How To Plan A Simple Wedding

Your Wedding should be the most amazing day of your life

it’s a celebration of your love with family and friends and the special person in your life creating special memories for years to come.

On such an occasion you should be able to have everything you want to make your day just perfect, but you may find your budget can’t quite stretch to all that you dream.

Moneysupermarket research shows that the average cost of the wedding day is around £30,000, now think about that number some people might think that’s a drop in the ocean but for the rest of us it’s a huge amount of money, more than a year’s salary to some and a deposit on a house to others.

So why is the cost of a Wedding so much compared to what it used to be?

Well, gone are the days where a Wedding is a one day affair, at one time there was the raucous Hen and Stag Do sometimes the night before the big day, the Wedding Ceremony, Wedding Breakfast followed by the Evening Reception on the Wedding Day and then the couple would leave for their Honeymoon the day after the Wedding.

Nowadays Hen and Stag Celebrations may be adventure days or even holidays abroad some people even choose to have a joint celebrations called the “Sten” or “Hag” do's filled with extravagant days out.

Celebrity couples have led the trend for having a Wedding celebration covering several days rather than one and there are people that choose to get married on one day and have a big party for friends and family a few days or months later.

So, with all these new trends how can you keep your costs down and still ensure a fun packed Wedding for you and your guests?

According to Industry Experts the trends in Weddings is changing, Vogue Magazine states that the biggest Wedding Trend for 2020 is “Individuality” and this move shows how couples can have a more bespoke wedding that goes against the norm and the idea of a individual "simple" wedding should keep costs down without compromising on the quality of your day.

Here are some ideas and tips on how you can plan a more simple, inexpensive Wedding

1. The Wedding Date and Time

The date that you choose for your Wedding can save you £000s.

Saturday is by far the most popular day for a Wedding and it has obvious merits as most people will have weekends off from work and so would be free to attend but you could consider another day in the week for your special day, wedding venues will offer a discount if you choose a mid-week booking for example.

You may also want to consider having your Wedding outside the normal summer season when prices will be lower for Venues and Wedding Suppliers, what could be better than a Beautiful Winter Christmas Wedding when there aren’t so many people away for their annual holidays?

No-one likes a long full day especially with children around and changing your Wedding Ceremony to later on in the day has the advantage of not only keeping your guests happy but possibly reducing the number of Food Servings as well, if you had a Ceremony later in the afternoon you may be able to skip the lunch serving and move straight to an Evening Reception instead.

2. Keep the Guest List To A Minimum

When putting your guest list together don’t be afraid to cut corners, you will want to invite all the special people in your life but don’t feel mean if you want to limit your guest list to a set number.

These days it is common for people to ask guests not to bring along children this will cut down the amount of people to feed and so have an impact on your costs overall.

3. Wedding Photography

Shop around for your Wedding Photographer, there may be someone who is just starting up in Business who will give you a cheaper booking as they are starting up their new venture or a local college with students looking to build upon their portfolios.

You may wish to have a simple alternative like asking a friend to be your photographer for the day or asking your guests to post their mobile phone photos to a Facebook Group you set up for the occasion.

4. The Wedding Venue

Now, choosing your Wedding venue could have the single biggest impact on your Wedding budget, you may be having a Religious ceremony held in a Church and need a venue for the Reception part of your day or you might choose a venue that offers both the Ceremony and Reception too, this may save you money and reduce costs on areas like transport between venues you’d otherwise have to pay.

With Wedding licenses being given to a wider range of venues the choice for your Wedding Venue need not be limited there are small Hotels, Tipis, Barns, Village Halls, Forests and Orchards on offer. These types of venues will allow a little more freedom of choice on things you can have on site so you won’t be restricted on choosing the in-house catering that can cost more than other options for example.

Some Wedding Venues might offer only simple facilities like the Reception room and tables and chairs these may give you more space both inside and outside and be a blank canvas for you to decorate as you wish.

There is always the option of holding your Wedding at home or at the home of someone you know, you might be restricted with space and need to plan a bit more closely but imagine what you will save on the venue costs!

5. Wedding Catering Food and Drink

You might choose to do the catering yourself with a bit of help from your friends, it would be easy to setup Food Stations, Food Carts, Grazing Tables or a beautiful Buffet.

You may wish to buy Food Platters from a Supermarket like M&S or cook bulk foods from a Frozen Supermarket such as Iceland or Farm Foods. These will save you time and money and you’ll be surprised at the high quality on offer.

A Drinks Bar could be stocked up after a trip from your local Wholesaler like Booker or Makro, you may want to ask some of your guests to help serve or tell everyone to help themselves. Keep an eye out for Supermarket offers on alcohol in the months leading up to your date you could easily stockpile quite a lot over a short period of time. You might even want to use your Supermarket coupons to help with the cost offering money off or discounts.

If you wanted to allocate a bit more to the Food and Drink side of things you could look at what a Mobile Caterer could offer, they may be able to cook at the Venue facilities or bring along a Food or Drinks Van, these vans could be a regular looking van or you may wish to find something a bit different like a Vintage Food Van or Converted Horse Trailer.

