Create your own beautiful wedding bouquet with personally picked flowers

Wedding Bouquet

Have you ever thought about creating your own wedding bouquet from fresh flowers that you have picked yourself? I was really interested to read about Blooming Green, based near Maidstone in Kent, who offer a great way to create your own wedding bouquet.

Wedding Bouquet

 

Blooming Green grow organic seasonal flowers that you can pick at their special pick-your-own sessions. For £10 you can fill a container with fresh flowers and foliage to take home and arrange.

If you want to learn how to make a hand-tied bouquet, a buttonhole or a table arrangement, then you can learn the tricks of the trade at one of Blooming Green's Friday afternoon workshops.

Buttonhole workshops: May 8 & Sept 18 (2-4pm) £30 (Flowers and materials included)

Vase workshop – May 22 & Aug 14 (2-4pm) £35 (Flowers and materials included)

Hand-tied bouquet – June 5 & Sept 25 (2-4pm) £40 (Flowers and materials included)

 The Blooming Green plot is open every Friday from 12-4pm from July 3 – October, as well as Saturday mornings on July 11, Aug 8 and September 12.

 

Wedding Bouquet

To see the full list of dates, pricing and to book your place on a course visit their website here:  www.bloominggreenflowers.co.uk

Happy flower arranging!

Laura xx

How Wedding Mood Boards can help you with your Wedding Planning

Wedding Mood Boards

From speaking with lots of newly engaged brides to be, I know that the DIY element of your wedding planning can be one of the most fun parts in the run up to your wedding. Visualising your wedding and putting down your thoughts and ideas onto paper is a great way to pull your theme together. This is why I am such a fan of wedding mood boards – not only can you see what colours and themes are emerging from your magazine clippings and fabric swatches, but it’s almost like an image version of your what to buy list!

I touched on the subject of wedding mood boards last year, here is an excerpt from that post to help you get started with creating your wedding mood board…

When you get engaged, it can seem like you have a massive mountain of wedding planning to climb, but by creating your first wedding mood boards, you will hone in on that lovely feeling of creating a day that is unique to your tastes and really shows off what you and your partner are about.

Wedding planning can be stressful, I admit it, but the overriding feeling should be FUN – afterall you’re marrying the love of your life 🙂

How you create your mood boards is up to you. Do you love the digital? You may want to go down the Pinterest route, like we do. As well as having the entire internet as your playground for searching for wedding eye candy, it is incredibly easy to use, free, and can be amended and refreshed whenever you fancy. Search for exactly what you are after and create your special board to collect all of your inspiration. You can also create secret boards, if you would prefer to keep your wedding themes private, or as a surprise for your guests.

If you are more crafty, and love getting busy with glue and cardboard, then a physical mood board will be a delight for you. Catalogues, glossy magazines, product packaging and swatches of material can be collected and arranged on your board. There is something wonderfully tactile and exciting about creating a mood board that you can actually feel.

Another, less structured way of creating a mood board, is to collect all of your swatches and cut outs and keep them in a box. This means that you can play around with the items, seeing which goes well with the other and enabling you to easily take certain items to your suppliers to show them the exact colour, or feeling, that you are after.

There are really no rules, and if you feel most comfortable and inspired by creating your mood board on the fridge door, with lots of magnets – then so be it! The important thing is to have a designated place for you to collect all of your favourite snippets of style. Having a mood board (or box!) can really help you to bring all of your ideas into one place and will clearly tie together your dreams and ideas.

I’d love to hear if you have got any wedding mood boards in place yet and how it has helped you with your planning? Let us know on Facebook or on Twitter @BudgetBrideCo.

Happy Wedding Mood Boarding!

Laura x

Photo credit: Xoyos.com via photopin

Real Life Budget Wedding – Annalisa and Glen

Real life budget wedding

Annalisa and Glen were married last May in a gorgeous real life budget wedding for just £1,200.

As a keen member of her local church choir, Annalisa managed to get the Church, Church Hall for a vintage afternoon tea after the wedding, and the Organist free of charge which really helped her stick to her budget. The couple got their Prosecco for the wedding from Lidl and had a mixture of home-made and shop bought wedding cakes. All of the vintage napkins and paper plates were sourced from Ebay.

