My husband and I have celebrated our 5-year wedding anniversary this July. We had been engaged for 18 months and booked our wedding within days of his proposal. Within a year prior to the big day, Brian’s health began to deteriorate which had an enormous impact on the number of hours he could work and therefore our wedding fund. Four months before our wedding he suffered two heart attacks which added even more stress, strain and limitations to our wedding plans. Yet despite these setbacks, we managed to have a huge wedding which was enjoyed by all. We became experts on how to save money on a wedding!
Here follows a list of some tips you might find useful:
- When booking your wedding consider the day and time of year: Getting married during the week is significantly cheaper than tying the knot on a Saturday. Also, hotels quite often offer discounts at their quieter times of the year, e.g. the winter months.
- Consider having your Wedding and Reception at the same place: We had a church wedding so this was not helpful to us, but many establishments offer a package which is significantly cheaper than holding just the reception at your chosen venue.
- Do you need to book a wedding car? We saved a huge chunk of our budget by using our own car. Fortunately, we had a Mercedes at the time (not the newest car but it scrubbed up rather nicely). If you don’t have your own suitable car, ask around friends/family. My brother-in-law chauffeured us from the church to the reception and it only cost £30.00 to insure him for the day.
- Do some serious shopping around for your wedding dress: This is the one item you need to get right, but find out if there are any bridal stores closing down. They tend to sell off their stock significantly cheaper. Not only did I get a bargain dress this way, but also my veil, shoes and tiara for a fraction of the cost. It’s a great way to save money on your wedding!
- The bride’s hair: I have a friend who is a hairdresser and she, rather than my usual hairdresser at a salon did my wedding hair for me. Rather than paying for the bridesmaid’s hair to be done on the day, my friend and I styled their hair – we had lots of fun practising in the week or so before the wedding day.
- Make -up savings: Similarly, my friend who trained in theatrical make -up at college did my make-up for me (again much wine and many giggles during the make -up during trials).
- Look out for sales: this will save you serious amounts of money on your wedding. Plan ahead – hit all of the sales, you will pick up some amazing bargains – all the bridesmaid’s dresses and shoes were picked up at a sale 12 months before the wedding.
- Make your own wedding invitations: It’s really not that difficult, we used parchment paper for ours because we liked that particular style. You can pick up excellent quality paper and crafts from stores such as Hobbycraft and design your own cards.
- Do you have a friend who can make your cake? This could save you an absolute fortune – a friend of a friend made our cake on extremely short notice and it cost us a mere fraction of the standard price. Ask around, see if anyone you know could offer their services.
- Do you need a cake? Couples I know have saved hundreds by buying individual cupcakes rather than a tiered cake.
- Make your own flowers: My husband, my daughter and I made all the flowers the week before the wedding using artificial flowers. Not only did we get exactly what we wanted, but we have some fantastic memories of this day. We bought most of the flowers from our local garden centre and a few bits and pieces, such as ribbons from ebay.
- Make your own place cards: Again we paid a visit to Hobby Craft for card and designed and made our own place cards for the wedding breakfast. I made all of these with the help of my Mum (again, another memory I have of a lovely afternoon).
- Homemade Wedding favours: I bought a bulk load of Love Heart sweets, sugared almonds and material from ebay and we made our own wedding favours.
- Where possible buy second-hand: I see newly wed couples selling off all sorts of wedding paraphernalia on local for sale sites on Facebook. Ebay is also a good place to pick up some of these bargains.
- Ask if you can hire your own DJ: This can sometimes be significantly cheaper than using the in-house DJ.
- Small things really add up: We only had seat covers for the chairs we used for the meal. We chose the cheaper tables cloths. (Nobody noticed that in the evening half the chairs didn’t have covers on them nor the standard of the table cloths).
- Be cheeky: Ask the hotel/place of reception for deals – these establishments know that huge amounts of money will be coming over the bar throughout the day – see if they can throw in any extras – by asking, we ended up with our hotel room for free on the night of the wedding.
- Ask for money rather than gifts: Doing this enabled us to have a honeymoon we would not have otherwise been able to afford.
- Scrimp on the alcohol: Opt for the basic wine package.
- Don’t spend money on things you don’t need: For instance, an elaborate sweet cart for the children or an orchestra as you walk down the aisle. Prioritise, consider the things you want most out of your big day.
Overall – this is your big day – make sure you have what you want and not what anybody else wants.
For similar posts, see my Family Life Category.
