Budget Wedding Tips!

[shonastar]

My sister was at a wedding last week where the mother of the bride made the cake, it was 3 seperate tiers of chocolate biscuit cake (the bride's favourite!) the cake was decorated with flakes all around the side and tied with a ribbon, it looked (and tasted) amazing and cost nothing compared to traditional cakes. I will try and get a photo but if you google image search "chocolate flake cake" you'll see what it looked like.

[kila2008]

KITTING OUT DA MEN!!

- If the groom and his posse own nice suits themselves, let them wear them as it will save you rental money - just get fabric and make cravats/ties (or whatever you call them) that co-ordinate with the colour theme/bridesmaids
- Get cheap suits in sales at one of those mens suit shops you always find in shopping centres that are offering cheaper suit options - at least the guys will have something that they can wear afterwards.


TRANSPORT:
- Check with family and friends to see if anyone owns a nice car that you would be happy to use and that is owned by someone willing to drive you in it.


WEDDING FAVOURS (not necessary but always a nice touch!)
- Make a donation to charity on behalf of your guest - most charities will allow you to provide written notes on the table to tell guests about the donation.
- Download free favour box templates off the web - google "free favour box templates" and you will find sites giving you a few different options - a bit time-consuming but you can then use whatever paper/materials you want - fill with sweets or whatever you want
- Christmas weddings - use christmas crackers
- Make you own bookmarks - all you need is card/or my favourite: watercolour paper purchased cheaply in pound/euro shop and some ribbon - you can print your names, wedding date, a thank you message, a love poem, quote from someone famous regarding love/marriage, pic of the two of you.
- Google this one as there are sooooo many ideas online of stuff you can make from soaps, bath bombs, personalised candles, notebooks, seed packs (as OP mentioned), etc....the list is really endless!

[mrsl]

Originally Posted by kila2008

PHOTOGRAPHY:
- Provide disposable cameras as previous poster suggested - remember quality of some disposable cameras can be a bit dodgy though
- Get some cheap blank cd's - put 1-2 in envelopes on each table with your address and a stamp on the envelope - ask your guests to take the cd home, put the pics from their digital cameras onto the cd and pop them in the post back to you.
- Provide a website address for one of those photo-sharing websites where guests can upload the pics they take of the wedding for you to access

Try http://www.mx2.co.uk/prodpage.asp?type=sub&sub=CMF for cheap disposable cameras. Currently £4 each which works out at €4.91 - p&p free

Also good for cheap rewritable CD's
http://www.mx2.co.uk/prodpage.asp?type=sub&sub=STG

Try http://photobucket.com/ to collect all those photos. Allows up to 10,000 photos and hours of video! For free.

[Elnr83]

You guys are going to save me sooooo much money :o)

The access in work sucks but I cannot wait to get home and check out all the sites you mentioned.

I also found a brilliant website with really cheap dresses and accessories. I haven't ordered anything yet so I can't recommend them for reliability but I'm hoping to order something small soon and I'll let you all know what it is like.

www.lightinthebox.com

[cianer]

Originally Posted by Bubbles2

At a wedding I was invited to recently the couple provided a disposable camera on each table and the guests then took photos of the guests at their table. I thought it was really lovely as they would be original and not as posed looking like you get with professional photographers (not meaning to insult any professional photographers out there) but you know what I mean.

A friend of mine did this at her wedding and it was a massive waste of money. It sounds nice in theory but what happened was that she got 12 disposeable cameras filled with photos of the table, beer bottles, drunk people's thumbs, and grainy photos of the dance floor. Disposeable cameras don't work well in the subdued lighting conditions at a wedding, and drunk people most definitely do not take good photos.

I thought it was a fabulous idea when I was at the wedding but having seen the outcome I think its a waste of money. Sorry to rain on the parade but it is a thread about saving money. =)


At our wedding my wife and I decided that there were two things we weren't willing to cut back on - our rings (because you have to look at them everyday) and the photos (because they are the memory of the day). Everything else could be cut back on. We didn't get a videographer because they tend to be more intrusive than a photographer and really who watches their wedding videos more than a couple of times? I've had to suffer through a few and they are painful if you aren't the bride or groom. Spend the money on a good photographer who will take casual shots of the day rather than the more traditional staged everybody-against-this-tree and pretend-like-you-are-walking-away-and-i'll-take-a-casual-shot photos which look crap IMO.