Real life budget wedding

Real life budget wedding

The couple were really lucky with their wedding transport owing to friends with beautiful cars! They travelled in style in a luxury BMW, a Vintage Jaguar and an Audi TT.

Annalisa was delighted with the Grooms outfit which came in at £9.99! And again by shopping on Ebay, the couple managed to dress their bridesmaids for just £32. Annalisa had an absolute find with her wedding dress – paying just £183 for an Ian Stuart Baroque wedding dress which included dry-cleaning and seamstress fitting. Annalisa even managed to sell the dress after the wedding to help with costs!

Real life budget wedding

Real life budget wedding

 

Annalisa knew that saving on budget would mean having to take on a lot of wedding DIY herself and rising to the challenge, she took on the making of the bouquets, decoration of the afternoon tea hall and the evening reception hall, doing the Bridesmaids hair and make-up as well as her own.

Real life budget wedding

Real life budget wedding

 

Annalisa loved her naked vintage wedding cake!  Having seen them in a magazine, her daughter tried out the recipe once and was then able to bake and decorate the official one the day before the wedding. The guests loved the Victorian sandwich cake which was absolutely beautiful.

Real life budget wedding

Annalisa kept the reception buffet on budget by cooking all of the food herself along with some help from her family. This kept the evening food budget down to just £6 per head for her guests. There were traditional sandwiches and cold meats, lasagnes and vegetable pies, salmon and even a four tier cheese cake decorated with grapes. Normally this would be around £200 but Annalisa found a local cheesemonger who did it for £90!

Real life budget wedding

 

The couple managed to secure the evening venue in a beautiful Tudor Hall for just £60, and provided entertainment with Glen’s band. The hall had been decorated the night before and Annalisa adorned the tables with lace runners, tea lights in glass bowls filled with red and white crystals, and heart shaped tiny soaps and bath bombs with rose petals that made the room smell gorgeous and the guests could take away as favours. The candelabras and crystals were all sourced from local interior shops during sales.

Real life budget wedding

There was a crazy rush on the last day before the wedding with decorating the halls and then in the morning sorting out all of the hair and make-up, but it was all worth it in the end! Annalisa says that she was super lucky with the help and talents of their family and friends. She said that the trick is to shop around and don't hesitate to ask for assistance, people are always willing to help.

Real life budget wedding

Thanks so much for sharing your real life budget wedding with us Annalisa – congratulations to you and Glen 😀

Laura x

An amazing DIY Candy Buffet for your wedding in four easy steps

DIY Candy Buffet for your Wedding

Having a beautifully laid out candy buffet at your wedding is a popular idea at the moment for adding a fun touch to your wedding reception. Both adults and kids relish the chance to grab a sugar rush and it’s a lovely talking point for your guests.

There are lots of fab companies who can bring in a ready-made candy cart or candy buffet ready for your guests to devour, but if your budget cannot stretch to this, or you simply want to give it a go yourself, here is a guide to pulling together your own DIY Candy Buffet for your wedding!

 

♥ Decide on the overall look and feel that you would like to present for your candy buffet. For all colour palettes and themed weddings, I would recommend starting with a trestle or round table (ask your venue for where will be best to set this up) and dressing it in a one colour lace or cotton table cloth. As you are going to be filling the table with a lot of things, it’s a good idea to keep the base as quite simple, so you don’t end up with a garish look!

Then think about your colour palette or theme. For vintage weddings, add flower print bunting around the front of the table and piles of classic books bound with ribbon or twine to present your sweets on top of! To pull a colour theme into your candy buffet, use pom-poms to decorate the front of the table and ribbon around your candy jars. For a natural themed or barn wedding, use lots of burlap and gingham to add a boho feel.

