Wedding Forum - Sad Bride :-(...

Take a deep breath and relax as it does get easier. The best thing to do is work out who is going to be coming. It will then give you an idea of what you can afford per head etc.

If it is working out well above your budget then you can do one of two things. Cut the guests list and have a smaller intimate wedding or choose a venue in which you can do your own catering etc to cut down on the food prices.

Once you have worked this out it will help you to find your venue at the prices you can afford. The venue is always the biggest part of your budget so its important to get it right. Once you have set the date etc then everything else then falls into place.

Thanks, I'm worried it will get harder not easier :-(

I have so far a guestlist of 60 for the wedding breakfast, 100 for evening recpetion... I thought that was quite small when one venue said I needed over 100 to book there! But all this per head thing makes it more nd more expensive :-(

My friend got a deal £1500 for 50 breakfast guests 100 reception guests down south but I cant find anywhere to rival that up here! So confusing!

xoxoxoxoxox

Have you decided if you are going for a civil wedding in the venue or a church or registry office wedding? If you want to marry in church then it gives you more scope for the evening venue to shop around. If you want to get married on site then the best thing to do is ring the registry office up and ask them to send you their booklet out which lists all the places you can legally get married in. You can then go through each one looking at the options and prices and cross them off the list or add them to the shortlist to go and visit.

Some do deals for you if you are getting married mid week or out of the summer months. Our venue is 4k but that includes a whole host of things including the civil room, canapes for 38 adults, three course meal for 60, two drinks with dinner for 60, reception drink for 60, toast drink for 60, evening buffet, room for bride and groom, flowers for the venue, cake stand and knife engraved, toastmaster etc and we are getting married in a country house.

Most venues will charge per head but they don't all have minimum capacity at 100! You just have to shop about and it won't be long before you find the perfect venue for you.

ealaine!!! i was like that with my venue it was like 49pp but then me n my partner ( i took him to look around after i looked) went on spear of moment thing and they had offer of £1999 for 40 day 70 nite dj n our room for 2 nites arrival drink one with meal n toast! then it was like 28pp extra for day and 14 pp nite so increased to 80 day and 100 nite ( not caterin for my numbers just half) and its 3809!!! would of been 6k with the normal package!

awww luk at hails wiv her mods duty heheheheheheh

firstly hun you need to decide what you can afford to spend and work off your plans via that, some of these wedding fayres show the really expensive places for weddings, many are very very expensive. If you don't have a massive budget then it doesn;t matter. My budget was £3000 and i've spent just over. It is doable.

Our reception is at a cricket club, really good prices and really nice room. Shop around hun, make some phone calls. you will find something im sure xx

aww hails thought u said 1 tho?

I said it's now 2.00 untill we talk to venue but it might change to 1.00

i agree with what everyone has said already, try not to get too dishearted hun, u have only started looking around, look at ur budget and have a good look around, dont worry hun it will work out all good xxx

awwwwww i c... i have to hav 11am weddin cos he wants it lol and seen as tho i hav chose everything else i hav 2 let him hav his way lol

while your sleeping hehehehe

well il be chatting to her before the big day, hopfuly she'l come at 8am when i exsplain what my sisters are having. and order room service lol

no breakfast lol

whats your budget? if you donr mind me asking

we did ours for £2000
we had reg office ceremony with 50 guests
we then had reception at our local masonic hall, we paid for pimms for welcome drink then we had a pay bar.
we had a bbq outside
diso
and cold buffet in evening for another 70 guests on top of the 50
i made my own invites, bouquets table decs etc
luckily 2 of my friends do photograpy and video so we saved money there and paid them £100 each
set up a website for your save the date or a closed private group on facebook to save money on save the date cards, just send a few out to people who dont use internet.
we managed to buy wedding party presents too
hope that makes you feel a bit better

all i can say is EBAY EBAY EBAY!! you can get so much new good quality stuff on there just spend time shopping around and relax xxxx

toni is right it will get very exciting , i miss all the planning :(

our budget was £10000 including the honeymoon but we are prob going to spend £11000 in total. been thinking recently tho and if we had actually thought about it we would have just gone and got married somewhere and put that money towards a bigger house!! xx

clarabella i dont like that idea! i only gettin married once i luv the sit dowm meal part of the day

Well either that or have the wedding later in the day and just have a sit down meal, and if you do have evening guests, rather than feed them with an evening buffet, use the wedding cake as something to give them?

faeth u see i went to weddin not so long ago as evening guest they dint hav buffet or anything and me n few others felt like we wasnt wanted and there just to make numbers up!

i went to a wedding last year, they had about 70 guests in total and had the sit down meal later on so they didnt do a buffet which saved money.

also having cake as dessert will save a bit!! xx

well hun have u tried all ur local cricket /rugby /football clubs they have good venues iam having our reception at barnsley football ground and 1000 all in and thats a meal 4 50 and a buffet 4 100 at night the dj and the lot

ps a friend of mine saved a packet by having no sit down meal and serving tea and cake for afternoon tea which was much cheaper and then had DJ and evenig buffet later on. Having a wedding at 4pm helped get around this though but it was a nice relaxed atmosphere which was better suited to them and everyone seemed to have a good time. Very classy and elegant despite really saving a considerable amount of money.

awww deal is a rite bargain! 80 weddin breakfast 100 evening buffet, bucks fizz arrival drink, glass of wine wiv meal n sparlin champs 4 toast, dj a room nite b4 and nite of weddin for us and a 3 course meal for 4 wiv a room each to stay over b4 the weddin! weddin co ordinator too x

all for 3809... shud of been 3409 but we hav upgraded our meal to an options one for £5pp