Weddings are wonderful. Everyone’s in great spirits, you make new friends and you reunite with loved ones you haven’t seen in years. And of course, the bride and groom declare their eternal love for each other.
But… the amount of money they swallow up truly brings tears to my eyes. Most estimates around the web state that the average cost of a wedding stands at around TWENTY THOUSAND POUNDS. Many sources even claim it’s over £30,000.
That’s not far off the average yearly income in the UK. Which means many people are spending a year’s salary on one day. It truly blows my mind.
Well, each to their own. I’m not here to judge. We’d just rather spend our money on other things. And planning the wedding was stressful enough without years’ worth of debt on top.
It’s been almost a year since our wedding and for me (and thankfully, for my wife), all that mattered was getting the people we loved together and everyone having a good time. We were pretty ruthless when it came to what we were actually going to spend money on.
We’ve been to plenty of weddings, from the wildly extravagant to the plain and simple. And there’s no correlation between the amount spent on the wedding and a) how much everyone enjoyed it and b) the success of the marriage.
Looking back on those occasions, there are only a few things we remember: who we spent time with, the vibe and level of enjoyment, some of the poignant moments from speeches and such.
The list of things I now have absolutely no recollection of is far, far longer: flowers, decorations, food, invitations, canapes (actually, I do remember the canapes at my cousin’s wedding: these little honey-glazed sausages, absolutely phenomenal), cakes, wedding favours, even the dresses the brides wore.
Basically, all of those things that retailers charge you through the nose for, and people buy because… well because they feel like they ought to I suppose. Not sure why to be honest.
Anyway, we figured, why spend a ton of money on things that people will have forgotten about within weeks, days, or in some cases, hours of the wedding?
So, if you’re one of those people who’s had your fantasy wedding playing on a loop in your mind every day for the last twenty years of your life, and you’ll spare no expense to make it happen, you might as well stop reading now and go scope out some castles for your big day instead.
But if you’re looking for a few penny-pinching tips to keep your wedding expenses down, read on.
Keep it intimate
We did ours a little differently and had our wedding over two days. Initially, this was partly due to covid restrictions that were in place when we booked it. Even though they were lifted by the time we were married, we decided to stick with those arrangements. It worked well as it ensured the kids didn’t get exhausted and turn into nightmares, and it just gave us all a bit more reathign space and time to relax and enjoy it.
On the Saturday, we had our ceremony in the morning, followed by a meal. As the restrictions only allowed 30 people in the ceremony venue, we only invited our immediate families. This kept the ceremony and meal nice and intimate, and also kept our catering costs right down.
The next day, a bank holiday Sunday, we invited our friends and extended families to a big party (more on that later).
With many venues charging ridiculous amounts per head for your wedding breakfast, keeping this part of your wedding to your nearest and dearest can save you plenty of cash.
Be ruthless
Think about what is important. Will expensive flowers, a fancy cake and wedding favours have any bearing whatsoever on how much everyone enjoys the day? Or indeed the success of your marriage? If you think they will, then go for it. But if not, why bother?
Our policy was simple. Basically, if something was going to last long beyond the wedding, we’d be OK shelling out a bit for it. If it was something that was solely for the day itself, we’d spend as little as possible on it.
Since we were going to wear our suit and dress twice, we thought we could splash out a bit on those. We also spent a fair chunk on rings and photos since they last a lifetime.
But many of those ‘traditional’ frivolities, that you only see once but add up to thousands of pounds, went out of the window. And guess what – nobody cared.
Use your network
You’ll be amazed at what you can unearth when you take a proper look at what your family and friends do. We’re incredibly lucky to know loads of smashing people and we made some huge savings by getting a bit of help from them.
Let them eat cake…
Amy’s mum is a cake masher… I mean master, so she rustled us up a fabulous tiered sponge cake. One of those naked cakes that are growing in popularity – no icing, just loads of fresh fruit scattered around it.
If you know an amateur baker, ask them if they’ll sort you something out for your wedding. Nobody pays that much attention to a cake anyway.
Call in some breakfast backup
While we did have a court around Leeds centre for somewhere to have our post-wedding meal, most restaurants wouldn’t take big bookings due to covid restrictions. As luck would have it, my best pal runs an Italian restaurant. It’s not typically a place that caters for weddings, but he was able to set us up in a side room for our post-wedding meal. It was ideal for the occasion, and it cost far less than those places that sell themselves as ‘wedding venues’ and therefore charge a massive premium.
Know someone who works in a restaurant? Maybe they can do you a favour for your budget wedding breakfast (by the way, why is it called a wedding breakfast?).
Cheesy tunes are all you need
Whenever there’s been a live musician or singers at a wedding I’ve been to, they’ve mostly been pretty forgettable. Everyone knows the sort of cheesy classics that you need at your wedding do. We’re lucky that Amy’s brother has been in successful bands and took great pleasure in taking charge of the music at our party.
Get a mate who’s into music to bring a PA system and blast out the bangers that everyone knows and loves. Failing that, just create a playlist on your phone or laptop and plug it into the sound system.
Frugal photography
A lad I knew from my cricket days is a sports photographer, with his work featured in the national press. He knows his business and he’d dabbled in weddings before. While we paid him a few hundred quid for some proper, professionally edited photos, it cost us a lot less than if we’d used a wedding specialist we found on the internet.
