7 tips for the budget wedding of your dreams
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My husband and I got married in April 2023, following our engagement in September 2021. We knew we wanted a nice wedding to celebrate our marriage, but we were adamant that we would pay for it ourselves, without a loan or help from our families. In the end, we did use a credit card to securely cover some of the bigger expenses, but it was so nice to come out of the day knowing that everything was already paid for, and we had savings left over to start our married life with (and plan our honeymoon!)
On average, a wedding in the UK costs between £17,300 (according to hitched) to £28,015 for a ‘middle range’ wedding (according to Nimblefins). I don’t have strong feelings about the costs of weddings in general, but we did have strong feelings about the cost of our wedding. So, here’s some things that helped us have the wedding of our dreams for under £10,000 ($12,500).
1) Having multiple, smaller wedding events
In the end, we had four wedding events - the ceremony itself, followed by a celebration dinner; a drinks reception for friends; a dinner with my husband’s family; and a daytime to evening event at my mum’s house for my family. Doing it this way was mostly my husband’s decision - he could not stomach the idea of getting up and speaking in front of 100+ people! It was a fair amount of admin and organisation to approach our wedding this way, not to mention four weekends’ worth of commitments for us, but it actually worked perfectly for us. We had 11 wedding guests, meaning the delicious catered dinner we had afterwards at our Airbnb was priced at ‘dinner party’ rate, rather than wedding rate. We also held the drinks reception and family dinner as ‘celebration’ events, rather than wedding events - avoiding the ‘wedding tax’! Having these smaller events wasn’t just more affordable for us - it meant we could organise them to be convenient for our guests, and gave us enough time to speak to everyone we had invited to enjoy their company. It also had the added bonus of making the celebration last, as I can confirm that the wedding day itself absolutely flies by in a whirlwind!
2) Buying second hand, or at outlets
This is an obvious tip, but one worth remembering. I had a wedding dress, and a two-piece outfit I changed into for the reception. They each cost £15 second hand, and both still had their tags in. My mum actually bought my wedding dress in a charity shop around 12 years ago, and held onto it for all that time, just in case. The two-piece outfit came from Vinted, but you could also look on Depop or Ebay. I’d say the best way to find something you want to wear for your wedding second hand is to be flexible about what you want, and remember that you might be better spending your money on a good tailor to make alterations to something that isn’t quite right, than on buying something perfect. My wedding ring is also ‘second hand’, gifted to me by mum and resized for £120. If you’re willing, buying your rings second hand can save you some money as well - or mean you can buy more with your budget.
My husband’s suit and shoes came from outlet stores - try and travel to an outlet village near you, if you’re able. The shoes were real leather loafers, the last pair in the shop, in his size, and they cost £15 down from £80. In total, his two-piece suit came to £250. He did buy his shirt, belt and a pair of chinos new, though!
3) Using artificial flowers
This has to be my number one top tip for saving money on a wedding, especially if you’re having multiple events. Floristry for fresh flowers is understandably expensive - getting the flowers to your events, keeping them fresh and arranging them all costs money. Artificial flowers can be of very high quality - look for ‘Real Touch’ if you’re willing to pay a premium, but even using silk and material flowers with plastic-covered wire stems can produce a great effect. A friend of mine was amazed to learn our flowers were fake when she saw the photos of our ceremony, and gave them a close inspection at our drinks reception. We took all of our flowers to each of our four events, just in a big plastic tub with a lid - they were resilient and took just minutes to set up in our various venues. Plus, we get to keep them forever if we want to, and give them to our bridesmaids as well.
There’s a few ways you can approach the artificial floristry for your wedding. I ordered artificial flowers wholesale and arranged them myself - something I don’t recommend doing! - but there are florists and companies out there (check Etsy!) who will either produce custom arrangements for you, or sell sets of wedding flowers encompassing everything from buttonholes to 2m garlands.
