Can a wedding be done on the cheap and within about 6 months?

[Cat Queen]

:oops: ok bear with me, just asking :wink: but can a wedding really be done on a budget and fairly quickly?? Please tell me about your budget cutting ideas, as I haven't a clue how much it would cost for a wedding:oops:
thanks :smile:

[Gojira]

It depends. Within the legal restrictions -you can walk into a registry office and get married, for a tiny amount.

Then a meal in a pub?

My parents did this. Just them, two friends and then lunch in a pub.

Depends how many people you want? or big you want it to be?

[clowe74]

We organised a big full on wedding in 6 months so yes its definetly possible

[Cat Queen]

probably registery office than an evening reception, numbers in both immediate family are small, so not a huge sit down meal. Not a big white wedding as I am knocking on now!!

[Rosa]

Gosh yes absolutely, we decided to get married three months before our wedding day and it wasn't any hassle or a rush.

I got a dress from Coast, around £100
We chose fairly inexpensive rings.
Chose a venue with BYOB and got wine from Majestic
Registry office with 30 guests, who we fed a set menu at small local hotel
Additional 30 or so guests at night
Venue included evening DJ
Got a cake from M&S and had the florist make up a decoration from it with flowers from bouquet
No bridesmaids or best men
No official photographer, a few friends were keen amateurs so they took photos for us.

I am pretty sure our wedding cost about £3k altogether, a lot of this was DH's kilt, and the meal for 30, we could easily have cut it by quite a lot.

[clowe74]

I would say get your venue booked first then think photographers and dresses.

[BonnieTyler]

We did within 3 months. Registry office wedding, only 10 people there, and meal and drinks in the pub afterwards.

[bubblewrap]

I think you need to allow 15 days (?) from the notice of intent to marry, to the marriage. So yes, you can certainly marry within 6 months!

We did ours in little over 3 months. The divorce took much longer :lol:

[Daisy66]

Yes indeed! My wedding was very similar indeed to Red Lou's - right down to the same venue :lol:

Oh, and perhaps congratulations are in order? :ellie:

[bubbasweet]

Yes you definitely can. The actual nuts and bolts of booking a wedding (even a big one) probably only takes up 24 hours or so of time, just that it doesn't all happen at once.

[Rosa]

:lol: yes total copycat wedding :teehee:

[Islander]

Mine was planned and completed within 6 weeks.

Reg office wedding, meal and photos at country house hotel, followed by huge ceilidh. 25 guests at actual wedding and meal and about 180 at ceilidh. I wore a sample dress which I had altered to fit me, Dh wore a kilt which has been handed down his family but had a jacket and waistcoat made to fit and bought shoes. Dh and I cashed in a savings plan and it cost under £4k. My parents paid for my dress (just over £100) and the evening buffet (which I recall being shockingly expensive) and SIL made the cake and gave it to us as a wedding gift. It was 13 years ago though.

But, yes, a wedding can be done on a budget at high speed and it can be a fantastic day.

D x

[Faith]

Mine was done in a phone call. Well two, one to virgin booking flights, hire car and hotels, the second to the concierge of our hotel in Vegas booking the actual ceremony.

In all I think about 2k for the fantastic 2 week holiday, £300 for the wedding!

[stacey86]

We planned pur wedding in 6 weeks & managed to do so for under £2k! So it can be done :grin: Reception held in a pub garden under a large marquee with use of the pub aswell. We were married in the Archbishops Palace which is a beautiful old Palace, registry office, for not alot of money. Maybe around £200 or just under.
It is do able :nod:

[Cat Queen]

Thanks for all the replies, really helpful. No formal engagement it was something we were discussing last night, my OH is keen to do it on 15th July (which falls on a Sunday next year) as we met on that date, I suggested leaving it until 2013 and he said life was too short!!

Right off to investigate venues :smile:

[Bop]

Ours was planned in about 4 months - engaged at Christmas, date fixed end Jan, married end May.

Ours was a church wedding, then an champagne reception at the church (for about 150), followed by a restaurant meal for close family and friends (for about 30). My dress was about £100 from Country Casuals petite, sandals from the High Street, a friends who had a posh car drove us, MIL made the cake, a couple of friends did the church flowers and my bouquet.

