The Great Hunt: Your wastes of wedding cash

A question about : The Great Hunt: Your wastes of wedding cash

Your wastes of wedding cash - what should newlyweds avoid?

We're looking for tips to help those planning their nuptials - when you got married, what do you regret shelling out for? Could you have done without monogrammed napkins, chair covers, the fifth bridesmaid or special clothes for hen and stag dos?

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Best answers:

• The ring is symbolic, so in retrospect, I would have bought a stainless steel or other cheap but durable metal for mine.
  Not sure if the same applies for a ring that sits next to an engagement ring, as I've heard that metals should be the same softness to avoid wear. Maybe someone can confirm that?
• I agree - my wedding ring cost Ј11 from Argos. Luckily it's the same metal as my engagement ring (Ј100 from Beaverbrooks) so it works well.
  Other things we didn't bother with - chair covers (pointless), table decorations (the tables were full enough with the plates, cutlery, place names, bottles of wine, bottles of water etc!), a DJ (I made a 3 hour iPod playlist), a separate reception (we had it in a restaurant that had a big balcony, luckily the weather was beautiful, so there wasn't really any dancing but just lovely chatting and mingling), a meal then buffet (we got married at 3pm, which meant after photos etc it was time for the main meal), extra people for the reception (we kept it small and everyone just came to everything), a photographer (we asked a friend who was coming along to take pictures for us and bought her a bottle of champagne as a thankyou).
  What this meant was that we had a really relaxed day, we had a boat trip around Bristol and we were able to afford prosecco and canapes on the boat. Then everyone made their way up to the venue for the meal, and it was just a really good party atmosphere all day and evening. People still say it was the best wedding they've ever been to
• I know someone who apparently made every guest pay for their meal at their wedding, yet had an exclusively John Lewis gift list and spent Ј800 on a poncy book shelf. Wouldn't surprise me if the bridal party paid for their own dresses too! So turn's out you can go without paying for a lot of stuff...
• We did away with the "meal" as costs were huge and had a "sit down BBQ", friends of my parents who were just too distant to ordineraly be invited then acted cooks and servers (didnt get to come to church as cooking but then once cooking done joined reception) and so set up a tent outside the hall to cook burgers, hotdogs, chicken legs and then there was salads, all in I think it was less than Ј10 per head. We had 5 BBQs but only ended up using 4
• The whole day? Weddings are such a waste of money. I have been to 4 weddings in the last 6 weeks and the amount each of my friends spent was insane.
  My partner would like to get married but I really don't see the point. You can spend Ј10k+ on a single day or you could go on several nice holidays or buy a car/use it as a house deposit. I know where my priorities lie!
• As a young child (6) I was left out of being a bridesmaid for an aunt out of a family of 10 female cousins because my parents couldn't afford to buy me the dress. No one mentioned the reason at the time and I felt as though I wasn't being included because they didn't like me. You have to be so careful with these tthings not to upset/offend people.
• Definitely chair covers. I'm not paying Ј300 for a sheet and a bit of a ribbon!
  I would also say don't get favours. Having worked in a hotel that did lots of weddings when I was a teenager, they had a bit of a tendency to get left behind at the end of the night, and I don't really want to waste money on that. Instead, we're handing out retro sweet shop-style paper bags filled with a teabag (I'm making personalised tags for them with our initials and wedding date) and a slice of wedding cake, because I reckon people will want a brew at the end of the night and some cake for the next day.
  Quote:
• Going along with the Great White Wedding idea.
  It made my parents terribly happy, and the families enjoyed the party, but with hindsight we could have skipped the Wedding (having been married at the Rgistry office anyway) & just had a party at the reception.
  Still, hindsight is 20/20 & the wedding album not only has photos of almost every relative with a pulse on the day but also several splendid examples of why the Great White is not to be undertaken lightly. We used it to advise (and laugh with) another mother & daughter months later - and they decided to have an altogether more modern do.
