How We Saved On Our Wedding

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Weddings are expensive, like really expensive and so many people fall into the trap of getting loans or using credit cards to pay for their big day. We didn't do any of that and we still had an amazing day as with a bit of careful planning over the two-year engagement we managed to spend just under £10,000 on our wedding day, and other than borrowing a little money off my dad and my mother in law paying for our cake we paid for everything else ourselves. Although I am well aware that you can probably spend a lot less than that and still have a beautiful wedding day. 

 I feel really proud of myself for managing to pull the wedding off on our own as when I was younger I wracked up a lot of debt and ended up on a credit management plan to clear my debts. So my credit rating has not been the best and I think I would struggle to get a loan anyway but there are companies like Creditfix who can help in these situations and you can find out more via their website. 

As we paid for the wedding ourselves, here are some of the ways we managed to pay for everything and cut some costs on the big day. 

Tips to save on the cost of a wedding

• Check venue small print, wedding venues are expensive and some of them have a minimum spend limit, especially for summer weddings on Saturday's like ours. We booked a venue that had no minimum spends or restrictions and it saved us so much money as we only paid per person with no hidden extra charges.

• Shop around, there are some bargains to be had if you shop around. My teenage daughter's bridesmaid dress was only £10 in the sale last year reduced from £95, and she received so many compliments on it. My shoes were also only £3.50 reduced from £80 as Rainbow Club have an eBay shop selling off brand new wedding shoes at huge discounts. 

• DIY, I am not at all creative and the thought of crafts fills me with dread but I actually made some things for the wedding myself. I made the table plan, place settings and kids activity packs  and my dad made our post box - it saved us so much money. 

• Make your own sweet table, we were originally going to hire a sweet cart for the wedding but they can be expensive. Instead, we made our own sweet table and it went down a treat with our guests, we got cheap glass jars from Ikea and Home Bargains and filled them with sweets from Makro online (bargain). 

• Sample Sales, My wedding dress was actually from a sample sale at a local bridal boutique and I saved so much money on it as it was £795 instead of £1500 and is in perfect condition, you wouldn't be able to tell it had been tried on in the shop before. 

• Suits, we actually ended up buying all the groomsmen suits from Slaters as they were cheaper to buy than hire, so again it might be best to shop around and see what works out best. 

• Cut some extras, it is easy to get carried away when planning a wedding and we actually ended up having to cancel some of the extras we booked as we simply ran out of budget. I felt gutted at the time but nobody apart from us realised they were missing on the day. 

• Look out for offers, I was amazed to find that so many suppliers run offers we managed to book giant floral love letters and a floral arch when they were on offer for half price. 

How we saved for the day

As I mentioned we paid for the wedding ourselves and when we booked the wedding we had no savings at all. So we managed to save and pay for the wedding in a few ways. 

•  At the start, we booked suppliers whenever I got paid off a blog job or the other half got paid from work as we found most suppliers needed around a £50-£100 deposit to book. 

• We paid a balance off each month out of my partner's wages, for six months before the wedding we paid a supplier off each month so one month we paid the registrar, the next flowers and so on. 

• I sold stuff on eBay, I actually made quite a lot of money selling stuff we no longer wanted or needed on eBay in the run up to the big day and it paid for all the extras like confetti, kids shoes, ties etc. 

• We had lists, we had lists of what needed paying and when and how much and this kept us on track and helped us budget and manage our money better so we could pay things off on time. 

• I bought small things each week in the months before the wedding. Every week I would buy something small for the wedding, personalised items, guest books, decorative things and it soon mounted up and was less daunting than buying everything in one go. 

So that's how we managed to save money on our wedding and to pay for it all. If you are married how did you manage to save for your big day?