While photos last a lifetime and might be something you want to have done properly, ask around to see if anyone who’s into photography could do it cheaply like we did. And you could easily get good photos for no cost, with the quality of modern smartphone cameras. Just ask your guests to take plenty of photos and send them to you afterwards.
Hitch a lift to get hitched
We really struck gold with this one. This’ll be one of the only things I mention that’s difficult to replicate.
Amy’s brother’s mate has a vintage Mustang. It just so happened that he was considering putting it to use with a side-hustle doing weddings, so he used us as his trial run. So he only charged us for the fuel (which Amy’s brother covered as a gift anyway).
You don’t need to spend loads hiring a fancy car. Just see if anyone you know has got a nice big car (BMW or Merc saloon would be great) and could give you a ride for the day, with you just paying for their fuel. You can still arrive in style.
Do things yourselves
If you’ve got the time and energy, you can do a lot of those little, yet disproportionately expensive, things yourself.
DIY Decorations
Amy had the ingenious idea of creating those glass bottle decorations with fairy lights inside. We collected fancy wine and gin bottles and asked my mate at the restaurant to do the same. For twenty quid or so, we also bought a load of fairy lights with fake corks from Amazon.
A couple of days work for Amy, her mum and her friend and hey presto! Dozens of delightful tabletop decorations. They looked great at both the meal and the party and we could even pass them on to Amy’s brother for his wedding.
Internet invitations
The cost of fancy invitations and their delivery can easily run to hundreds of pounds. So we decided to harness the power of technology. I knocked up some invitations using Microsoft Publisher, complete with an elegant border and decorative font. I screenshotted them and emailed them out to all our guests. (Since then I’ve discovered Canva, which is a great free tool for graphic design with a function for making invitations. Use this!).
This was pretty much the only thing that I worried might come across as trashy and cheap. I mitigated this by writing a poem on the invitations, which gave them a more personal touch and went down really well. You can also justify sending them electronically with the environmental benefits of not using paper products and not having to use fuel to deliver them physically.
Avoid venue vanity
Ever seen Escape to the Chateau? That’s where Amy wanted to get married. I would’ve loved that as well. It’s a staggeringly beautiful place.
However, since it costs tens of thousands of pounds, we would’ve arrived back home to years of poverty and misery, probably leading to an ugly divorce. So not really worth it.
Thankfully, it doesn’t matter where you get married or where you have your celebrations. I’ve been to wedding receptions in the ballrooms of country houses and the back rooms of curry houses, and I’ve had an equally good time at both.
We got married in a basic civil ceremony at Leeds Civic Hall, a surprisingly grand and beautiful building. Our reception was at a golf club and it was fab – scenic views, a well-stocked bar, and hearty hot beef and pork sandwiches at a fiver a head. By this point, we’d saved so much money that we were able to pay a couple of drinks on at the bar for all ninety-or-so guests.
Registry offices are the cheapest option for ceremonies, followed by town halls and churches. A quick Google search will show plenty of local golf clubs, sports clubs, pubs and quirkier options like converted barns that offer cheap room hire, ideal for your reception.
Fake is fine
Faux can still look fabulous at a fraction of the cost.
False flowers
While we loved the idea of our wedding ablaze with the vibrant colours and fragrances of fresh flowers, a single bouquet from a specialist florist would’ve cost about the same as our weekly food shop.
We went with some simple bouquets and buttonholes made from silky white fabric. This was partly done in case covid forced us to cancel the wedding – the flowers wouldn’t wilt. But they looked fantastic and did the job marvellously.
We also got lots of decorations from The Range, including fake flowers for tabletops and faux lanterns to border the dancefloor. It all looked great.
Rings outside the box
Although we didn’t spend a fortune on our rings, they were one of our more significant expenses. As they’re a lifelong feature, we thought it was worth investing in. I went with a simple solitaire diamond for Amy’s engagement ring, though cheaper alternative stones such as moissanite, aquamarine or cubic zirconia are popular and just as pretty.
We both opted for a simple yellow gold band for our wedding ring, which cost several hundred pounds.
However, I know a few guys who’ve gone for increasingly popular tungsten wedding bands. They don’t scratch or fade, they come in striking charcoal colours and are cost much less than traditional rings made from precious metals. Definitely worth a look!
Conclusion
While there were more things that helped us saved a few quid on our wedding – getting Amy’s hairdresser colleague to do her and the bridesmaids’ hair, for example – I think I’ve made my point by now.
We ended up spending around £5,000 all-in-all. Still a fair whack for one day, but we won’t be paying it off for the rest of the decade.
A lot of it comes down to mindset – if money isn’t a concern for you and saying your vows in a castle and sipping champagne from gilded goblets with Elton John crooning over a grand piano will make you happy, then go for it.
But if you are on a budget, then think about what’s really important. When you look back in a year’s time, what will you actually cherish from the day? Don’t waste money on all the frills and frivolities just to keep up appearances or because of the pressure from the wedding industry and elsewhere to put on some sort of extravaganza.
You do you, and if that means keeping things low-key and simple, that’s absolutely fine. You can find some more ways to have a wonderful wedding without breaking the bank here.
Got any more wedding budgeting tips? Let me know.
Recent Comments