Wedding Forum - Any ideas on doing a budget wedding as I'm...

Hi both me and h2b are Newley engaged. We both have large families and want the whole family to come. We are also wanting to move house and start a family so money is tight. Any ideas are welcome. I'm getting married in Leigh Lancashire so any venue suggestions would be great.

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Thanks for ideas. The kids activity book sounds good. Is there a way I can give you my email address without it being made public on this forum xx

make your profile public as it is restricted at the moment then send me a friend request and i'll come up on the right under your friends online and then you can send me a private message xx

Wedding breakfasts and receptions are normally where the main cost is. You could get married later in the day around 4pm and skip the wedding breakfast part going straight into the evening reception with buffet so there is only one lot of food to pay for. Or you could have a buffet for both, or maybe afternoon tea and cake rather than a wedding breakfast? When it comes to transport look around and see if someone you know has a nice car and would be willing to drive you. Also ask as many people as you can about their talents, there may be a great baker who could make your cake for you as a wedding present, or maybe someone is a good flower and arranger and will do the bouquets etc. for you as a wedding present. Look on places like ebay for the rings, bridesmaid dresses, thank you presents etc. Look into getting a china dress as your wedding dress as these are much cheaper. Also dont judge venues on the decor or outside, if you can find somewhere that has a right amount of space for you at a low cost it normally works out cheaper to hire the room and then pay someone to decorate it for you, and then photo wise you could always go to a nice park or somewhere after the ceremony. Look for hairdressers, photographers etc. at colleges, they will normally only ask for travel costs and a meal as they can use your wedding in their portfolios and it all goes down as experience for them.
It is also cheaper to get married during the week and off peak, hope some of that helps xxx

and if you go thro treat street you get points on your advantage card too xx

Thanks for all the ideas. Especially the afternoon tea.

diy any way u can try n find people u know to help do things if not like other post said collage/uni want experience x

I agree DIY it.
were doing ours on a £1000 budget. 4pm wedding cuts out lots ! buffet, making bridesmaids and flower girl dresses, making tulle decorations and bows, paper decorations and all sorts

That's great Nicola! xx

Have you thought of a mid week wedding? Theyre usually cheaper. We booked for november 2014 which is cheaper than the summer months x

DIY and looking in sales is the best way. There was a really good thread on here about budgeting with some great ideas. I'll bump it for you if I can find it so it can go to the top of the forum :)

We saved on our 'save the dates' by just sending emails to people!

We're not bothering with transport as the reception is in the same place as the ceremony. Even if it wasn't though, I'd probably just have got a family member to drive us.

I think someone else mentioned on another post about getting the bridesmaids to wear a black dress they already own. You could tie them all in together with a sash/wrap in your wedding colour, or a flower in their hair etc.

The men could provide their own suits, maybe just hire them all matching waistcoats?

you will be surprised how many hidden talents your family have, so be cheeky and ask them, i seem to have so many people offering to do/make things that i didnt know they could before, and they are family so might do it cheaper/ for free x

We are getting married in a registry office to save costs, although in lincolnshire most our set in old houses with pretty gardens, we could have done the standard package for £45, but we have chosen the enhanced package for £295 so we can say our own vows and have music of our choice, one of my oh bosses owns a golf club with a marquee attached so we cheekily asked him if we could use it for our wedding and he said yes, so we have that free just have to pay the lady who runs it to do the catering but she will do whatever we want and she likes homemade cooking, the bar will be a paying bar, we are only stumping up the cost of the arrival drink but even then as our theme is country rustic I'm getting some plastic replica mason jars and serving up some sort of cocktail instead of bottles of fizz. We aren't eating till 4 so don't need to pay for additional evening food. Take a look at village halls you can usually hire them for low prices, our local one would have been £45 a day. Also some pubs will allow you to use their function rooms free if you pay them to do the catering.