 

DIY Candy Buffet for your Wedding
Vintage Lace Candy Bar Kit: £9.99

♥ Have a think about the kind of sweets you want to serve. Do you have a favourite that you would like to take pride of place? Or are you happy to provide a wide variety for your guests to choose from? Draw up a list of up to 10 options that you can focus on – you might want to include: sherbert flying saucers, cola bottles, rhubarb and custards, red rope licqorice, jelly babies, jelly beans, chocolate rasiens, chocolate buttons, humbugs and dolly mixture. You can order online from websites such as Sweets n Candy, Handy Candy and aquarterof.co.uk.

 

DIY Candy Buffet for your Wedding

♥ How would you like to present your sweeties? Different sized jars are a great idea for keeping the look neat and pretty, but you could also use bowls such as these novelty heart shaped ones! Remember to get some sweetie scoops for each of the bowls or jars, so that your guests don’t have to use their fingers!

 

♥ What kind of portions would you like your guests to have? Based on the amount of sweets that you have purchased, you should have an idea of how much each guest will be able to take. Bearing this in mind, have a look for cones or containers that each guest can use to fill with their portion of sweets from the Candy Buffet.

 

Have fun creating your candy buffet! Send us an Instagram or Twitter picture of yours using the hashtag #budgetcandybuffet!

 

Laura x

 

Top and Bottom Photo Credits: The Wedding of my dreams via photopin

 

 

A colourful wedding on a budget – Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

I’m so excited to share this beautiful colourful wedding on a budget with you today! Abby and Liam got married on the 10th August last year on a £3k budget. Thanks to London Wedding Photographer Miki Photography for sharing this wedding with us.

Abby gives us the lowdown on her amazing day…

Liam and I met in the music mobile at High School - he was 12 and I was 13. We loved each other’s company from day one, and after brief canoodling Christmas ’03 and again in ’04... We finally got together during Summer ’05. As cheesy as it sounds, we knew right away we would always be together.

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

We decided not to have a wedding theme as it was simply because it was too much hassle. We literally chose something if we liked it, and hoped it wouldn’t look like a jumble sale on the day.

The aim for the wedding was just to make it as ‘us’ as possible. Why, on a day of celebrating the love of two individuals, would you not celebrate their individuality? I was determined not to become a Bridezilla! I purposefully tried to be easy going, knowing everything won’t be perfect and that numerous things could go wrong at any stage. The flowers in particular, it was a pretty big gamble deciding to grow all the flowers and although we did buy more – we ended up with much more than we knew what to do with!

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

 

We wanted the ceremony to be fun and light, so we wrote it ourselves with Chris, my brother in-law’s uncle. Chris was amazing! He was perfect for the job, and really made us feel at ease when all the eyes were staring. He got all the kids involved and shouting out, and made everyone laugh (and cry). When we exchanged rings, Chris read the ring inscription from Lord Of The Rings, and finished the ceremony on a quote from Harry Potter! It was brilliant.

I also really wanted to source as much as we could locally. I have seen the struggles of small business owners first hand, and knew that if I could get it locally, I would. Chris happened to live opposite a pretty awesome pub, and the owner Andy supplied a real ale bar for us on the day. The cake, food, flowers, dress, bowties, venue, hair, confetti, hay bales and any printing was also sourced locally or from Etsy. We were really pleased and surprised we could do so much in this way!

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Being creative people, we knew there was no other option than to DIY. Of course this helped our budget greatly, but it also made it US. If we saw something we liked, we had it, regardless of colour/tradition/what other people expected. We also got rid some wedding traditions like cake cutting etc. It just wasn’t us. There were many frowns and ‘really?!’s from relatives along the way, but on the day everyone said how great it was. How it was a true reflection of us as people, and how all our hard work made it that extra bit special! We were shocked at how many people said it was the best wedding they have ever been to!

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

We made all the decorations ourselves. We spent nights hole punching circles, sewing garlands, making pom-poms, painting signs and glass jars, sorting pick & mix, creating kiddie goodie bags and wrapping thread around nails. It was SO much fun but a lot of work. We thought towards the end that we might not have enough, so near doubled what we had originally made. In the end most didn’t even get used! I made an awesome ‘All You Need Is Love’ banner that just would not stick to the wall! Countless teeny glitter flags, red hearts, pom-poms and tassels on sticks to go in the deserts that just got forgotten.