• Having recently got married (and dealt with all the hilarious stress that went with it!) one thing I'd say you can do without is the expense of hiring a photo booth. It's a great idea, but who can't find other things they'd much rather spend Ј600 on?? We set up my digital SLR in a spare room at our venue and spent Ј15 on a RF Remote shutter control, Ј35 on an ornately framed blackboard (which we now have up in our kitchen to make shopping lists with) and Ј1 on a packet of chalk from the pound shop and ditched the idea of a guest book altogether. We used an old laptop that we weren't too worried about getting anything spilled on, and the software that came with my Canon to connect up to the camera, then all people had to do was write their message to the bride and groom and take their picture. Within a second or two they could see their photo from where they were standing (or sitting) and take another if they didn't like it. (We thought about the whole Polaroid thing, but realised you have to have someone there to take the pic for you, and that it could easily disappear into another room and get found at the end of the night in a corner without much use, OR you could spend a fortune on spare photo paper for it and end up with a load of useless and fuzzy pics at great expense). The pictures we ended up with are brilliant - we never knew how creative our friends and family are, especially with a few drinks in them!
  Other things you can save on are table decorations - some people spend a fortune on those AND favours too. We got some kilner jars for Ј1 each from Ikea and filled them with sweets we bought in bulk at Makro and the sweet was the name for each table, so three jars on a table with sweets in and some paper striped sweetie bags from ebay made that super cheap! Also I had a heart-shaped paper punch that my mum had given me as a kid which I ended up using to punch a load of little hearts out as table confetti in our colour to help fill the table out a bit. That lot with a few tea lights and the glasses, cutlery etc looked great!
  Also on flowers you don't have to go to a florist (although we thought for a table decoration we probably should) but for our bouquets and button holes we bought stems from a local garden centre that has a floristry section, and in total on flowers we spent about Ј200 (three bouquets of cala lilies, 5 button holes and one large table decoration for use when signing our register and was then transferred to the top table)
  My bridesmaids dresses ended up coming from the sale rack at Marks and Spencer - we found the dresses online but then by the time we managed to get together to try them on they'd disappeared but were luckily still available in store and had been reduced three times to Ј25 each from Ј79
  My drop sparkly earrings were from a Sainsbury's Tu 25% off sale and with my nectar points cost me Ј1.50
  I also made my own wedding cake - super stressful but really rewarding in the end! It was a 3 tier ruffled cake all in white with silk flowers from HobbyCraft on top and a wire MR & MRS topper from Etsy on top. It was HUGE and with all the practice bakes that I did (my work colleagues loved me in the run up to the wedding with all the cake I brought in for them to eat!) I think it probably cost about as much as having someone make one for us, but by the time I figured that bit out I was too far down the line! So if you want to save yourself the hassle, pay for one to be made, or ask a friend to do it for you - the last days before the wedding should be spent on getting your nails done and trying to make sure everything else is done rather than stressing about icing a cake!
  See what your venue will throw in for free - cake stand and knife etc.
  Hope this helps!
• I'm getting married next year and have been given advice from every angle on what to leave out.
  Pretty much everyone says don't spend too much as the party atmosphere is where it's at, and that's free. But you can't tell a bride to be to cheap out, so scrap that idea.
  Big fancy photo albums - I've got 6 siblings who have all been married. I've seen just 2 of their wedding albums, and none of them have got them out more than once or twice. So don't bother with Ј70-200 for fancy ones, unless you value every viewing at Ј100 a pop.
  Video of the wedding - Same as above really. Almost never gets watched, so unless you value that viewing in the hundreds of pounds, I wouldn't bother either. Especially as everyone and their dog has a smart phone with decent camera on it.
  A three course meal at a venue you haven't tried the food of - annoyingly, almost all venues force you to have their catering at your wedding, meaning when you're looking at venues you need to be judging them on both venue quality and food quality. However we visited no less than 30 venues in Essex, and just 2 of them gave us a taster of their food. I went to a wedding last year and while the venue and everything was beautiful, the food was some of the worst I'd ever eaten (seriously - lumpy mash like wallpaper past, warm prawns in a shop-bought prawn cocktail, etc.). They paid over Ј40 a head for that as well. And I'll forever remember their wedding as 'the one with the awful food'.
  Edit: We asked at every venue about trying their food. For all of them that didn't have a restaurant that was open to the public, you had to put a deposit down before you got to try the food.
• I'm not married, but I love weddings and went to 6 last year. From a guest's POV, the things I think are pointless:
• Favours
• Video
• Disposable cameras