Our photographer cost a little more than the others but he cost a lot less than a photographer+videographer would have done. I remember him taking just two photos all day, even though there are 120 in the album. He was extremely unobtrusive and took lots of casual shots so the photos are of how it happened, hence no need for a videographer.

[gillo]

Hi all. I would have to disagree with cianer on this one. A really good videographer who knows what they're doing will not be obtrusive at all. On our wedding day we hired a guy that came recommended by word of mouth, the best sort of advertising imo, and I can honestly say the only time we were aware of his presence was during the meal when we had a chance to talk to him, and of course he wasn't using the camera then until the speeches started. And I have to say that my wedding video is one of my ost treasured possessions, because of how it captured things on the day that I and my hubby were too busy to have noticed, and also it's lovely to watch deceased members of the family looking and acting so happy, which can never be captured in a photo, professional or otherwise.
Anyway back to the matter in hand, a good way to save money is to ask your videographer if he would be willing to sell you some stills off the film, some might just give them to you included in the price. We got some beautiful shots from ours, and made a lovely album with them.
Cheers, gillo

[triciaL]

I know someone who went into all the wedding dress shops, tried on the dresses till she found the dress and size she wanted, 1800 euros, she noted down the size and stock number and went on the internet ,found the same dress and got it for 650 euros. As for wedding cars everyone knows someone or has a neighbour that has a merc or bmw or some type of large car. Give it a clean put few flowers in back window and ribbon on front and you save yourself a fortune.

[Fizzywitch]

We got married 2 years ago on Halloween. We decided to go up north as it was far less hassle and so much cheaper to book a registry wedding.
I borrowed my dress from a friends niece who was a goth, so that was suitable for our Halloween wedding!
The flowers were 'wooden roses' in Black and burnt orange, there was a bouquet, 2 corsages and numerous button holes all for £38 inc. delivery!

I bought some boots in the sale at Penny's for €12, hubby wore a suit he had bought a few years before.
We had a buffet that cost €100 at a local pub, so everyone had to buy their own drinks! lol

The best man took all the photo's with our camera so he is not in that many of them! we put the photos on a disc and had them printed out at the chemist. The photo's cost €12 all in!!

So, a very cheap and fantastic wedding we all had. Everyone said it was the best they had been to because it was so much fun.

At the end of the day, we were married like everyone else apart from the fact we probably spent €200 rather than the thousands that some people can spend!

[cascais]

hiya and first many congratulations to you both
i hope you both have a lovely day ( even though the weather will be porbably terrible...)

i had to make my own contribution to this thread, as i goty marraied recently and got lots of help from jumbletowners.

i agree completely with the invitations. there is no need to have them done, i done them myself and save myself a fortune, if you want to save on stamps, just drop them in the ltterboxes if the family lives near you ( every cent helps). i personnaly got some nice cream paper from easons at 2euro a ream and i only needed a ream and a half, i then used some of the leftover paper for my thank you cards
there is no need to print a wedding menu or names for the tables the hotel will probably do it for you ( they did for me). the names also is a personal choice some poeple refer to having seat assigned to them, if you just assign 10 people to a table of ten, you can let them decided where they seat and not have to worry about, swho should i put beside uncle smith who says dirty jokes all the time... he he he
ask the photographer to give you a cd with all the pictures and then print them in work or at home and send some with the thank you cards, i done this also and everyone thought it was a lovely thing.
do not get an album for the parents, if you have the cd of the pictures just print some nice ones, buy some nice albums in tescos and do your own.
print the wedding guest book ( i did that also) and it saved me 50 quid right there.

dress :
i got mine of a second hand shop in England and it was very cheap, get a bridesmaid or mother to get it for you and its even cheaper ( and they are happy to help -- i did not even see my one, but the bridesmaid knew exactly what i was after !)
limit the number of bridemaids, to one if at all possible ( the less number of bridesmaids, less dresses you have to buy). i got one from debenhams a cocktail dress in the sales for 80 quid and the bridemaid is actually happy she can wear it again...

cake, i spent a fir bit of money one the cake, but hey it was the first thing i got, so i was a bit naive...
only buy two or three tiers or else you ll be eating cake the same time next year !
print some cake boxes, done that too but forgot them on the day ( so poeple can help you eating the cake ). that went reaaly well, we gave away most of our cake ! and people really liked that... ( give some to the neighbours if you have some left, they will enjoy that too, while you are on honeymoon).

