Online ShopHow to have a cheap wedding
Wedding budget tips to help cut your costs...
Guests
Be ruthless and keep the numbers down to save hundreds. If you want to invite a lot of people to your wedding, invite more to the evening do after the meal, this way you won't have to spend so much on food. Alternatively, have a small wedding and throw a big party when you get back from honeymoon for friends who you weren't able to invite.
Catering
Stick to a simple menu using seasonal produce and serve your wedding cake for pudding. Have a buffet or a barbeque instead of a sit down meal as you're likely to need fewer waiting staff which should cut down on costs.
Wine
For wine, buy wholesale or in bulk and look out for deals in supermarkets as you could save a fortune, but do remember that your venue may charge corkage.
Cake
If you can’t afford a traditional three-tiered wedding cake with all the decorations, order a simple sponge from a cake maker or buy a pre-iced cake from the high street and have a go at decorating them yourself with a cute cake topper or ask your florist to decorate with fresh flowers.
Decoration
Instead of using flowers as decoration, consider using balloons to brighten up the reception or invest in silk flowers that can be kept forever as a keepsake of your day or even sold after the wedding to make some money back. If you really want flowers, make sure they're in season. Ask a friend to make your bouquet, use simple arrangements and consider reusing floral pew-ends as table centres which you could ask your ushers to move from the ceremony to your reception. Ornate arrangements that require wiring the flowers will always be more expensive.
Find out if there are other weddings taking place at your ceremony and reception venues and see if you can share any flowers. Often churches and register offices will have their own flowers which you could use but check beforehand if this is this case with your chosen venue.
Invitations
Make your own wedding invitations. Give yourself plenty of time to make them and enlist the help of your bridesmaids for some creative evenings! You can add unique personal touches and they will be even more special because you’ll have made them yourself.
Favours
Make your own favours or try budget alternatives like: Love Heart sweets in a favour box A bowl of sweets in the centre of the table A personalised chocolate placed on each napkin Individual candles Mini crackers A heart-shaped sparkler on each guest's napkin A simple favour box or bag filled with Jelly Bean sweets.
Place cards
Make your own place cards. Get some large pebbles from the beach or a garden centre, wash them and use glass paint to write on them. They’ll look lovely and your guests can take them home as paper weights! Or you could try tying a luggage tag to the stem of each person's wine glass. Decorate plain place cards with trims or feathers.
For more top budgetting tips read our Clever Ways to Save special.
