How To Plan A Low Budget Wedding

When planning a low budget wedding, the first thing that you need to do is to plan how much you can spend and make sure that it is not beyond your means. You obviously don't want to start married life in debt. Once you've decided the total amount for your overall budget, decide how much you are going to spend on each section of the wedding i.

e. your dress, flowers, venue. Don't waiver on your budget.

If you overspend on one area, cut back on somewhere else. When looking at a venue, consider a low season date. A lot of venues consider January, February, November time to be quiet times, and that way, they actually offer lower rates compared to summer months.

If you do have your heart set on a summer date, consider a different day of the week. Fridays are becoming increasingly popular. It is also quite nice, it's a longer weekend, and all your guests are normally a little bit smug because they've got the day off work and everybody else is still sat in the office.

Invite close family and friends during the day. You can always have extra people coming later on, so you could increase your numbers, but if you're inviting them in the evening, you don't have to cater as much for them. Try to keep control of your guest list.

It's quite easy to put an initial guest list together but once family and friends have got involved, then your guest list can spiral out of control. Bear in mind that for every additional guest you put in, that's extra money that you're going to be spending. Consider your wedding cake served as dessert or as part of your food.

Wedding cakes can cost a lot of money. There are different types of wedding cakes that you can get nowadays, things like cheesecakes made out of actual cheese or made out of the dessert cheesecake. Otherwise, you can also get profiterole towers which are a great idea to then use as your dessert or have it in the evening in accompaniment to a buffet.

You could also consider having something simple in the evening, like bacon butties and cheese toasties, rather than having a full finger buffet. This is quite simple, but effective, and a lot of people always like a good bacon butty or cheese toasty once they've had a bit of alcohol to drink later on. Ask your chosen venue if they allow corkage.

If they do, organise someone to bring some wine supply for your wedding. A good idea is to use family and friends. If you've got family and friends that do specialised areas such as baking cakes or designing stationary, these are really good things to use as it will be a lot cheaper.

You could have your friend do that as a wedding present to you. You could make your own stationary. It does mean that you can put your special personalised touch on things.

Find a photographer that will provide the images for you on a disc rather than just providing a photo album. So you can actually have your photos printed by yourself as many times as you want to. Try having a DJ instead of a band.

You can supply them with playlists. Obviously, with bands, there are specific types of music that they will do, and they do come at quite a considerable price. Use a CD or an iPod for your background music during your drinks reception and wedding breakfast rather than live music.

Use tea lights and candles as part of your decorations, and try to keep floral decorations to a minimum. Flowers do cost a lot of money, and tea lights obviously are a lot cheaper, and they do create a nice atmosphere. You could consider floral decorations as thank you presents to people.

After the wedding, you're going to have a lot of flowers left over and most people will be going on honeymoon, so you'll not have the need for these. So, it's quite a nice touch to leave a little note for everybody on their table that you want to give those centrepieces. You could speak to the venue, a family friend, or one of your guests, to do the Master of Ceremony duties rather than hiring a Toastmaster.

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