One of the best parts of the day for me was driving to the venue with my sister and Maisy - she was hilarious! Waving at everyone going past, giggling and making jokes. I really think I would have started to panic they weren’t making me laugh. I’m not very good being in the limelight! Another great memory is our first dance – we completely missed our song! We were supposed to have Bob Marley, but were too busy drinking whiskey on hay bales to hear it come on! We decided to have a quick dance when we heard Ed Sheeran, and everyone came and gathered around us cheering and taking pictures. It was perfect. It was also great to get millions of texts the following day from people waking up covered in glitter, with blow up guitars in their beds and jars of flowers on their windowsills!

 

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Our photographer was the only thing we splashed on. We decided that with all the hard work we were putting in, we needed amazing pictures! I would have been gutted if after hours, weeks, and months of sitting in our spare room making all the little details – that they weren’t captured. I am so glad we did this! Miki was just amazing. We couldn’t count the number of people who came up to us during and after the wedding saying how awesome and lovely he was! Everyone has been blown away by his photographs. We are so glad we found him!

The biggest wedding savings came from the invitations and decorations. I made the invitations myself on Photoshop, after being inspired by something on Pinterest (as always!). It was a pain getting the colours right, as the printed version never matched what I saw on screen! But eventually they were perfect. We spent £80 in total (including postage!) for the invitations. The other huge saving was on decorations, as we made them all ourselves, we really only paid for a load of coloured card and tissue!

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

Real life colourful budget wedding - Abby and Liam

If I could go back and change anything, I would have been more organised on the day itself. We had a rough plan of timings etc, but we forgot to do a couple of things due to being distracted. This resulted in numerous people (including us) running round trying to find or fix things. We wish we had given someone else a plan of the day and a ‘do not forget’ list to keep us on track – it is very difficult to think of anything on the day as you are constantly being pulled left right and centre.

I really don’t think that a big budget is important. We had exactly what we wanted, at a fraction of the cost of most weddings. Don’t think that because it is a wedding, you have to go to wedding suppliers only! Don’t think that the kick ass dress you saw for £100 isn’t good enough because it’s cheap. If you like it, get it. It will all look amazing on the day, and no-one will know you spent an hour scrubbing the peanut butter label off the beautiful blue jar the flowers are in.

 

Thank you for sharing your amazing day with us Abby and Liam!
Laura x

All photography courtesy of London Wedding Photographer Miki Photography contactable on mick@mikiphotography.co.uk

Ten thoughtful ways to make your wedding unique

Ten thoughtful ways to make your wedding unique

 

Having a wedding day that truly reflects how unique your relationship is, is a wonderful thing. By adding any of these ten thoughtful ways to make your wedding unique, you can really celebrate your love and maybe share a thing or two with your guests that they didn’t know about you and your beau before!

 

 1. Name each of your wedding breakfast tables after an element of your relationship. How about the name of the restaurant or pub where you had your first date, the name of the country where you spent your favourite holiday together, or the name of the road where you had your first home together. Add a little note on the reverse of the table name to give your guests the story!

 

 2. Have an instrumental version of your favourite song to walk down the aisle to – it will add a unique slant to your big entrance and will be more meaningful to you than the venues stock classical pieces.

 

3. Make home-made favours for your guests to take home with them. Cookies, home-made  booze in miniature bottles or mini pots of jam make cute, inexpensive and thoughtful favours which guests will really appreciate.

 

4. Frame a selection of cute childhood photographs of you and your beau and display on your gift table or near one of the bars, so that your guests can enjoy them during your evening reception.

 

5. Wear an unusual wedding dress – how about a prom style or traditional dress in your favourite colour? My number one celebrity wedding dress of all time is definitely Gwen Stefani’s.

 

6. Choose an unusual venue for your wedding – how about an outdoors tipi wedding or getting married on a boat?

 

7. Use a personalised stamp on everything from your wedding invitations through to name place cards and thank you letters after the big day. These are an inexpensive way to create a unique feel for your wedding.