honeymoon. if at all possible get the guests to cover the honeymoon, we thought about that but the destination we went to wasn t the easiest, if your destination is usual enough, then it will work wonders on your budget and you will appreciate the guests presents even more .

get baskets for the favours in jumbletown and decorate them, it works really well for the favours.
for the favours i had maltesers ( you should have seen the face of the guy in tesco when i bought 60 megapacks of maltesers...), which worked out a lot cheaper than having them done. and some champagne bottles a kind jumbeltowner gave me and they worked wonders... thanks again lislaw for those everyone enjoyed them.

car
i got my father in law to pick me up and we decorated his car. i had no church as it was a civil ceremony and it works out that no one even saw the car as everyone was already seated when i arrived to the venue. another few hundred saved there.

i hope that helps a little,
all the best
hope you have a lovely time,

cascais

[Chris P]

Originally Posted by cascais

hiya and first many congratulations to you both
i hope you both have a lovely day...cascais

Hi cascais,

I remember well your thread in the Wanted forum -- you were the first "JumbleTown bride" :) in that you were determined to have an environmentally-friendly wedding that didn't bankrupt you! You set the example for all future green brides-to-be. Well done again!

Regards
Chris P
Admin

[bluecurlygirl]

Originally Posted by shonastar

My sister was at a wedding last week where the mother of the bride made the cake, it was 3 seperate tiers of chocolate biscuit cake (the bride's favourite!) the cake was decorated with flakes all around the side and tied with a ribbon, it looked (and tasted) amazing and cost nothing compared to traditional cakes. I will try and get a photo but if you google image search "chocolate flake cake" you'll see what it looked like.

My brother had a chocolate biscuit cake at his wedding a few years back and it had loads of coconut in it. My mammy told me it wasn't as nice as mine (which started out as hers but I hijacked it when I got older!). I have a recipe if anyone wants it. I make it for birthday parties for my kids/nieces/nephews and they love it (as do the adults). I always have to make an extra one to bring in to the tea club at work! No cooking involved and easy to make. If you have any kids in the family they'll love helping out because it's very messy, full of chocolate and they eat half of it before it hits the tins! Will upload photographic evidence of this later!!!

[bluecurlygirl]

I've included mars bar squares as well. These would do as favours for anyone with a sweet tooth!


GORGEOUS CHOCOLATE BISCUIT CAKE
(For 2lb loaf tin)

Ingredients

½ lb margarine breakfast cup of sugar
1 – 2 pkts Marietta biscuits Tablespoon cocoa
2 eggs

Method

1. Melt margarine and sugar in a saucepan over a low heat.

2. Break biscuits into bite size pieces.

3. When margarine and sugar have completely melted, remove from the heat and allow to cool.

4. Beat eggs and add to margarine mixture when almost cool. Mix in cocoa at this stage also.

5. Stir in the biscuits until they are all completely covered with the chocolate mixture.

6. Spoon the mixture into a greased tin and leave to set overnight in the fridge (if you can wait that long).

7. Throw everybody out of the house, put on a good movie and eat as much of the cake as you can stomach all by yourself!!!!!


GORGEOUS MARS BAR SQUARES

Ingredients

3 oz marshmallows 3 oz butter 3 mars bars
Cooking chocolate (milk) Rice Krispies

Method

1. Melt marshmallows, butter and chopped up mars bars in bowl over saucepan of hot water.

2. Stir in Rice Krispies.

3. Spoon into greased tin and leave in fridge to set.

4. When set, melt cooking chocolate in bowl over saucepan of hot water and pour over the rice krispie mixture.

5. Allow to set and cut into squares with a hot knife.

Enjoy!

Yes she's literally ladeling it into her!!!

[shonastar]

Wow, bluecurlygirl, your little girl is so adorable!!! Sorry this comment is so short............I'm off to the shops to buy marshmallows, mars bars, chocolate etc. Can't wait to try out your fab recipe xxx

[paprika]

Hi all,

I was able to save some money on my wedding on the jewells as well. One of my friends is very crafty and as a wedding gift she made my earrings, necklace and bracelet. They were made of small white beads and wire and the outcome was faboulus!

Regards,
p

Thanks Dave for adding the pic!

The bracelet is not on pic as it broke, and just sent it off to you Elnr, that's the white beads;)
I had two necklaces, as I changed dress at midnight and jewellery also.

[Elnr83]

I was only thinking of making my own today!!