Ideas how to save money

Hi everyone, new to the site so just thought I'd say hi :)

My other half popped the question recently and we are thinking of getting married next year, maybe august or september time.

Just wondered if anyone had any ideas on how to save money so that we don't bankrupt ourselves but still have a wonderful day??

Thanks Cassie :)

Welcome to Hitched and congrats

Theres no real "tips" as it were, just make sure you set a budget and stick to it, shop around for everything and make sure you haggle with all of your suplliers and venues etc.

Oh and make Ebay your friend......!

Welcome to Hitched! Few suggestions from me.....

1.come up with a budget first, and work to that.

2.Dont buy anything unless you definitely want it (its dead easy to impulse buy all the pretty wedding things!)

There are loads of Brides to be, and old marrieds on here who can help point you in the right direction to find some of the best buys.

Enjoy planning

Congratulations & Welcome to hitched!

I find setting a budget first is the best place to start, but if your anything like me i didnt have a clue how much things costs etc so might be worth writing a list of what you want & need and research prices. then maybe aim to save so much money every month. Put it into a separate account so you dont spend it. It's always best to pay for things there & then because you'll find you'll get to a point where you have to pay for everything at once & it can become a bit of a struggle.

Me & My partner saved £2 coins & put them in a whisky bottle.....we had around £200 within a few months.


Hope this helps! xx

Haggle, Haggle, Haggle.....nothing lost if they say no.

OH and I have a standing order set up each month and that goes into a seperate account. We also have a Guiness tin for £1 coins.

He, we're also trying to do it on a budget - we've made our own invitations (time consuming, but easily half the cost of buying ready made), we're getting a cake from M&S and decorating with flowers rather than spending more on a decorated cake...I definitely agree with the tips about using Ebay extensively!

Hunt for vouchers online!

Check sites like groupon, kgbdeals etc for stuff

Use cashback sites (quidco and topcashback are my favourites) 

If you are buying on ebay, get your cashback from topcashback - its not much (40% of the ebay revenue) but it all adds up if you are buying lots from there!

if you are happy to leave booking your ceremony and reception til the last minute, there are often late deals available at hotels or other wedding venues that they need to fill and will do it often very cheaply.

Down side is that you might not be able to get your 1st choice of venue.

these ideas have saved us a fortune

1) home make as much as you can, including favours, our favours is costing pence per guest!

2) go to shops for your dresses, once you have found the style you like, check the net in case other shops have it for sale cheaper, or preloved iif that is something you are happy with- my dress was £1700 in shop, I got for £400 brand new

3) dont buy any extras with the venue, we didn't and our venue has been emailing us with the latest new offer, we have just this second book canapys and up lighters, should have been over £700 if booked straight away, but I haggled with offer price for booking 2 things and got them both for £320

4) get everything off ebay! We had a clear out and sold lots of things, and left the money in our paypal accounts to save being charged for taking it out.  We then used that for various ebay bits, like stationary, tiara I even got my underwear from there!

Hi, Cassie and welcome to hitched!

We are also on a quite tight budget which diminished even more when my OH lost his job in January! We are home-making centrepieces (below) and as the theme is Winter Woodland, we had lots of fun with his parents, who live in Scotland, picking pine cones and other woodland stuff.

A former work colleague who has had cake-making training and lots of experience is making our cake and our own HIB (Hitcher-in-business) Rainbow Florist recommended us a very talented and reasonable local florist who worked wonders within our budget.

We are also getting married on a Friday which was cheaper than Saturdays venue and Registrar-wise, not to mention the TOG (photographer) gave us a 10% discount for it being a winter wedding. Speaking of Registrar, do not underestimate the cost - I nearly fainted when they said it would cost £330 for the Registrar to marry us at our licensed venue, plus £32.50 each for us to give notice of marriage. The fee for the marriage certificate is £3.50 and must be paid on the day. All these fees are different for each Registry Office depending on the area you live  / get married in, and are reviewed by the local Registry Offices every year in April.

There are many ways you can save, many of them already mentioned by previous posters!

Good luck and enjoy this lovely planning period between proposal and wedding!

Some very good advice here!  Cutting down on non-essentials really helps us.  We also have a coin jar that quickly adds up to a decent amount.

Saving into a separate account, and ebaying items you don't want can also really help.

With suppliers, work out what you need before you start looking around.  Get a few quotes after telling them what you're after so you're not simply picking the cheapest and hoping they'll do a good job.

