For those of you who don’t know, and in case you haven’t heard me go on about it for the last few months, I’M ENGAGED. That’s right, Skint Dad popped the question while down on one knee, in the rain, and asked to make a decent woman out of me. About time too, I might add.
After all the excitement comes a bombardment of questions from loved ones, friends and well-wishers who want to know when, where and how will the wedding take form. These questions can easily bamboozle anyone and they left me a little blurry eyed.
As the total romantic, that Skint Dad is, he surprised me on my birthday by confirming that we would book our wedding day a year from then. Just 365 days to plan the wedding, and my joint birthday to boot.
It certainly felt like a whirlwind so I stopped, took a step back, and decided not to look at anything wedding related until the festivities of Christmas were well out of the way.
Now, with Christmas back in the box with the tree and all the little bits of plastic pine that inevitably find their way into the smallest cracks by the skirting board finally vacuumed up and put in the bin, it was about time I started to think all things wedding.
Right, that’s it then, let the budget wedding planning commence…..but…..where on earth do I start??
Website after website. Newsagent shelves after newsagent shelves stacked with similar looking blushing brides. Well wishing people dropping hints and tips here there and everywhere. It can all get a bit too much, especially when on a budget, and there’s just so many places to look!
As there is so much going on, research must play a major part in everything. Yes there are flowers but what type and how many and what colour. Yes there are dresses but what type…this list is endless!
Research is key before any sharp decisions are made and I followed these steps to start making “the” wedding into “our” wedding.
1. Any ideas?
Before I did anything I did a lot of research to see what I like and what I didn’t like.
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I used my old dear favourite Pinterest. Skint Dad (very kindly) shared his Pinterest account with me and I set up a new board tracking wedding stuff. And it’s free.
Pinterest is a great place to visualise what you actually want, and get new ideas of things that you could craft yourself. The world is your oyster with Pinterest.
I’ve tried to use it as a place to pin ideas from websites I visit and from what others have pinned.
If you have some spare cash, you could pick up some wedding mags but they cover the same topics, just changing the colours and themes for the seasons. However, remember you can get the same information free online.
2. What’s the budget?
It’s all very well and good saying you want the latest dress off the catwalk or a 2 week honeymoon in the Maldives, but what can you actually afford?
We sat down and worked out how much we wanted and could afford to spend on a wedding, which was not a lot. But that doesn’t stop me, or Skint Dad, wanting things to go our way on our big day.
With that in mind, we will adapt, and see what we can get for a bargain.
There is a great budget wedding planner tool on www.hitched.co.uk where you put in your total budget and it splits how much you can then spend on each “essential” item. I looked down the list and realised there were loads of things that were considered normal for a wedding that we didn’t want like transport – we don’t need a big fancy car – saving made already!
3. What was that excellent idea I had last week?
I have to admit that I’m a little forgetful that’s why I love a good list.
There are so many things to think about and things I am still learning that I have forgotten about already, so I’m sure there’s more that will spring up on us.
I needed to get the ideas that we’ve had down some where so I made a little wedding planning book to track everything and tick off things we’ve done.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a spread sheet and we’ll be tracking our expenditure but this is a way to try to co-ordinate everything. If nothing else, it gives us a plan to share ideas when we are not together and a place to look back to see some of our thoughts. I’m sure in a few years time we’ll look back and think we were nuts with some of them.
I gathered a few sheets of plain paper for each section and then cut my own dividers using coloured paper. A quick hole punch later and some wool through the holes, a new book was made.
The sections I created are:
Important Stuff – to note phone numbers, dates we mustn’t miss, the timeline and countdown
Ceremony and Reception –for the running order of the ceremony, our anticipated music, food
Guest list – a place to note who we want during the wedding and who’ll be invited to the party afterwards
The Dress (and other outfits) – with ideas of where to get some accessories
Entertainment and photography – ideas, ideas, and other crazy ideas for the day and night
Decorations and Invites – what do we want to have on the tables? what are our invitations going to look like, or what will they say?
