Saving for Wedding: Being Frugal!

clumsyklutz

So I haven't seen this up here yet and I thought it would be a good idea for brides/grooms to be to share the ways they've been saving money in either their everyday life to put towards the wedding or how they're being frugal planning the wedding!

So I'll start:

I stock up on bread, large bags of cheese and ham, noodles etc for my lunches and leave them in work for lunch, costing me less than €5.00 a week for lunch (as opposed to a roll/sandwich and tea/coffee every day for lunch). This has allowed me an extra €10.00 a week towards my savings!

His mum is doing my hair and bridesmaids hair (has agreed to do all free, even though I offered to pay) - Saving around 100-150 euro

A friend is doing my make up and bridesmaids too, (only charging 40.00 for both bridesmaids ) - easily saving 60 euro.

So please feel free to share tips and tricks, I'm dying to learn and save more :P

January

Making my own button bouquets, will save a few bob over a flower package (not getting married in church so no church flowers).

Aunt is making the wedding cake.

One of the bridesmaids is doing make up for us all the morning of the wedding, she is a professional MUA and is doing it as her gift.

clumsyklutz

Having someone make the cake that you know really adds a personal touch to the wedding too.

The button bouquets sound like a great idea, is there much involved?

January

clumsyklutz wrote: »

Having someone make the cake that you know really adds a personal touch to the wedding too.

The button bouquets sound like a great idea, is there much involved?

Time mostly for the button bouquets... Supplies are easily sourced (buttons, floral wire, ribbon and a bouquet holder) from ebay. Follow tutorial on youtube... The price people charge for them on sites is ludicrous!

clumsyklutz

Fair play to you , only for I'm terrible at anything more complicated than cutting and pasting I would have done it :P, though I did also save money by using a lovely template and a few accessories from the art & hobby shop to make save the dates (getting married abroad so wanted to give people plenty of notice).

You never know, you might be able to start charging for them soon too :P...more money for wedding supplies!

I got married in the month of February, so I bought a lot of things in the January sales like bridesmaids shoes, handbags etc. I bought my own shoes in the January sales as well, it made a difference

rainbow kirby

We are hoping to do a civil ceremony and reception on the same site, which saves on the wedding car - just seems like such a waste of money to us.

My dress was £190 total. Took advantage of an end of line deal at Vivien of Holloway and got exactly what I wanted from a dress with the only dress I tried on.

Getting married in Ireland when living in the UK is a frugal thing in its own right - sterling is quite strong against the euro at the moment so we have a bit more spending power back home. It's also pretty much half the price of a London wedding.

clumsyklutz

Wow that was an excellent price for a dress! You really got lucky especially at VOH

I thought Ireland was expensive to get married in, what's the average for a London wedding?

Pistachios & cream

I'm just automatically moving €650 a month to wedding savings. I still have plenty to pay the bills and other expenses but it does mean i'm more mindful of miscellaneous spending. Staying out of penneys helps too as i am way too tempted to buy stuff there and it all adds up.

I find being organised with the food shopping is a big thing too. I spent nearly a fiver today on a soup, yoghurt and some fruit as i hadn't made a batch of soup in a while and there were no leftovers cos we were at our parents this weekend! I could have made soup for the week for half that and usually buy large containers of yoghurt and split it into small containers.

Must make soup tonight!

rainbow kirby

clumsyklutz wrote: »

I thought Ireland was expensive to get married in, what's the average for a London wedding?

(for reference, we want a civil ceremony with a reception for around 60-80 guests.)

The cost of the ceremony itself varies depending on what day of the week you have it - at my local town hall (Islington) it varies from £50 on a Monday morning to around £500 on a Saturday, depending on how many guests and which room you want to use.

We found it very difficult to find any reception venues who wanted less than around £80 a head for the reception, with much less included for that than what you would get as part of a wedding package in Ireland. Many venues charge three figures per head with a 100 guest chargeable minimum. We looked at London Zoo as we are ZSL members and thought it would be cool, but their rates were awful too! £75/head for a barbecue and a 6pm finish, around £100/head for anything else.

An awful lot of venues have a very early finish too - almost none later than 1am, but many finishing at 11pm. Not exactly what our families would be expecting!

We were offered crap block rates for the hotels too - one venue we looked at was offering £200/night as a special offer. This is especially obnoxious because around 90% of our guests would be travelling from Ireland anyway.

wuffly

We planned our wedding at home from abroad and so to do a lot online and ask family to help out. It really made a huge difference to the cost. My mother made the cake and a good friend iced it. Sister inlaw designed and got the invites printed as her gift and made the cake toppers, other sis in law did the mass booklets. My brothers sorted the car and dj as their present. I borrowed my hair piece, used jewellary i had, only had one bridesmaid I used etsy for ideas some great diy stuff on there. We paid for as much as we could monthly so there was very little to pay off on the day. Any gifts of money we got we were able to save. There is a great budget sheet on weddingsonline i would highly recommend it. Really brings home what you are spending where, it was great to see it coming down as we chipped away at things. i would say thousands of google searches and we found almost everything cheaper than we were expecting. And nothing saves you like a smile and a good attitude, so many places see bridezilla's when someone friendly walks in they are more inclined to give a discount, got money off my dress and veil, i was pretty happy anyway as it was half the price a shop here was charging for it. Re saving over all we just didn't do luxuries like hols or dinners out and we got married on a thurs cardinal sin!!! Setting a wedding saving amount is a good idea, as if you can be frugal mostly you can still get the odd treat! Which you will need best of luck,

clumsyklutz

rainbow kirby wrote: »

(for reference, we want a civil ceremony with a reception for around 60-80 guests.)

The cost of the ceremony itself varies depending on what day of the week you have it - at my local town hall (Islington) it varies from £50 on a Monday morning to around £500 on a Saturday, depending on how many guests and which room you want to use.

