spreadsheet and if I can justify the cost then I'll find the cheapest price (then haggle) or see if I can make it myself any cheaper but if I can't justify it then I walk away and don't give it a second thought.

Like Showgirl said keep a spreadsheet - by doing this we have been able to keep 50% under budget because it puts you off buying things you don't need!