Your Wedding Day For Under £2500
With the cost of living going up (seemingly hour by hour) finding the money to fund your perfect wedding day is no easy task. Weddings have always been an expensive life event however, since Covid, the average cost of a wedding day has become eye-wateringly high.
But with the trend for super-luxurious weddings becoming something that most of us can’t participate in, how about starting an anti-trend for cheap weddings? “Good in theory, but with prices for everything soaring, how do you go about doing that?” I hear you say. Well, we have some suggestions to help you through this hard time and enable you to still have the wedding of your dreams.
Ceremony - Target Cost £150
The cheapest option for your ceremony is to get married by a registrar which will set you back around £150. The most expensive way to celebrate your wedding ceremony is hiring a humanist or having it at a church - a whopping £450. Ultimately, you get the same result so choosing the most cost-effective option shouldn’t affect your enjoyment of the day itself.
Venue - Target Cost £700
If you have a large back garden or field at your disposal - whether your own or a space that you can borrow from someone you know - you’ll be quids in before you know it. You can hire a marquee for as little as £400. If however, space is limited, there’s another, little considered option available.
Whisper “wedding” and costs immediately go up. But “events” are a completely different case. You can hire a space in your favourite bar for example, for the cost of an agreed-upon minimum spend behind the bar. The minimum spend varies but it can be as little as £500. Now you can be generous and put £500 behind the bar or spend that £500 providing a meal for your guests (in a lot of places £500 will be enough to get you a two-course meal for around 40 guests). Or get your guests to cover the cost of the venue itself - so say you invited 50 guests and they each spent £10 on drinks, that’s your wedding venue paid off!
Catering - Target budget £0
If you choose to go down the route of getting an events space with a meal included in your minimum spend amount, the cost of your catering will be covered by the cost of your venue - result. If you’re lucky enough to have a space where you can set up a marquee why not go old school and ask your guests to bring a dish as a wedding gift? You can equally do a BYOB wedding and get your guest to bring their favourite tipple, saving themselves money by not putting £’s behind the bar.
Wedding Dress - Target Budget £50
Think you can’t get your dream wedding dress on a budget? Think again! There are a multitude of options when it comes to getting your dress at a fraction of the cost of buying one from a bridal boutique. You can rent a dress and all of the accessories for as little as £18 per day - there are numerous companies that do wedding dress rentals, from classic styles to off-the-runway. If you’d still like to own your dress, why not go down the second-hand route? You can buy wedding dresses from sites like Vinted in a nearly new (it’s not been used for more than 12 hours after all!) or even new condition (from a bride who changed her mind about the dress - or the groom - and didn’t get the chance to wear it.)
Music - Target Budget £1200
This is the one area where we - perhaps predictably - wouldn’t recommend you scrimp on. Live wedding bands will do more to create the perfect, celebratory atmosphere than anything else, trust us. However, there are ways you can get a wedding band cheaper. Firstly, book early and off-peak if possible - you don’t want to be in a bidding war for your favorite band with another happy couple! Secondly, book local bands - mileage adds to the cost of your band. You can also ask your wedding band if they would do a DJ set to avoid having to pay double the price for 2 separate sets of entertainers. Alternatively, if you really can’t afford a wedding band but still want live music at your reception, you can hire a solo entertainer which will cut costs by helping you to avoid paying for multiple members of a band. That being said, if you do have the option to save elsewhere and hire a full band, do it, you won’t regret it.
Groom's outfit - Target Budget £50
Much like with the wedding dress, you have multiple options open to you when it comes to the groom's outfit - rent, buy second hand or buy a suit jacket from the high street and pair it with black trousers (or jeans if you’re going casual!) which you will already undoubtedly have in your wardrobe. If you’re buying your suit, Vinted has an array of choices - most of them worn once or not at all and the choice between the £10 and £25 mark are incredible - and if you’re after something new, head to the likes of Tk Maxx or H & M where you can pick yourself up a suit jacket for around the £25 - £30 budget. Don’t feel like you need to buy the full suit if you’ve already got suitable trousers in the wardrobe - buy a new shirt, and stylish suit jacket and the outfit will look the business without you having to fork out hundreds of pounds.
Usher/Bridesmaids’ outfits - free
Unless you’re adamant that your bridesmaids have to match - a trend that is on the way out - you need to ask yourself the following question “Do my friends have a gorgeous dress in their wardrobe that they don’t get to wear nearly as much as they’d like?” The answer to that is almost always “yes”. So ask your bridesmaids to wear the outfit that makes them feel like a million dollars and save yourself (and them) the stress of finding the perfect dress (that they too will wear once), attending fittings, and forking out for accessories. If you really have got your heart set on a matching colour scheme for your bridesmaids, head to New Look or Primark, buy cheap dresses, and glam them up with a few well-chosen accessories.
Transport - £203.99
If you choose to have your wedding ceremony and reception in the same place, then the cost of this can be £0. If you want special transport to help you make a stylish entrance or whisk you away from your wedding reception when the night draws to a close, all you need is a car (borrow one from one of your family members if necessary!) and a roll of ribbon from Hobby Craft (£3.99 should be enough) - so just under £4 should cover the bride and groom's transport costs! If you need to transport your guests between the venues, you can hire a coach for around £200 but again, keep it cheap and have the ceremony and reception in the same place.
Cake and Flowers - Target Budget £100
Pretty much everything else that you need can be sourced from your local supermarket. If you don’t have any budding bakers in the family, who can make your cake as your wedding present, head to Asda or Costco (if you have a membership). At Costco, you can pick up a customised wedding cake with 48 portions for just under £15 whilst Asda’s Celebrations fruit and sponge cakes come in at around £18 for 38 portions. Pick out some decorations from Amazon or an arts and crafts shop and you’ve got yourself an elegant, customised cake for a fraction of the cost.
Flowers can come from your local supermarket too! Asda’s basic bouquets start from £2.50 - you can glam these up with silk flowers from the same arts and crafts shop or even the likes of Ikea. Or, if you’re lucky enough to have a garden, grow your own flowers and foliage!
Total cost: £2453.99
Planning a wedding on a strict budget might take a bit longer and require some compromises but your big day will feel just as special with a budget of £2500 as it would with a budget of £25000. And think of the feeling of satisfaction when you wake up the day after your wedding with the knowledge that you won't be paying it off for years to come. Now that’s something worth planning for.