4) Not getting a ‘wedding’ cake
Hear me out! I love cake, even though my husband doesn’t eat it due to an egg intolerance. There was no way I wasn’t having a cake - in fact, I’ll jump at any excuse to have one. But consider whether the cake at your wedding needs to be a ‘wedding’ cake. We had a red velvet cake covered in sprinkles, with a chocolate disc with our names on on the top, from a bakery we knew to be excellent. It was absolutely delicious, just the right size for 11 people, and it cost £78. For our drinks reception, we had 40 bite-sized mini cupcakes from the same bakery in a variety of flavours, for just £80. A ‘real’ wedding cake can cost anywhere from £450 to more than £1,500. Again, you have to be flexible with what you want, and willing to have something that maybe isn’t traditionally ‘wedding’, and that doesn’t match your colour scheme. But in the end, the cakes we had were absolutely delicious, and they were all eaten - which is the outcome you really want!
5) Doing it ourselves - or getting talented friends to
As I said above, I arranged our flowers myself. It was really hard work, and although it was worth it, I definitely wouldn’t do it again or recommend it to anyone. It wasn’t a skill I previously had, and I underestimated how difficult it would be. If you do have certain skills, though, put these to use in your wedding! I also designed our wedding stationery using Canva, which was a lot easier! An old friend of mine is a talented gardener, and made both her floral confetti and her wedding favours - a selection of jams and chutneys - herself. Our best man’s wife made desserts for our drinks reception, and enlisted friends and family to dry rose petals to use as confetti at her wedding. On our wedding day, I did my makeup myself, assisted by a friend who is more skilled and knowledgeable than me. She’d recommended certain products for me to buy and use on the day, and ultimately only needed to put the finishing touches on my face. Meanwhile, my mum and sister did my hair, and that was such a nice way for us to spend some time together as a family on the day. My mum is a hairdresser, and for my sister it’s an enjoyable hobby. My hair and makeup both turned out perfect, even though we hadn’t had the chance to practise them - phew!
6) Planning ahead
Of course weddings are planned in advance, but this is especially important if you are on a tight budget and plan to incorporate handmade elements into your wedding. Drying flowers for confetti takes time, as does making wedding favours or decorations. Allow yourself twice the time you need to complete any task - and be prepared to give over your weekends and evenings to this preparation. I joked that for a period I was working two jobs - my day job and a second job as a florist.
If you’re buying jewellery or wedding clothes secondhand, you want time to find the right thing, so you don’t feel cornered into buying what’s available at the last minute. And you definitely want to avoid needing to pay for express delivery - I didn’t organise our orders of ceremony until a week before the wedding, and ended up paying £30 in express delivery fees to make sure they arrived in time, which was more than the cost of the items themselves!
The other critical element of planning, for me, was my trusty wedding spreadsheet. I recorded every cost in here, along with whether or not it had been fully paid, and the due dates for any final payments. Planning well in advance and having everything arranged meant we were able to make final payments over time (and ahead of schedule) rather than being hit with a mass of costs all at once.
7) Prioritising what’s important
When you’re working with a budget, you are going to have to prioritise. In our case, we knew we didn’t want our guests, who were already travelling to celebrate with us, to pay for accommodation - that was a substantial part of our budget. Equally, we didn’t want our friends to need to pay for many drinks (if any) at our drinks reception - so we covered that. I chose to do our floristry myself because I had a very specific colour palette and vision in mind for the flowers, so I chose to prioritise time to spend on that. Meanwhile, I was much more relaxed about my wedding dress, hair and makeup, but I did choose to have my nails, eyelashes and eyebrows done ahead of the wedding, as well as a spray tan.
If you let yourself be swayed by trends, friends’ and families’ expectations, or ideas of what a wedding ‘should’ be, then working within a smaller budget will be difficult. Be certain of what you want, and focus your time and money on those things.
Planning a wedding on a budget can be challenging, but know that it can be done without sacrificing quality and importantly, your satisfaction!By following these tips and being creative, anyone can have a memorable wedding without breaking the bank.
Have you planned a thrifty wedding? Do you have any tips I’ve missed? If you’re currently planning your wedding - congratulations! I hope everything goes perfectly, and the day is everything you wished for, at a cost you can afford