 

8. Loving social media? Make up a hashtag for your day and let all of your guests know about it, so that they can join in on the fun during the day!

 

9. Whatever your feelings are about cake toppers, this can be a really fun way to individualise your wedding and celebrate you and your beau! If you have a family pet, include them in the topper, or incorporate you hobbies into the finished topper look. It’s fun and a lovely talking point for your guests.

 

10. Custom made drinks labels look great at your reception and really help pull your theme together. Include thoughtful details like you and your beau’s names and the date and place of the wedding.

Having an individual wedding is all about celebrating what is unique to you and your love. Make your wedding memorable to your guests with lots of little touches that will leave both them and you with amazing memories of your day 🙂

 

What are you going to be doing to make your day unique? Let us know over on Facebook!

Laura x

 

Photo Credits: Keith Bloomfield via photopin

Plan your own wedding: on budget, on time and in style: a 30 day e-course

Plan Your Own Wedding E-course

 

Morning all! I hope that you are enjoying the glorious weather and that any wedding planning you are working on is being done outside wherever possible!

I have something lovely to unveil for you today, something which I have been working on for a while and should help a lot of you with the questions and dilemmas that I know you can face whilst planning your wedding…

I have created our first ever Budget Bride Company e-course and it has been made especially with you in mind! This is a 30 day learning course that is emailed to you in 30 bite size chunks over 30 days and will guide you through every area to help you plan your own wedding.

From how to set your budget, through to dealing with tricky in-laws, this course covers it all and will take the stress right out of your planning.

And the best bit? This 30 day course is yours for £9.50! Simply buy your course here, and your first session will be emailed straight to your inbox. I recommend buying a lovely folder that you can print the sessions out into to save and work through as they arrive with you each day, to help you stay super organised and top of your planning.

Here’s a little glimpse of the topics that will be covered in your Plan Your Own Wedding 30 day course :

♥ Getting started with your wedding planning

♥ Setting your budget

♥ Setting your timeline

♥ Working on emotional and financial priorities

♥ Researching and finding your perfect venue

♥ Deciding on a colour pallet and / or theme for your wedding

♥ Deciding on your guest list

♥ Assigning tasks

♥ Stationery

♥ Gift lists and how to ask for money as a gift

♥ Catering

♥ Table planning

♥ Decoration

♥ Favours

♥ The cake

♥ Booking your key wedding suppliers

♥ Dealing with awkward relatives

♥ The legal requirements

♥ Wedding Etiquette

♥ The Dress

♥ Underwear and accessories

♥ Hair and make-up

♥ Key roles within your wedding party

♥ The Hen Do and Stag Do

♥ The Honeymoon

♥ Running order on the day

♥ Speeches

♥ Traditions you may or may not want to follow

♥ Keeping your energy up on the day

♥ Happily Ever After – wise words

It’s a comprehensive course and each day includes a top wedding planning tip as well as an action point for you to carry out. The aim of the Plan Your Own Wedding 30 day course is to help you achieve a beautiful wedding and to enjoy every minute of your planning time!

I have based the course on questions that I am asked by brides to be all the time, and I have used my 12 years of wedding planning and event management experience to give you the guidance and inspiration that you need. As a bride to be on a budget myself, I know exactly where to focus your energy and time and this course will show you how to make planning your wedding a breeze!

I can’t wait to help you plan your own wedding – you can started with your course today for £9.50, just head over to the e-course page and as soon as you have paid by PayPal, your first session will be sent out to you!

Happy Wedding Planning!

Laura xxx

Real life Rustic Themed Budget Wedding Planning – Sarah and Simon

Meet Sarah and Simon, this lovely couple are planning their rustic themed budget wedding in Devon on a £10K budget with lots of DIY elements to make their money stretch further.

Rustic Themed Budget Wedding

Tell us a little bit about how you met Simon and how you got engaged?

We met in University; we were both on the same course. At first we weren’t really friends - I freaked him out with my bubbliness and he freaked me out with his bizarre clothes and hair. During our second year we became friends after working on a project together and ended up sharing a flat as mates in the 3rd year and eventually as a couple!