Misc – for anything else which I’m sure I’ve forgotten
4. Who do you know?
I have a lovely family member-to-be who is a fantastic hairdresser and stylist. I used to work with a very talented photographer. Skint Dad has some contacts who he can call upon.
If you have a look in your phone book, ask your Facebook friends or branch out on twitter, it’s amazing how many people you, or your friends actually know who will (hopefully) provide a discount mates-rate.
Always branch out before committing to an expensive private quote. You’ll save yourself a fortune.
5. Is that the best you can do?
Do not settle on the marked price. When you have started to finalise what you want barter, barter, barter. Or if you can’t, or they just won’t budge, have a look somewhere else.
Most places will easily give 10% off the price. 10% isn’t a lot really but it quickly adds up when you plan to buy a lot of stuff.
If they refused to move on the price, keep looking around, or for something similar. A little persistence and you’ll be able to find a bargain.
There are lots of elements to a wedding and, although we are not planning to spend huge amounts of money, we are going to make sure that we follow the Skint Dad motto – we will spend less, cut back but without living without. So, we will have a fabulous wedding that looks and feels expensive but (hopefully) no-one will know we’ve done it on the cheap – apart from everyone who reads this. But you won’t tell. Will you?
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Lisa says
Another fab blog entry. I helped a friend plan a wedding using an Excel spreadsheet. I have it somewhere if you’d like me to send it to you. Good luck – the best wedding I ever attended was all done on a £200 budget in a registry office and in a pub in Bermondsey. They’ve been together for over 20 years and still going strong. It’s the quality of the relationship that counts. Lisa xx
Emma says
I will follow your progress with interest as I am marrying my fiancé at The Barn too, and I have done so much on a budget! Got my dress from BHS in the sale, am making all stationery and favours myself and got gorgeous bridesmaid dresses second hand on Ebay – £20 each, and they were £100 each new! Good luck with your planning!
Emma S says
Great post! I know how you feel. Everything I did was on a budget! If it helps I make handmade wedding stationery to order to your colours and design and I’m not overly pricey compared to other ‘handmade’ stationery companies that are!!
Tom @Ideas4Dads says
Wowsers look like youve got this all in hand. My biggest bit of advice is to remember at ALL times its yours and the Mrs day and no one elses. Everyone has an opinion but youll be fine. The key is planning which looks like you have everything in place to acheive this. Exciting times :-)
Fiona says
Can’t say we had a cheap wedding by any stretch of the imagination but did save money in some places.
Our wedding and reception were in the same location so no need for transport between the two. See if you have a friend with a nice car who can drive you, they’ll likely be thrilled with the honour and wedding cars are SO expensive. I went in a taxi in theory to save money but because it had to be specially booked and cleaned (and because the word ‘wedding’ was used) I still had to pay £100 per taxi for what would have been a £15 journey.
I printed all our wedding stationary myself. It allowed us to personalise menu/placecards too.
My aunt got married after years of living together so wasn’t so interested in wedding presents, instead they asked people to bring a special dish towards dinner and ended up with the most incredible buffet ever. Takes some coordination but as people weren’t buying gifts they went to town on the dish they bought….whole poached salmon, beautiful cake etc
Another friend had a country wedding and her rather lovely mother in law planted hundred of foxgloves and wild flowers in their field a year in advance so that they would be in flower at the time of the wedding and then was able to fill the church and reception with flowers ‘for free.’ Wedding flowers come in pretty expensive too.
Hope the ideas help! It can be hard not to get caught up in the sausage machine of wedding planning. Just keep remembering to stand back and decide if each thing you are buying is something you really want.
Oh and when you write the invitation list we learnt a good trick. My husband wanted to invite pretty much everyone he’d ever met and his best man took him aside, went through the list and asked him for each person whether he was happy to shout them a £100 dinner, which is pretty much what the combination of all the wedding costs meant we would be doing…….that helped put the list into perspective! You probably won’t have that issue with your intended though!!
sheymouse says
Nice post SkintMum.
