1 year and 4 months after I popped the question my fiancée and I are finally getting around to organizing our wedding.  One of the hold ups was having enough money to celebrate our wedding in style and the way we wanted it. We wanted to have a really beautiful wedding but we don't want the price to rocket out of control.  After some research I found that there are loads of ways to save money.

Obviously the Wedding Dress would be the most important thing for my fiancée and we don’t intend on cutting any corners when it comes to this. For me, the most important thing was the venue.  I always wanted a really lovely, classy wedding venue, with nice grounds, good service and great food.  I always thought that I wouldn’t be able to afford the venue I wanted but I soon realized that if we made the right choices with our menu options and booked at a particular time of year or day of the week we could easily get the venue we wanted.

For instance, the Radisson Hotel in Limavady was offering a 10% Discount for weddings booked on a Sunday - Tuesday and massive menu discounts on weddings in November and December. Also, selecting a menu that suits your budget and delivering your guests choices prior to the wedding will save you hundreds of pounds.  Selecting a slightly less luxurious buffet and depriving your guests of tea and coffee on arrival will save another few hundred pounds. The Dunadry Hotel in Antrim offers a standard 3 course menu (which looks great) for a price that will compete with any Venue.

On finding that we could pretty much have whatever venue we wanted, I moved on to making savings on other things...

I have a few friends that can help me out with saving a few pounds also.  I have a good friend who is an excellent wedding DJ. I haven’t told him yet (lol) but I hope to get a good deal for my wedding disco.  I also have a friend that is an excellent wedding photographer he has agreed to give me a good deal and free digital copies or all my photos so I can make Albums or large prints at my leisure. If only I knew someone that owned a fancy hotel. lol.

SILLY THINGS TO AVOID

If your loaded and the following things mean a lot to you then by all means, knock yourself out but for me, these are a few things that you could really do without...

Favours - Who ever remembers the favors at a wedding? Because you have so many guests, you can never really give everyone something worthwhile. Your guest are there because they are your freinds and its your day. Why waste up to £1000 giving each of them a scratch card or few sweets. There will be plenty of time in your married life to thank the people for their gifts etc.

Chocolate fountains - Unless your replacing your buffet with this I think this is bit much. Who loves fudge so much that they'd have a massive fountain of cascading chocolate and 2 or 3 waitresses shoveling it into your mouth? Also, these are usually charged by the quantity consumed and you'd be very surprised as to how greedy some of your "good friends" be. lol

Tea & Coffee Reception - This can cost up to and above £1000. Most people will get a bite to eat before the reception, I know I normally do! In fact once I had burgers and chips before a reception and could barely eat my dinner!!

Pre-Dinner Music - This can be a nice touch, a piper, a violinist and a harpist would be nice but to add your own personal touch to the wedding, most venues will play your music play list for guests in the lobby and bar for free. So make a CD and get the best man to sort it out for you!

Invitations - Luckily I have the skills to make a stab at this myself but even if you don't please do a little research first.  I intend on getting some nice card and envelopes and coming up with a nice print design myself.  An invite is exactly that! A bit of paper or card telling your guests where to be and when.  You could take the savings on invites and get a really good band for your reception which your guests would appreciate much more.  Do you remember any invitation designs from a wedding invite? I didn't think so.

Doves - Need I say any more??

Anyway, I'll keep you all posted on my final choices and any other ways to save money if i come across them. 

Bye!!

P.S. - Don't forget to blog! We're in a recession! Even the best Venues and suppliers are absolutely desperate for bookings so don't be afraid to ask for a few quid off! Also, I see the Hastings Hotel group will give you and your partner a free overnight stay if your interested in holding your reception there, offer expires at the end of May.  See www.bookourwedding.com for details.