Abbie and Tristen were married at the iconic The George Hotel in Rye. They had a beautiful and alternative wedding, but one that didn’t break the bank. As the venue was so gorgeous already that they didn’t need to spend a fortune decorating it, a few stings of bunting and some homemade paper flowers and place names was just enough.
The majority of their budget went on their photographer but they even saved on that by only hiring him for 3 hours. Pretty much everything else was DIY or a bargain. In total they spent just £2000! “We originally weren’t planning on having a professional photographer but we are sooo glad we did!” began Abbie. “The feelings of the day are captured forever!”
The bride bought most of her amazing outfit from eBay! Her dress set her back just £27, her headpiece was £7 and her shoes were a fiver! They also saved money by allowing their bridesmaids to wear whatever they liked, making and icing their own cake and constructing the bouquets themselves from flowers bought locally.
“Our wedding was relaxed, personal, homemade and giggly!” she explained. “My sister and I could not stop giggling pretty much right through waiting outside to walk in, down the aisle, the vows, everything!”
“All the homemade things made our wedding unique. I was really pleased with my bouquet especially! It took ages and I made some of the buttons myself with our initials on. There was a lot of trial and error to get everything right. My advice to other brides wanting to save money would be to do as many things as you can yourself, I spread it out over a time so it didn’t seem like a big mission, it made me feel very proud on the day to see it all.”
“Also, you don’t have to have any traditions at your wedding that you don’t want!” she concluded. “We chose not to have speeches as the thought made us pretty nervous, a few people said something but it wasn’t planned. The other thing is to have fun and keep it small if you can. We had 24 family and 5 friends at our wedding. Our other real friends understood we couldn’t afford to feed them at £45 a head and came to join us in the evening.”
