WEDDING BLOG: All The Ways We Saved Loads Of Money
We're poor, we're cheap and we did it: You can too
When we decided to get married it was on the big proviso that we wouldn't get sucked into commercial wedding madness and let it cost us an arm and a leg.
As a writer and a musician we barely have four arms and four legs between us so we couldn't stand to lose any. So cheap it had to be. And as we've come out with the other side with (just about) enough cash to eat for the rest of the year, here is my top wedding money-saving advice.
First of all you'll need to decide on your budget, make sure it's realistic and check with families to see if they will/can contribute. We were lucky, with 18 months to save and the help of our families we settled on a £6k figure (with the acceptance that it would probably go to at least 10 per cent more than that). Still a whopping amount of money for a single day, but far lower than the afterage £20k that UK weddings cost.
At this point I should admit that I didn't make a spreadsheet, am comically disorganised and own many credit cards and thus can't tell you for definite how much the whole thing actually cost in the end. My best guess is around £8k. Which is too much but not too bad considering.
Here are all the wonderful ways we kept it cheap(ish):
It's All About Where You Have It
A marquee in a field is going to be cheaper than a stately home but will involve a lot more effort, so assess your options. We were lucky enough to be able to use my parents back garden as our venue and shoved a marquee in there. It meant we had to sort out EVERYTHING else but for us that was a good thing - we could keep the catering costs down and have a free bar with no corkage to worry about.
If you're willing to put in the effort you can save a packet.
Doing ceremony-only at venues can save you a tonne and work with your chosen venue to get the best deal. We had ours on a Friday to keep costs down and they sorted us out a low-cost Routemaster to take all our guests to the reception.
Know What Doesn't Matter
There are a few things you really can be precious about - but most aren't worth it.
For example: Will you remember the colour of your napkins in a few months time? If you find yourself obsessing about a decision (and planning a wedding is basically one massive barrage of decision-making from start to end) just ask yourself if you'll remember it a few years later and if the answer's no, pick the path of least resistance.
We whim-bought a load of napkins from Ikea. They cost us about £2 total, no one cared they weren't real linen. I've already forgotten what colour they were.
What is important for you will be different to me. But here were the 'sensible sacrifices' I made so we could afford to have a free bar and I could have a designer wedding dress (more on that later).
CARS: You don't necessarily need to arrive in a vintage Rolls Royce. I took our little Peugot 206. We gave her a wash and put some ribbons on her and she was charming. And free.
WEDDING CAKE: Have you ever actually eaten wedding cake at a wedding? I hadn't. So we didn't bother. If you're going to, don't spent the few hundred quid a proper one costs, enlist the help of a baking pal and pay cost price for the ingredients. It's more personal that way anyway. My husband made ours - a normal-sized cheesecake that I didn't get round to eating. Oops.
ACCESSORIES: Not everything has to be new because it's your wedding day. Though my mother-in-law encouraged me to buy ALL THE THINGS because it was my 'very best wedding day', I actually wore mostly things I had already. The shoes (Vivienne Westwood Melissas) I'd had for years but hardly worn, and I borrowed jewellery from various sources, though mostly my mum. I made my own necklace at a fayre for £15.
FLOWERS: They're massively overpriced. We didn't bother at all. My mum knitted some cute tulips for the buttonholes and our bouquets and no one missed the real thing at all. Thousands saved.
CHAMPAGNE: Go Prosecco. So much cheaper and no one will notice.
Get A Second Hand Dress
Wedding dresses can be crazily expensive. After doing a total 180 on my dress (out with the low-key green gown from Debenhams, in with the designer £2000 David Fielden boutique creation) it was clear if I wanted the dress of my dreams I would have to take out a loan or get researching.
I took to the internet. And I found the Dress of Dreams on Preloved. It was less than half the price of it new, cost just £60 to have taken up and meant I didn't have to faff about with any awful dress fittings. It had a small Prosecco stain on it that brought the price down even further and didn't matter even the tiniest bit on the day. I felt amazing wearing the most beautiful dress I'll ever wear, and though it was expensive, my vanity didn't cripple us.
DIY
We made most things. Favours, centrepieces, piccalilli, even the bags for confetti. It made the whole wedding feel like ours, look how we wanted and saved us loads of money.
Other things, apart from the craftily obvious, that you can make include the entertainment - be it a really spiffing playlist or roping in friends with any vague musical talent to play, sing or DJ. My husband happens to be in a wedding band so we used them (I appreciate that's very jammy), his mum even sang on one of their songs and a few of our mates love a spot of DJing so we didn't have to pay for any of the entertainment.
We were very lucky to have these friends but cast your net and see what skills your mates have. You'll be surprised. We had 10 beautiful pork pies made for us (one per table), our invites designed, flowers knitted, afternoon tea cakes baked, and even my make-up done by our incredibly talented friends. And the best thing is, people love to help so let them be part of the fun.
Our biggest achievement was probably the DIY Photobooth. We bought a neoprene cover for our mini iPad and attached it to the wall with velcro. Then we turned a corner of the shed (back-garden-wedding!) into a booth using a few metres of cloth we bought at the local haberdashery.
With some careful lamp placement we managed to get just enough light into the curtained off area to get good pictures and we bought a bluetooth remote control that we tied to the wall with string so people could take pictures without having to lean in and touch the iPad.
Throw in my dressing up box with funny hats and some custom-made wooden Poloroid frames and it was one of the biggest hits of the wedding.
Hog Roast!
Don't bother with the extras and for around £600 you can feed your entire wedding delicious food and not have to worry about a thing. (My brother made a big batch of vegan curry for non-pork-eaters.)
Majestic FTW
Majestic really came in handy. We bought all our booze from there and borrowed all our glasses for free (with a £1 deposit per glass - but we only lost about a fiver in breakages). It also does a buyback service (with manager's discretion) so we got to give back a load of beers that hadn't been drunk and a case or two of the least popular white wine.
The free bar was on!
Though I can't tell you how much the wedding ended up costing I do know that it didn't cripple us and I felt in control of the costs. If it was getting out of control we could say no to things, which you don't get if you agree to a package deal.
But then, paying a bit more means you aren't desperately baking cakes late into the night in the days leading up to the wedding...
Whatever you pay, it's worth it. Don't forget that in the mire of bills!
And my final piece of advice? Don't bother buying wedding magazines - they'll just convince you to buy things you don't need.
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