For our wedding, the Venue had a Winter Discount, and we knew we'd not be able to get enough money together for a summer wedding anyway.

If you're not that worried about a summer wedding, then you may also be able to get a good venue discount in the off-peak season.  The added bonus is there is less risk of guests booking a holiday out of the Summer months.

Some TOGs offer a digital only service where you get a CD of images for you to arrange printing.  You may be able to negotiate a package where they provide a few images on CD, and you are able to ask them to provide a normal album when you've managed to save a bit more(ie 3 or 4 months after the wedding).

This isn't really a saving, but may give you breathing space.

Its also about getting good value from suppliers and venues.  Its often cheaper to use an existing supplier than to find another company (who will need to travel etc).

Jason

A few tips for you:

*Have canapes and dont have a starter

*Have your Wedding cake as dessert

*Use escort cards (people are sat at the table of your choosing but they choose thier specific seat) and use them as placecards and favours

*Have your civil ceremony and reception in the same place (avoids the needs for cars)

*look at classifieds and you and your wedding forums etc for people offering free photography, a lot of people want reportage photography and your guests are the best for this as they will get you from all angles when your not expecting it, thus making it more natural!

*Get your bridesmaids to buy thier own dresses and in their own style but you choose the colour

*find venues that dont charge corkage then either go to france for the day (do a testing before ;) or go to the supermarkets where you can get about 3 for £10 for go to independat off licences like threshers and get 3 for the price of 2

Wedding Co-ordinators can often save you their fees whilst leaving YOU in control of YOUR wedding. Weddings of Distinction are offering 30% off ALL Wedding Co-ordination fees for Weddings booked before the end of July, for more information and prices please visit our website!

Hi and welcome! 

Best advice would be to set a budget, we decided that a big fancy house would be too expensve for us so have decided to have our reception at a cricket club, saves a bit of money but the place is gorgeous!

We are doing our whole wedding for £2,500 - including honeymoon!!!

Our ceremony is at our local registry office.   Not sure how much I thought it would be but me and OH nearly snapped the registrars hand off when she said the total cost of having our wedding there would £120!

Our photographer is doing us a package for £200.  His normal price is £500 but as its a Friday and plus the fact we haggled with him we got it down.  For £500 he normally does the whole day and evening, plus you get an engagement shoot too, but he only gives you the photos on DVD/CD so you have to get them printed yourself.  We said we only wanted him for the daytime and that we didn't want the engagement shoot - explained to him what a tight budget we were on (put on the sob story of 2 kids, I lost my job, etc etc) and he did it for £200!

My dress is second hand from ebay - cost me £250!  The woman had it professionally dry cleaned and trust me when I say you cannot tell it has been worn before! Its immaculate!  

For the daytime, we are only having family.  When sending out our invites we have said to everyone that whilst we are only sending them evening invites, they are more than welcome to come to the day and watch us take our vows, but to be aware that after the vows and photos we will be disappearing for an intimate and romantic meal and will rejoin them at the evening party!  

We are having a small, intimate meal at a local restaurant - just us and family.  They are only charging us £25 a head for a 3 course meal!  

Then in the evening we are having a reception at the local rugby club.  Cost us £180 to hire for the night! Bargain.  

We have just tried to source as many low cost ways of doing the wedding as possible.  For our cake, I've managed to get the price down from £350 to £240 just by shopping around...  the dj is a friend of a friend and is doing it for £180.  

Invites etc, we got from ebay...  Bridesmaid dress from Ebay....  Postbox from Ebay.... Shoes from Ebay.....  Trust me - on a budget, ebay can be your best friend!

For our honeymoon, we saved up our tesco vouchers and swapped them for Cosmos holiday vouchers and so are getting a week in a lush 4 star hotel in Portugal for about £200 (between us, NOT each!).

It can be done - you just have to research, research, research!  And Barter, Barter, Barter!!!

Congrats! My biggest piece of advise would be to keep your guestlist small - you can literally save thousands by having a smaller venue and smaller guestlist, and I think other than the honeymoon your guests (especially since food is priced per head) will be the biggest expenditure. Also don't feel pressure to spend lots of money on entertainment and extras if you don't want them, your guests really won't notice if there isn't live music during the wedding breakfast or if you have a DJ instead of a live band in the evening. We didn't set a budget for each thing but if you are worried about money this would be a good idea, there are website which show the "average" costs for things like cake, flowers etc so you can get some idea of what prices are out there.