Cutting Costs

I was at a family wedding last year that had no photographer, they asked all family and friends to take their own photos and share them with the B&G after the wedding. we each gave them a cd rom with our photos on it, as did many other guests, they also got more emailed to them and they had their pick of about 1000 photos! they also didn't send out invitations, just rang everybody a few months before, and again 2 weeks before when final numbers were needed, which I thought was more of a personal touch than invitations. they had one best man and one bridesmaid, this craic people have lately of having 4 or more bridesmaids is ridiculous, each bridesmaid must cost a good few bob between dress, shoes, hair, makeup etc.

Shabadu wrote:

Actually, if you want to cut costs, Eddie Hobbes recommends inviting tons of people and asking for cash gifts only.

Hehe wouldn't that be terribly rude? Cousins of mine had on their invitations that they would like money, I found that to be in very bad taste.:)

i think it makes sense though i would never do it.

As pointed out people are living together beofre they get married so they don't need the age old presents that used to be bought for newly married coupkes who are about to move into their first home. 10 kettle's knife sets etc that will be sitting around clogging up space.

Cash would be helpful, the wedding needs to be paid for and/or if there are kids it could be a great help too.

Figment wrote:

it was immediate family and close friends that we hat at our meal. It went great.

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What exactly do you mean by immediate family. just brother/ sisters and parents?

if so my wedding will only be 9. on both sides however if we included our extended familys like our cousins and aunts/unlces its going to be over 100.
As much as I love my sisters and my parents and his family I think I would like to share the wedding cermony, which to me will be the most important part of the day, with more that 10 people.

And Sorry i missed the fact that you invited close friends. Thats all i will be doing. even then my close friends and his close friends add up to another 30. This i think is managable.

well thats all thats important and inviting less people is going to reduce costs as long as it doesnt reduce the couples enjoyment of the day then i'm all for it.

Well last year I got married twice - once in a regsitry office in Switzerland where I now live, and then did the church wedding in Ireland a month and a half later. It didn't cost the earth and we saved loads by staying well away from most things peple would consider part of the traditional wedding. And as the bride I enjoyed both days enormously - couldn't have been better.

Where we saved money:

Made as much as we could ourselves (with helf of friends and family where necessary): all the invitations, mass books, thank you cards, the wedding cakes

The clothes
Wedding 1: dress was one I had bought in a sale a year previously.
Wedding 2: Made my own dress, and tops for the bridesmaids to match - the rest was bought and not for 100s of € either.
We also did our own hair, make-up etc

Didn't go with rented suits for the men - not my thing or theirs so everyone was happier off and more comfortable to boot.

A friend of my mothers who is good at flower arranging did the bouquets and arrangements. She was able to buy the flowers direclty from the wholesaler/importer and even though we paid for those the actual work was her wedding present to us.

Didn't get a photographer - a few friends did some photographs and videos for us and everyone at the wedding gave us coies of their photos. We've so many photos now - mostly all excellent I must say.

Didn't do the hotel thing. In both cases we had the wedding around lunch time. Afternoon activities were then planned: Wedding 1 boat trip on the nearby lake to a local wine producer, wine tasting for the afternoon (and yes the Swiss make some excellent wines) Wedding 2 - went to Bunratty folk park where we got some fab photos and then admittedly half of us spent half the afternoon in the pub - but we had a laugh

Then in both cases we then went to a restaraunt for the rest of the recpetion. I like good food so for me this was definitely the best decision. My sisters play guitar and sing so they provied the entertainment afterwards (along with the rest of guests - all of us were nicely merry at that stage).

But I guess the biggest saving was in terms of numbers. We only invited immediate family, our uncles and aunts and a few cousins (only those we are closest too) and our best friends. No buisness colleagues, friends of parents, neighbours etc. We made it known from day one that we were having a small family orientated wedding - no one took offence. In both case our numbers ended up in the mid 30s.

At the end of the day I had two days that I will always cherish. I wouldn't change a thing about them and would basically advise everyone I know to go with what you want and not what you feel is expected of you so if you feel like doing something a bit different go for it - it's your day out and it should be what you want.

Hey, we just got married last month and although the whole thing still cost us an arm and a leg, we did cut costs. Here's what we did, hope it helps:

1: We didn't have a wedding list and if anyone asked, we (or our parents etc) tried to explain that what we needed was to do up the apt and pay of the wedding so cash would be best.

2: The only kinda wedding list we had was in Trailfinders where some of our guests paid towards our honeymoon - great help.

3: The music in the church was sung/played by my friends (i'm lucky to have some fairly talented mates)

4: We used a car belonging to my father in law.

5: We designed and made our invites ourselves - i know this is some peoples idea of hell, but i'm into that stuff and loved it (although i'm not too sure if it was cheaper in the end)

6:Bought a fair amount of stuff on ebay - cameras for the tables/my veil etc.

7: A friend of ours is a DJ so his wedding pressie was his services when the band finished up.