(don’t forget to check out our Retro Vintage Fish and Chip Van Hire !).

6. Wedding Entertainment

Your Wedding day entertainment doesn’t need to be limited to the evening disco and DJ, there are other options to explore, you might have a friend who knows a few card tricks or someone with a great voice who could sing a set of your favourite songs.

Other ideas could be outdoor family games or a bouncy castle, you might want to setup a children’s play area or a casino for the adults.

What about some team games for the guests if you have some grassed space, it might be a good ice breaker for the families to get involved in and inject some fun to the day.

7. Wedding Decorations

You might wish to employ the services of a stylist to make your Wedding room in line with your theme, the best places to find them would be Facebook or Instagram.

If you wanted to save money you could look at decorating yourself, try scouring the High Street in places like The Range, Wilkos and QD Stores where you can always find reasonably priced items to display on your Wedding Day. Once your day is over you could sell everything you bought to get some of your money back.

You might get some bargains if you check out Ebay or Charity Shops it would save you money by buying second hand and you might find some decorations completely unique and bespoke. Think of upcycling if you are looking at things like Wood Slices, Wooden Vegetable Crates or Barrels that you could paint or setup as you wish.

A vintage wooden Ladder or Crate could be used to display a Menu Board and this would save you the money rather than printing a menu for each person.

A photo board could be created by pinning lots of photos to the side of a Wooden Pallet, you might want to display photos of you and your partner in the time you have been together or it could be filled with photos of your loved ones, it would help to create an inexpensive interesting talking point for your guests.

Get some Balloons to really make a statement, they can cover large areas and come in all shapes, sizes and colours so can be in line with any theme that you have. Balloons can be air filled or with helium and you can buy disposable helium canisters from Argos. There are Balloon Arches, Table Bouquets or Balloon Walls to create a fabulous backdrop for your photos and if you check out YouTube you’ll find videos to help you make them yourself. If you wanted to get someone else to put some Balloon Decorations together you can see if you can find a local Balloon Artist instead.

Think of cheaper alternatives to Flowers on your day like foliage, long stemmed flowers or artificial flowers, if you wanted to find a florist try the local college for Florist students who may offer their services cheaply or you could ask your local flower arranging group to help.

Dig out those Christmas lights to add some sparkle to your Wedding, everyone will have at least one set and you can buy them in the sales after Christmas.

8. Wedding Invitations

Your Wedding Invitations can be designed and printed at home, there are templates available to download online or you may choose to buy some from an online retailer.

Check out Etsy online to find ideas of how you can make some bespoke designs and ask someone you know to help you make them.

If you wanted something more simple you could buy some pre-printed invites from a shop on the High Street where you just have to fill in the details of your day.

Should you want to keep the cost of your invites to absolutely nothing get a full list of email addresses for your guests and just email them, be creative and put together a video inviting them along and attach some details onto a pdf that they can download on their mobile phone to save them printing anything off.

9. Wedding Outfits

You don’t need to buy your Wedding Dress or Suit brand new, people will normally only wear their Wedding outfits once in their life and you could pick up a bargain if you bought second hand. Vintage dresses are very fashionable so there’s no harm asking to borrow your Mum’s or Grandmother’s dress for your special day if you wanted. Dry Cleaning is not overly expensive and there are specialists that will dry clean special items like Wedding Dresses if you wanted peace of mind that your bespoke dress will be looked after.

There might be a new designer looking for someone to showcase their designs, try checking out Instagram to see if anyone is looking for a Wedding couple to dress you might get a huge discount or this might be free in return for some photos.

Don’t forget about the possibility of hiring your Wedding outfit, you might actually be able to afford to wear that Vera Wang dress you’ve had your eye on!

When considering your Wedding Party you can save £s on dressing them too, you can always ask them to pay for their own outfits or see if they have anything already in their wardrobes that they would be happy to wear, mismatched colours are a popular choice so there is no need for everyone to be matching and if you have small kids try buying second hand on Ebay.

10. Wedding Jewellery

You Wedding Rings don’t need to break your bank balance and you don’t need to buy new, try looking around some antique shops to find something special and unique it will be on trend to have something different and vintage.

High Street shops offer good ranges of Wedding jewellery so you will find a decent choice in places like HM Samuels, you may wish to buy costume jewellery that will provide a cheaper alternative instead.

11. Wedding Presents

Keep the presents for your Wedding Party to a minimum by not buying for everyone involved you could just stick to the parents of the couple and you could offer favours and promises instead of something with a monetary value.

You could ask for donations to charities from your guests or even for just cash to help you pay towards your Wedding or Honeymoon which will help ease the pressure of the costs of your day.

12. The Honeymoon

You’ll need a nice break after all the planning and excitement of your special day and the Honeymoon will give you the rest you require.

Rather than splashing out on a Honeymoon to some far flung tropical place you might wish to have a MiniMoon for a few days instead closer to home.

Another idea would be that you could book your honeymoon for a different time of year a few months after your Wedding day out of season which will give you something special to look forward to.

Look out for any holiday deals in the year before your wedding you might snap up that holiday you’ve always dreamed of.