As Tom @Ideas4Dads said. Don’t lose sight of the fact that it is your and SkintDad’s day.
When my wife and I were planning our wedding we attempted to be as savvy as possible as we didn’t have much money. Here are a couple of things we did to keep the costs down:
Photographer – we asked a photographer friend to take all the photos for us in return for paying his accommodation over the wedding weekend
General photos – We put instant cameras on tables and got those developed later. We also asked people afterwards to post their pics of us
Decorating – We rented the local village hall and decorated it ourselves. Any friends who were around helped out too. We also saved money by buying muslin to hang on the walls, uplighters to dot around the hall for the evening, and hung Christmas lights everywhere for ambience.
Music – We got a PA system, and I attached my laptop to it and asked a few friends to make sure the music was good.
Honeymoon – we didn’t book anything and asked our guests to make a contribution on the day. The next day we counted it up, and went where we could afford with that. With their generosity we were able to get a last minute holiday to Dominican Republic
I hope some of this helps.
Good luck. And congratulations!!!
Chrissie says
You are so lucky your partner is romantic and so thoughtfull. On one knee, in the rain! It’s also worth thinking about different era’s or genres of style or old & new movie icons you love when it comes to styling and dare I say the word ‘theme’.
sandra says
i did a lot of things for my wedding myself got a quote for flowers at over £1000 as wanted silk so went to covent garden market did a lot of haggling and got everything for less than £200 and guest loved the fact they could keep the button holes, my gran made my cake and a friend iced my brother did my car as my pressie and an uncle did the photos. You don’t know till you ask someone may be able to provide something you need instead of buying you a present and as you already have a house together and prob most things you need its a nice way to get the family involved in the wedding.I am doing photos for one friends wedding and making another friends wedding cake as presents which i know will help them with their weddings.
Judith says
We saved a fortune on our wedding reception as a friend loaned us her fantastic house and we made a big buffet for all our guests. Another friend of mine asked for donations to her buffet or bottles of wine instead of presents.
Naomi aka Skint Mum says
Thanks for the offer Lisa but I already have my own spread sheet (I think I’m on version 3 of it now!). What I find quite helpful writing it all down in a spread sheet is that I can add an extra line if I forget something and it recalculates the totals for me – nice and easy!
– Naomi
Naomi aka Skint Mum says
Hi Emma – and fellow Barn Bride!
I love being able to find things so much cheaper – or even make them for free – without people being able to notice the difference.
Good luck with the rest of your planning – I think you’ve only got a few months to go…
– Naomi
Naomi aka Skint Mum says
Thanks Emma, I’ll keep that in mind. Ordering bespoke stationary soon adds up!
– Naomi
Naomi aka Skint Mum says
Thanks Tom. I see what you’re saying. After all this planning, we need to make sure we take some time out for ourselves – I mean that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
– Naomi
Naomi aka Skint Mum says
£100 for a taxi – really?? That is ridiculous! It’s nuts that companies can add such a premium for using the “W” word!
I love the idea of growing your own flowers. I bet they looked amazing too!
I think your final tip on whether you want to spend £100 dinner on each person is great. I keep using that now with Skint Dad and it really does put things into perspective.
– Naomi
Naomi aka Skint Mum says
Hello. Thanks for the great tips. They will really help to keep costs down. I’ll have a look into them further.
– Naomi
Naomi aka Skint Mum says
Thank you, I think I’m very lucky.
I think every wedding has some type of theme and, again, depending on what theme you choose can also help keep costs down.
– Naomi
Naomi aka Skint Mum says
“You don’t know till you ask” <– great tip! I have to agree. Sometimes I feel a little cheeky but people always seem to be really genuinely happy to help.
– Naomi
Naomi aka Skint Mum says
So many people don’t need physical presents now as they’ve lived together before – another toaster is just pointless. Couples are now asking their guest, more and more, to help contribute to the cost of the wedding. It then stops the couple getting into debt – I think it’s a great idea.
– Naomi