We found it very difficult to find any reception venues who wanted less than around £80 a head for the reception, with much less included for that than what you would get as part of a wedding package in Ireland. Many venues charge three figures per head with a 100 guest chargeable minimum. We looked at London Zoo as we are ZSL members and thought it would be cool, but their rates were awful too! £75/head for a barbecue and a 6pm finish, around £100/head for anything else.

An awful lot of venues have a very early finish too - almost none later than 1am, but many finishing at 11pm. Not exactly what our families would be expecting!

We were offered crap block rates for the hotels too - one venue we looked at was offering £200/night as a special offer. This is especially obnoxious because around 90% of our guests would be travelling from Ireland anyway.

The Zoo idea would have been very cool! Though I can't imagine many guests (especially those travelling from Ireland) being too pleased with a very early finish. Is there a reason for the really early finish?

That was their best price for a room per night? Was it five star service :O. Wow it seems Ireland really is cheaper!

rainbow kirby

That hotel price was in a relatively average 4 star hotel. Nothing hugely special about it, it wasn't in the west end or anything.

January

clumsyklutz wrote: »

The Zoo idea would have been very cool! Though I can't imagine many guests (especially those travelling from Ireland) being too pleased with a very early finish. Is there a reason for the really early finish?

That was their best price for a room per night? Was it five star service :O. Wow it seems Ireland really is cheaper!

Pubs and bars close earlier in England as a rule and I'm not sure there's such a thing as a bar extension over in England!

clumsyklutz

wuffly wrote: »

We planned our wedding at home from abroad and so to do a lot online and ask family to help out. It really made a huge difference to the cost. My mother made the cake and a good friend iced it. Sister inlaw designed and got the invites printed as her gift and made the cake toppers, other sis in law did the mass booklets. My brothers sorted the car and dj as their present. I borrowed my hair piece, used jewellary i had, only had one bridesmaid I used etsy for ideas some great diy stuff on there. We paid for as much as we could monthly so there was very little to pay off on the day. Any gifts of money we got we were able to save. There is a great budget sheet on weddingsonline i would highly recommend it. Really brings home what you are spending where, it was great to see it coming down as we chipped away at things. i would say thousands of google searches and we found almost everything cheaper than we were expecting. And nothing saves you like a smile and a good attitude, so many places see bridezilla's when someone friendly walks in they are more inclined to give a discount, got money off my dress and veil, i was pretty happy anyway as it was half the price a shop here was charging for it. Re saving over all we just didn't do luxuries like hols or dinners out and we got married on a thurs cardinal sin!!! Setting a wedding saving amount is a good idea, as if you can be frugal mostly you can still get the odd treat! Which you will need best of luck,

I've really learned that from planning the wedding that most people really are happy to help out and be a part of your big day. Since I'm getting married abroad, we can't have anyone make our cake over here or bouquets etc, so all that's been done over there - stress! But any favours I can call in - I'm doing!

That online planner sounds very useful, I must check it out, I mean I know how much everything is costing but to see it in black and white helps.

We've been saving a set amount every week and then whatever else we can save on that week too goes in the credit union along with our usual savings. We found selling on Adverts was also another good way to get some extra cash for my dream dress :P

We're getting married on a Thursday too :O, but ours is a civil ceremony . Saves a lot of money!

I do miss dinners out and this time last year I was getting ready to go to Rome, but I know it will all be worth it in the end.

clumsyklutz

rainbow kirby wrote: »

That hotel price was in a relatively average 4 star hotel. Nothing hugely special about it, it wasn't in the west end or anything.

Wow I'd definitely be taking my money elsewhere!

wuffly

clumsyklutz wrote: »

I do miss dinners out and this time last year I was getting ready to go to Rome, but I know it will all be worth it in the end.

It really is worth it, get up as early as you can on the day and stay up as late as you can, just relax and take it all in. Leave the stress to other people (my bridesmaid and brother dealt with everything on the day). I was so not a wedding person and i still cant get over how much i actually enjoyed it!

clumsyklutz

wuffly wrote: »

It really is worth it, get up as early as you can on the day and stay up as late as you can, just relax and take it all in. Leave the stress to other people (my bridesmaid and brother dealt with everything on the day). I was so not a wedding person and i still cant get over how much i actually enjoyed it!

I will definitely be doing that. I want to take in as much as I possibly can . I really do need to ask someone to handle everything on the day, I'm just trying to find someone level headed enough! :P

Berty

We've been saving since September 13 or our September 14 wedding and given ourselves 52 weeks to save X amount. We never took into account any wayward money like Commission or Tax Back.

We costed the wedding we wanted and divided it by 52, figured we could afford both the wedding and the savings to went for it.

It's been hard so far because living like monks can be difficult especially when we still have other demands on us like communions, other weddings, stag parties, hen parties(ours and theirs) and all of lifes little surprises looking for our money.

I could do with a new pants for work and some shirts but even spending €10 on a shirt in pennys is hard these days. After the wedding it will be grand though.

John Mason

i made:


the centre pieces, the bouquet and buttonaires, from buttons;
the cake (cake pops - cost about 20e);
the invitations (cost 10.50e);
the booklets (cost 5e)

Didnt bother with:

Bridesmaids or Grooms men;
Photographers;
Cars;
DJ;
Church;
Flowers;
gifts for parents;
things for the tables;
wedding dress;
Hotel;



Hair and make-up cost 30e in local salon

Band were friends who played as a wedding gift

Didnt get married until 5.30pm, and had dinner at 6.30pm, so we didnt have to pay for a drinks reception. Plus i didnt have to get out of bed until 1.30pm which was brilliant.

basically anything that required effort we scraped.