Thursday 21 March 2013

My Money Saving Wedding Tips

I told you my brain is weddings, weddings, weddings at the moments. Today it's been wedding rings, not really a bad way to spend my day. So as promised here's a wedding post! MoneySupermarket are running a competition for bloggers getting married to share some money saving tips, you can find more details here. What a great excuse to enter a competition and write a wedding blog!

I find it quite sad when I read a wedding magazine and am told the average UK wedding costs over £30,000 I don't know anyone who has spent that much on a wedding and I don't know anyone who will. This is what we're told though from valuable sources such as Brides magazine and You&Your Wedding so why wouldn't it be true? When Sam and I first got engaged after going to the wedding fayres and reading the magazines we planned to have our wedding in 2014 even though we wanted it sooner because we thought we wouldn't be able to reach a 2013 target. After a lot research into venues&vendors we realised though that we could definitely have a 2013 wedding and make it the wedding of the year without spending a million bucks! So even though my wedding process isn't quite over yet (I'm secretly dreading the day that it is) I thought I'd share with you ways that we have saved money so far.


When we put our minds to it we have a massive talent pool right in our close circle of relationships. Not that we want to use our friends but asking for a favour or two is definitely worthwhile. This was our first milestone to saving money. Our cake is being made by my mother in law, flowers by my mum, engagement shoot by my sister, ceremony music by a friend in the same band as Sam, and the list goes on! I can guarantee you will have at least one friend with a skill they will be happy to share with you. It will save so much money and you will be much more included in the process. I am planning to help my mum make the bouquets!


This may seem a silly, unrealistic option but believe me it's worth it. You know those evenings when you're having a night in,there's nothing on TV and you just don't know what to do. Get on google and search for wedding competitions. It's a great way to find out about wedding vendors and you may actually be in with a chance of winning. I won my wedding photography and am still slightly ecstatic about how much money we've saved. So, in the words of the Hunger Games "May the odds be ever in your favour". (Yes, I told you I'm addicted)



Get your priorities straight, is it more important to you that everyone has a wedding favour or a dessert at the evening reception? Pick which is most important, purchase them and then if you have money left over you can treat them to the other too! To us we had to think would we rather have a 4 course meal at a breakfast with everyone we want there or not as many people so that we can provide a drinks reception too. We decided to go for the first option but if we have the cash left over we'll definitely be adding on the drinks.




You don't have to invite the world AND his brother. It's perfectly acceptable not to invite your guests other halves if you don't know them. This is what we've done and no ones grumbled so far!





As our honeymoon was one of the first things we booked (Definitely have our priorities right) we couldn't afford to pay for breakfast every day at the time so we only booked it for the first half of the holiday. We decided that it would be quite nice to find a local shop for the rest of the week and make our own breakfast, like true travellers!

For the bridesmaid dresses and grooms men we went high street. This instantly knocked hundreds of the prices. I tried to even sway from the usual high street stores people go to, such as Debenhams and Monsoon. My bridesmaid dresses have come from Very and we're looking at Asos for the grooms men! My flower girl's dress has come from Monsoon but there's no tax on children's clothes which makes it cheaper straight away.





I have found that going for an act slightly more unusual will help bring the price down. Artists known as 'wedding singers' or 'wedding bands' are more expensive than the band you heard at an open mic night. We actually found our entertainment through attending retro fayres. They always have artists performing who all have real talent and a passion for all things retro so when we found a band that we really liked we approached them. Believe me they were a fraction of the price of some wedding bands.


When it came to reception venues, it was like a proper mission! I spent days phoning practically every venue in an hour and a half radius from the church collecting information such as venue hire costs, food costs, rules on entertainment, if there would be a bar etc etc. This requires organisation and I ended up making a spreadsheet so that we could compare all the information easily. We narrowed this down to our 5 favourite venues and then again to our 3. We then arranged a day to visit all 3 venues one after another. We had one venue which was our ultimate favourite from the start but that was unfortunately quite a bit more expensive than every where else but we knew that even though the other 2 venues were lovely, we really wanted this one! So we were honest, we told our favourite venue exactly this and... They halved the venue hire for us! Don't be afraid to ask, each venue wants YOU and they're there to help so just be honest if you can't quite afford it.


As any budget bride to be will tell you, DIY is the way forward! I want to be stuck into as many aspects of the wedding as possible. From reception decorations to invitations to favours! As everyone had been asking us nicely (pestering) for the wedding date I wanted to be able to tell everyone in a slightly more glamorous way than just a facebook status so decided to go for Save the Dates (Or 'Pencil Us In's as we renamed them because Sam thought Save the Date was too cliche). I didn't want the extra cost this brought though so decided to get on photoshop and use the engagement photos my sister took to create them. I found a new pack of cream card I bought of eBay last year which has been sat in a cupboard and my mum kindly let me use her printer ink. So theoretically it cost me zilch to produce some rather lovely Pencil Us In's. Oh, I did have to pay £2 for envelopes from the Range but I can't really complain. Take a look at my handiwork just here and let me know what you think...
Here's our list of 10 things we couldn't live without at our wedding. I had to enrol Sam's help with this, it was so hard numbering them... How can one be more important than the other really? So generally these 10 things are our wedding must haves. Sam also wanted to add food as 11, he said that was more important that his suit - men! What would be or are your wedding must haves? Anything that I haven't added to my list?

1. Wedding dress - Every little girl has dreamt of this dress, let her relish it!
2. Honeymoon - Make the most of that newly married bliss before you have to go back to normal life
3. Photography - You want your memories to last well in beautiful photos
4. Venue - It's your time to hold the party of your lifetime, you have to make sure it's in a venue ready for such a party!
5. Rings - Your rings are the one part which are going to be with you always (as long as you don't lose them!)
6. Transport - Sam has a major love for classic cars so if it's important to him, it's important to me
7. Entertainment - You want everyone to have fun at the party of the century, right?
8. Wedding cake - It's traditional, make it yummy
9. Guests - Make sure all your special people are there to share the special day with you 
10. Ceremony - The pre-party venue has to be just as fabulous as the party venue!

I hope you enjoyed this and that for any other bride to be's it may be helpful. I would appreciate any of your helpful comments, advice from people who have been there and done that is so valuable! Like I said at the beginning, check out the MoneySupermarket competition here

Georgia x

11 comments:

  1. Great tips! I remember planning my wedding a few years ago...it's always fun to hear about the planning of others! I wish I had done more DIY-ing for my wedding-if only that didn't take so much time!

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  2. I agree that you can spend way too much on weddings - I need to remember these tips, you can easily save money if you really want to!


    XO
    Pearls & Paws

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  3. Thank you for your visit, have a great day!
    Come back soon to visit me on Cosa Mi Metto???
    Win 100euros to spend a Zara"!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. brilliant tips for saving money! hope you have a wonderful day <3

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  5. Wow thanks for the tips! I just came across your blog and I'm your newest follower :) Would you mind checking out our blog and (if you like) following back via GFC and Bloglovin'? We also have a giveaway going on right now! xx

    Blog: sixthtractate.blogspot.com

    Enter our current Giveaway!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I want to have cool honeymoon! <33

    - A.
    adriannaislookingforastyle.blogspot.com

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  7. Dear Georgia,
    Thank You so much for the lovely comment on my blog....
    I went through this post and absolutely loved the way you have tried to share tips with people getting married soon. Marriage is indeed a big thing since lives change after the vows. Brilliant tips.
    Kisses,
    Kavita.
    http://chic-ilicious.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for sharing some love, I look forward to replying to you!

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