we have 21 weeks to go and need to find nearly £4,000 our budget was 5 but i think we may have gone over and our whole day has been taken up 2.5% damn vat increase. it is really stressing me out.
any ideas on how i can reduce this with things like bridesmaid gifts and decorations, the more i can do myself, the better!
CommentAuthorMrs (Dove) Pidgeon
Gifts- a card with a nice message is more meaningful and cheaper. Or accessories as a gift? Decs- keep to minimum and buy stuff that can be sold on. Or give centrepieces as gifts.
Now a extremely happy German housewife and now a Mother!!!!
Islay Jean born 24th June in Hannover.
CommentAuthorMrsE
My bridesmaids jewellery cost me £3.50 inc. boxes hun and thats there presents as we can't afford much either :) Have a look on the bargains thread hun, i'll bump it for you ... lots of things on there :) xx
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Love my boys so much <3
CommentAuthorlinzi
if you havent sent out your invites yet, then cut the guest list. Even by 10 would save a packet! we had to do that when we brought our wedding forward a year. We cut out all the cousins, as most of them we aint seen in years anyway. So now its only close family, aunts and uncles and best friends that are coming. Still takes it to 50 but we managed to cut 30 of the guest list and saved enough to allow us to get married earlier. And its no loss to us!
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CommentAuthorHappilymarried Mrs G
I ordered a bulk load of wooden roses in our colours from bay of e and found a website that did step by step instructions on flower arranging for weddings, along with video guidence etc..... Have made a couple of table decs and a bouquet for bridemaids up already and the look lovely (in the opinion of me and my friends) pics are on my profile.
Invites, h2b designed.... he proposed on the spanish steps so when we found a sketch of them we bought it and he scanned it into the computer.... we bought the card from Rymans stationary shop and he is printing them off himself.
The food, we are going for a hot buffet for our wedding breakfast. A choice of 3 dishes, 2 meat 1 veggi.. with a choice of jacket pots, rice or chips (or something like that anyway) with some bread rolls and butter. I will make the food myself with some help from family and freinds the day before the wedding. We have access to an industrial kitchen and the big fridges so will be able to do that, and have freinds who will be transporting the food to the venue on the day and putting out into the hot plates for people to help themselves.
We are splashing out on the hog roast and chocolate fountain for the evening, but we are able to afford that due to the money we are saving by making our own hot food.
We have also paid £20 extra to hire out our venue the evening before the wedding, this gives us the chance to get it set up how we want it and decorated and is cheaper than hiring someone to do it, once again we have a lot of help from freinds and family.
Bridemaids dresses are being ordered from ebay, shoes were bought from new look, vases were from B&M Bargains, we hiring a photo booth, which whilst pricey is doubling up as wedding favours as well as being entertaining, so we are not buying favours.
We ordered our rings through a company that gave us best man keyring and 3 silver necklaces so thats my 3 bridemaids sorted.
We are not paying for expensive photographers, we have a couple of friends who are very good having done photography as hobbies, they are happy to take lots of snaps and get them put on to discs for us, which we will then take to jessops or costco for canvas prints and photo books etc..... (after the wedding so spreading the cost)
We are having some fairly pricey things planned ie: hog roast, chocolate fountain, photo booth etc... but we sat and discussed it between our selves when we worked through the budget about what we were willing to cut back on, what we were happy to do ourselves and what we had people to help us with. Our savings have enabled us to splash out in other areas.
can you make your own gifts and decs that can save loads of money
Dyslexic
its spelt wrong
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CommentAuthorXLittleMissMe!X
You could set up a donation fund before the day and ask guests if they will donate before the wedding to pay for things rather than buying you gifts for afterwards. You could set up a wedding fund account and then let people pay in what they wanted. They could either do it privately if they don't want to reveal what they have put in or they could leave their names against the deposit so you know who to thank. At least that way you get to have your wedding rather than non of them being able to come. Its surprising how many people are willing to do this as they would be spending the money on you anyway so it doesn't matter how it is used. If you had 50 guests you will find that on average even in these hard times most people will give at least £20 so with 50 guests that is £1000! I bet there would be more though that would donate more.
CommentAuthorSoonMrsHingley
I sencond Jo's idea. My cousin did this and some close relatives put in a lot more. One put in enough to cover the flowers, one enough for the cake and so on. Once our date is 100% confirmed with the vicar this weekend we will be looking to set up an account for this. We live together already n have far too much stuff so would have no idea what to put on a list anyway xx
CommentAuthorbridetobe1990
we made our own invites and have handed them out rather than postage costs lol. making our own decs like table plan, table nmes and plce settings, mum brought some balloons in our colour theme half price in a sale in matalan and we are going to go shopping on saturday to see if we can find cheaper gifts for the bms and gms. we are doing our own cold buffet... iceland is awsome and our parents are doing all the food the night before and the day of as we have 3 hours between wedding breakfast and evening do (which is at a cheaper location), mum and mil are decorating so we have nothing to worry about. thankfully auntie is making cake so we are doing well we have bin discussing everything today.... looking for cheaper rings and gifts oing everyhing else ourselves and mum hs offered us a loan closer to time if we are still struggling
