How to Save on Your Wedding inc. Handmade Wedding Invitations

Lets face it, none of us have money to just throw away, let alone thousands on just one day, especially in the current financial climate.

To make sure you get the best value for money when planning your wedding, we have got some top tips, from the invitations, right through to the honeymoons! If you are interested on saving the pennies, then read on.

Invitations – invitations play an important part of your wedding, they set of the start of your wedding and can really give a wow factor to your guests. But, if you are anything like me, there is no way that you could possibly afford to spend £5 each on an invitation. Handmade Wedding Invitations are becoming more popular, and whether you choose to make them yourself or find a Handmade Wedding Invitations company online, then you are sure to find some perfect invitations for your day, at a great cost.

Dress – As a huge part of the day, you want to get it right. Everybody has their eyes on the bride and her dress, it will be the talking point of the wedding for many years to come. A secret tip, which I personally did for my own wedding, was to try on the dresses in a shop, then I purchased my dress from the USA online. A bit sneaky, I know, but I paid half the price I would have by cutting out the middle man.

Groom – Most companies offer ‘groom goes free’ offers. We were not getting married near our home town, so we needed to go to a hire company where we could keep the suits for a week. Debenham’s ticked all the right boxes for us on our suit hire requirements, and had a brilliant range of colours and patterns to choose from.

Flowers – Some brides feel that flowers are a ‘must have’ and others can give or take them. Personally, I wanted flowers, but didn’t want to spend lots of money on them. I had 6 bridesmaids, so decided that they would have dolly bags, rather than flowers. We then had more money to spend on a lovely bouquet and button holes.

Photography – Look at your local universities and colleges for training photographers who are willing to take your photos. They are likely to do them for free, and are bound to offer a fantastic service as they will not only offer a ‘fresh eye’ to photography, but also will want to get it right, while training.

Hair & Makeup – See if a friend will be able to do your hair on the day, practice makes perfect. Get yourself down to the MAC counter for some fab makeup, get them to do a trial on your makeup and then you can spend a month or so before the wedding perfecting your look, so that you can do it yourself on the day.

Rings – You can pick up some great value rings from the internet. If you can afford it later on, you can always have a special moment a few years after the wedding where you can replace them for something more expensive.

Transport – Think about who you really need to arrange accommodation for. Is there a relative who can take care of the bridesmaids travel for you? Remember that the groom only needs a one way journey, so don’t worry too much about how they are getting to the church – trust me, he will get there!

Reception – There are so many ways you can save money on the reception. You could get married later in the day, so you can eat your wedding breakfast later. This will mean that you will only need to provide buffet food for evening guests, as the day guests will still be full. Alternatively, get married later in the day and just provide a buffet for all guests.

Wine – Don’t pay for drinks packages. For our wedding the drinks packages were £12.95 per person. I ordered the wine by the bottle from the venue and ordered all drink separately. It worked out at approximately £6 per person and they still had exactly the same as they would have if I had ordered the ‘package’.

Honeymoon – If you are already living together, you could always ask for guests to contribute to your honeymoon spending money as a wedding gift. Some people will not find this appropriate, and they will buy you a gift instead, but you will find that many would prefer to buy you something that you actually want and be happy to contribute to such a special gift.

Insurance – Chances are, you wont need it, but for less than £50 you can safeguard your hard earned cash. Unfortunately, things do go wrong with wedding venues, rings get lost and people do fall ill, so it is well worth the money, just in case.

If you are interested in Handmade Wedding Invitations, or want to make your own, then visit luxuryinvitations.co.uk.