Whats wrong with people these days charging stupid amounts for everything!! fair enough with a £20,000 buget no problem but tryina get everything in a £3,000 - £5,000 at a strugle is gonna be HARD!! is it wrong to dream about a fairytale wedding with all the extras?? haha shop shop shop and hope for the best deals then :D :D xx

im on a £2000 budget and it is sooooo hard! im just shopping online for EVERYTHING and finding the cheapest prices possible! have you booked your venue? xx

i am finding it hard to pay everything on my 8 grand budget its now 10 grand :( and i am sure it will be a few more thousand by the time it comes around :( xx

We found it a lot better to work out exactly who we wanted to invite, and then work out how much we could save for the wedding realistically - then we budgeted around this. We're having over 200 at our wedding all in all, and with reception meal, welcome drinks, toasting drinks, wine on tables and a live band in the evening, it's coming in at £15k (from an original £20k) including everything else like dress, transport, flowers, thank you gifts etc - you really just need to negotiate on prices and be realistic about what to have/cut back on - we're making our own centrepieces to cut back on flower arrangements, a cousin is making cupcake favours etc - leaving us plenty in the budget to splash out on a double decker bus for the guests and even a wedding video :-)

If you're finding it difficult then maybe look at guest numbers, or party style, you can have an informal BBQ style reception which works out cheaper than a sit down meal, you could buy your wine at a wholesalers and provide that, get decs off the bay etc - plenty of posts here from brides who are doing it all for £1k easy - I don't think we've done too bad seeing as the average cost of a wedding the other year for our amount of guest was approx £25k!

I am on a budget of around £1000 for the whole day. Luckily our evenin guests have all agreed to pay for their buffet meal which is between £8-15 depending on the size. this means we are now able to invite up to 150 people :)
we currently have paid for the registry office, deposit on venue, dress and suits (plus a few small details) and our current spend is just over £400. Our photographer is £350 but not paid any of that yet.
We are also collecting tin cans which we can take to the recycling place in wxchange for cash so that will pay for the small details and the cake extra....we have a pub and local cafe also collecting for us so after a month of collecting we already have over £50 worth of cans. It's also proved a great way for family to get involved and we've even had people we don't know offering their help.
basically it is possible to have a wedding of your dreams on minimal budget it just means slightly more work, still all worth it it the end

Its hard!!!!!

Iv changed my original theme and colour because my original idea just would not have been affordable on my budget!

My mum and dad are paying for dress and deposits and also payinng for food, but my uncle is doing that so will be cheaper than usual anyway!

I have just bought bits and pieces here and there and

We are getting married in a church i think we only need to pay a donation to use it and pics taken at a near by castle which they are allowing for free, reception at a village hall which is £700 to hire but get deposit back.

My centre pieces are glass iv picked up from charity shops and painted myself,

Material for invites have been bought from the bay of E and made myself,

Im getting lots from the bay of E.

My Veil was from a charity shop as well and cost me £2.99 and couple of little diamontes to stick on at a later date.

Bridesmaids and MOH dresses cost me £50, from highstreet shop, the ones i liked were online for £100 but I really like the ones i got too and they were half the price!!

You can get deals and bargains out there just gotta keep looking!!

xxx

Try your local dressmaker, mine is making my dress for 115 when it was a 1300 from the bridal shop, all I need to buy is a underskirt, and I can get that of bay of e, I also found self moulding vases 7pcs for 7 pound so am making my own centerpieces 14 are costing me 31 pound

i know the feeling we are trying to do everything on £1200!! well after the reg office, notice of marriage and wedding insurance and the marriage certificates it coming in at about £900!! At the moment we cant get the things we want for that!! i have tried looking into just having a buffet for the people we need to invite (well minimum we can invite family and friends that we really want there) but even that is costing £1200!! never mind photographers, flowers, cake, bm dresses, suits and entertainment!!

still hang in there im sure that you will manage to get everything sorted out xxx

it's coming to the end of the wedding season and u'll find u'll start to get things on sale, this is when i got invites etc. i had a little box that i put any winnings from lotto etc in so even if it was only £10 i knew if i came across a bargain i could use that, it is difficult we are paying ourselves and have a 3yr old son, at the end of the day we can only do what we can do girls and thats bargain hunt haha xx

We are also on a budget around 4k under if we can! We sat down and worked out who we were going to invite to the ceremony and who was coming in the evening then worked out prices around this.
Bay of E is useful for all stationary and table decorations then i searched around for the cheapest quotes.

x

We did everything, including honeymoon for approx £5000 (and an extra £1k for spending money). We originally planned a wedding with 40 guests but just buffet then around 150 for the evening - but the costs were just stupid.

We decided to prioritise what we wanted given that it was our day. We finished up with a party of approx 20, up in Gretna Green and a 3 course meal for reception. We booked accommodation and the reception at a gorgeous hotel and the price per head was only around £25. Guests paid for their own accommodation.

We also decided what was important and what was just a 'want' - so things like chair covers we decided against, as the venue decorated the restaurant perfectly well without. Our centrepieces came from an online shop and also Asda Living (metal lanterns £4 each). At first I wasn't going to bother with bm's - but after a debate with husband I decided to just have one. The most we paid out was for clothing (bm dress, my dress, hire of husband's suit - and bought suits for best man, my dad and usher as they were half price).

We only had one car, as this could do a couple of trips - and on the way from the ceremony to the reception the rest of the wedding party travelled with the guests by taxi (minibus). My flowers were artificial and for all the buttonholes (for every guest), bm's posy and my bouquet it only came to just over £100.

We decided that even by having a small wedding it was the vows that mattered - so spending thousands on one day just to please other people wouldn't have made us happy. We did spend £1600 on our honeymoon though, as we decided that quality time as a married couple was one of the most important things. Oh, and because we'd gone all inclusive, we finished up bringing back nearly half of the spending money lol. My son is 18 soon so we've already put it away again, ready for his birthday present lol.