SPECIAL FEATURES
Wedding on a budget
WITH THE AVERAGE WEDDING COSTING AT LEAST £ 30,000 , IT ’ S NEARLY ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU SAY “ I DON ’ T ”. HOWEVER , YOU DON ’ T NEED TO SPEND A FORTUNE TO HAVE A FANTASTIC DAY . WE LOOK AT WAYS TO CUT THE COSTS …
Work out your budget … … and stick to it . Sit down together and decide what you can realistically afford for your wedding and which aspects of the process are the most important to you . For example , you may not care how you get from the ceremony to the reception venue but you would like to spend a bit extra on flowers .
Be ruthless with your guest list This is the first place you need to consider to prevent costs from spiralling . Sometimes it is tempting to invite every distant relation or friend of a friend but with each invitation , your costs are rocketing . If money is tight , make a list of your closest family and friends , the ones you really do not want to miss the day .
Invitations It is nice to do something terribly original with wedding invitations but , while this is nice , it can cost up to £ 90 for a set . If you want to make your invites personal , pop into a stationers and pick up some decent card , gold and silver pens or a calligraphy pen and set to work writing them yourself . Stationers also often sell glitter and other decorative items that you could glue to your invitation .
Flowers Simple arrangements can be just as effective as larger ones , so do not feel you need to go overboard . A small posy for the bride is often enough , with one main arrangement in the ceremony room .
If you want flowers on the tables at your reception , you could do what Alison did at her wedding : “ We bought gerberas from a local garden centre and put them in pretty plant pots on the tables as a centrepiece , then told the guests they were welcome to take them home afterwards as a way to remember the day .”
Photography Wedding photography can take up a considerable chunk of your budget . If you cannot afford the prices of a professional photographer , why not ask someone you know who is good with a camera ? Jenny did this at her wedding . “ One of my friends was a keen amateur photographer and I always admired his pictures at get-togethers . We asked him to take our pictures and paid for the camera film for him . It was wonderful having someone we knew taking our pictures on the day as we felt more relaxed . The pictures were fantastic ; more informal than a wedding photographer would take but since we wanted a more relaxed wedding , we were more than happy with the results .”
For the reception itself , you could buy disposable cameras and put them on the table , asking guests to take pictures and leave the cameras afterwards . www . squibphotography . co . uk
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