Regarding who should pay for things, I firmly believe that the wedding party (bridesmaids, groomsmen, best man etc) should be paid for 100%. Accommodation too, if it isn't a local affair. If the couple can't afford to pay for bridesmaid dresses then either hire them or fire some bridesmaids!
Cash bars are ok, but not if it's being held in an expensive venue. One wedding we went to was Ј6 a bottle of beer and Ј25 a bottle of wine and no money behind the bar. Result: a sober reception. Get a marquee and some barrels and charge Ј1.50 a pint or a charity donation.

• I think by far the biggest waste of money at weddings has to be disposable cameras on the tables. I've heard so many of my friends say they spent a fortune having them all developed to end up with very few decent pics out of them. As everyone now has digital cameras or their mobiles, we decided at our wedding to put some blank cd's on each table with a little poem asking guests to download their photos on to the disc and return it to us - we ended up with some cracking pics at a fraction of the price of disposables! And the leftover cd's didn't go to waste, we brought them home and use them in the house.
  I know some people think chair covers are a waste of money, but it's really all about personal taste. As so many others things for our wedding were done very cheaply (table centrepieces were Ј2 each, favours, invites, cake etc all made by my own fair hands) I think the chair covers were our only extravagance, and to me they really made the venue look just how I wanted so it was worth it. We did however phone around and made sure we got the cheapest price we could!
  One piece of advice we were given by the hotel was not to provide a glass of fizz for everyone, as they said they often end up pouring it out as so many guests don't like it. My Dad opted instead to buy each guest one drink to toast us with, then anything after the guests bought themselves. It probably helped we were fortunate enough to find an excellent venue which didn't charge through the roof prices for alcohol!
  I agree with a comment above to try the food first, you need to make sure it will be something you like. And I don't think there's any need to go a la carte, at most weddings I've been to with fancy menus half the guests just picked at their plates. We opted for a choice of steak pie or roast chicken, not only one of the cheapest menu options but every plate went back to the kitchen clean and all my family and friends said they really enjoyed to food, and the whole day for that matter too
• Another good tip for keeping the cost down is limit your guest numbers. Don't feel obliged to have everyone there all day, we have an unspoken rule in our family - Aunties and Uncles all day, Cousins at night. This really helps keep it much smaller, and cheaper, and most people prefer the party at night anyway!
• Someone that s***s anything in trousers, incl other women, as they'll never be faithful
• Thank you for your advice here Jackmcvitie, I am getting married in September and I love the camera idea. We were thinking a polaroid with a nice backdrop instead of a photobooth, but I will definitely look into a Digital SLR on a stand. Also love the heart shaped hole punch for table confetti, I'm going to look out for one of those!
  One thing that my partner and I are really passionate about is our guests not having to pay a fortune for drinks on the day so we found a venue where we provide our own alcohol and don't have to pay corkage. So we are able to do a free bar because we are stocking up on wine, beer and spirits when they are on offer at the Supermarket ready for the Big Day. We can spread the cost and get great deals.
• I happily did without - hiring cars, fancy invitations:
  We designed cheap Vistaprint invitation cards and they were lovely. I arrived in my bridesmaid's Fiat 500 with a ribbon on - it was fun.
  But are you sure you want to skip... the video?
  Unlike other comments above, I adore our wedding video. It was expertly shot, set to our favourite music. It was a beautiful day and I love watching it. It's wonderful to see your favourite friends and family smiling in the sunshine enjoying your perfect day. So many of those guests will pass away in our lifetime, and we'll have the beautiful memories of them captured forever.