I think all in all it came to £3000, and that was including paying for the accommodation (Premier Inn rooms) for our family, as many were travelling from Scotland to the Midlands.

You can do it - you just need to decide what is important to you and plan it around that.

Bop

[suemarie]

We saved on stationery as I did some of it myself such as Order of service & place cards & my mum did the invitations.
My mum also did the flowers for the church & reception which also saved a fair amount as the florists cost £290 just for 2 bouquets & 2 posie's & 9 button holes.

We got a discount on the cake as I'm not so keen on fruit cake so we had 2 tiers of sponge & a top tier of fruit.


ETA:

Our Reception venue cancelled on us in March of 2001 & we were due to be married in July 2001 so we had to look around for a new venue quickly & found a beautiful venue in an old country cottage hotel which was perfect, The cost was the same & they could do the date we wanted.
So there are venues available & not all of them are in the wedding section of the yellow pages...lol this one was in the hotel section.

[kelly]

We did it in 18 days. Got dresses from ebay, boys wore school trousers and shirts, dh wore black trousers and shirt and I got them all matching ties from ebay also.

We then went to a pub for lunch with our dozen guests, paid for everyone's meal and onto the stock-cars at night.

It totalled well under £1000.

[crazyinlove]

We had a little longer with 10 months but could have easily done it in 6 if we hadn't been so laid back about everything.

We're having a civil ceremony and blessing, sit down meal for 75, evening reception and buffet. Haven't scrimped on the cake, flowers or photographers and ours is coming in at 3.5k (excluding my dress) and nearly £500 of that is Notice of marriage/Registrar costs!

I've made a lot of the decorations myself and had an Etsy seller design our invites, which we then printed ourselves.

We saved a lot by having a wedding in the off peak season though (March) and got an amazing deal at the hotel we're using. It all depends what you want, just do what is right for you and spend on what you think is most important for your day. We had to go for a hotel as most of our family are having to travel so wanted somewhere they could stay. If they were all local i think we could have made it even cheaper by exploring different venues :nod:

[suemarie]

Should say we didn't actually start booking things until December 2000 so 7 months & the dress was ordered in February.

[Moose]

Glad you texted me earlier - I'd have had a heart attack reading this :lol:

Course it can be done - just got to put your heads (and wallets) together :grin:

Moose x

[Cat Queen]

Glad you texted me earlier - I'd have had a heart attack reading this :lol:

Course it can be done - just got to put your heads (and wallets) together :grin:

Moose x

Just in the working out if it is 'do able' stage honey....but rest assured you and Mr Moose are first on my guest list....well after my mum of course :wink: x

[popinjay1]

Finding a venue is the first thing as July is a popular wedding month. Then u can plan everything around it.

We did our in 6 months and it cost leas than £2k. Registry office, back room of a pub with buffet only. Dress was made, rings were cheap, photographer was a family friend who did mates rates and the cake was bought by MIL. It was a fab day.

[Sam]

Do it, it's easy peasy! :nod:

A venue shouldn't really be a problem on a Sunday, it will be the Saturdays and Fridays that are booked first (ime). Next on your list should be the registrar or church or registry office and then the dress. You'd be better with either a high street number or getting someone to make one as they can take months to order from official wedding dress shops. I got engaged in the June and married in November and it was no problem at all, just keep things simple :nod:

[Dr Spouse]

We booked a date in Nov and got married in May - though not massively cheaply I have to say, but more because of numbers. We wanted a specific church for both the ceremony and the reception, so it was dependent on when it was free.

[DillyDally]

We did it in 6 months - easy peasy :nod: The bit that seemed to take the longest was getting people to reply to the invitations :doh:

[frog]

It depends. Within the legal restrictions -you can walk into a registry office and get married, for a tiny amount.

Then a meal in a pub?

That was our wedding pretty much, followed by a barbecue in the garden he next day for the masses :lol:

I think we booked the register office in the May and the wedding was in August which was *just* enough time for my dress to be ordered :lol: On a short timescale I think you're only limited by venue availability and your imagination.