As for the engagement, it started with Simon refusing to visit my family for my birthday weekend (RUDE!) so he could instead see his family to tell them he was planning to propose to me; unbeknown to me. He also took an old ring of mine to get the right size, he then brought a ring he had been keeping an eye on and kept it in his bag until the right moment.

We arranged a date night for a Thursday in November 2013, to go see Skyfall and have a meal out. Unfortunately the film had sold out, I’ve never seen Simon so horrified before; for me this was a normal night out so I suggested we go for a drink at our local pub Dogstar where I chatting away about my day and I could tell Simon wasn’t really listening!

We then went for dinner at Honest Burger in Brixton Market; our favourite restaurant since we moved to London and while we were waiting for food we got chatting about how happy we are with our relationship; at this point Simon said “What if we were more than we are now?” and slid the ring across the table (his hands were shaking like mad!), to which I replied in shock “Are you serious?” to which he replied “I wouldn’t have bought the ring if I wasn’t! So what do you think? Will you marry me?” Of course I said “YES!”

When the server found out we had just got engaged she brought us over free limoncellos and got all the staff to cheer us. For me it was perfect; low key, a total shock, in a place I loved and to top it all off in a place where no one else had got engaged before: completely unique and completely us!

 

What has been your favourite part of planning your wedding so far?

Visiting the venues; you see such a diverse range of places and it’s great fun travelling around to see them all; it makes the event suddenly seem so real and it helps you visualise the day (exciting!) and decide what you actually want.

Also you will always see something you never get on the website; at one location we walked out onto a balcony and received a massive shock when we saw two peacocks sat on the balcony ledge.

At our chosen venue we didn’t realise until we got there that the hallway would be decorated like a forest; it was a massive surprise and we had a great time pretending to hide in the foliage.

Rustic Themed Budget Wedding

What is your wedding Budget and how are you making the most of it?

£10,000, which for this day and age is quite a small budget, but feels MASSIVE when you break it all down. As our parents can’t help us with the wedding we are being really strict with the budget.

To make the most of it we are getting a lot of our items homemade which is saving us a lot of money; we have also researched every item prior to booking to get averages worked out beforehand.

 

What is your best money saving tip for other brides on a budget?

Search, Search and Search some more! It’s too easy to settle for the first item you see, but if you’re willing to put the effort in, you will usually manage to find something cheaper.

When searching, don’t ignore recommendations; other brides are more than happy to offer you money saving tips and recommend the websites that helped them. All of the information and suppliers that you need to have a budget wedding are out there, you just need to search for them!

 

Are you doing much DIY for your wedding?

We have done quite a lot of DIY for our rustic themed budget wedding; at the moment we’ve agreed the following will be homemade:

- All our favours, which will be jars of marmalade, jam and chutneys.

- Simons step mum is making the cake for us; she makes loads of cakes every year so we know it will be delicious!

- My mum makes flower arrangements every year for Christmas so I’ve asked her to help plan and organise the table decorations.

- Getting chalkboards ordered so we can write our own signs for the day.

- Personalising my bridesmaid dresses with ribbons.

- Creating some funky picture props to sit on the tables: I’ve seen these in store, but they can be easily replicated with card and some lollypop sticks!

- Making our own confetti holders as well; again these are really easy to make with some card!

 

Tell us about how you decided on your theme for your wedding day?

Our theme is rustic; with orange, reds, yellows and purples being our main colours. We chose this wedding theme because we love the country; we picked our venue for the views of the countryside and we felt rustic fit in with this and the kind of style we like. We picked the colours because it reminds us of bonfires and sunsets but also because they are bright, vibrant and energetic.

Rustic themed budget wedding

What would be your best piece of advice for all of our other Budget Bride Company readers?

Keep organised to keep your budget in check; it’s too easy to buy things on a whim and forget you’ve brought 10 other things on a whim; and end up spending hundreds but by knowing what you want and setting yourself a limit you can keep this in check.

 

Rustic Themed Budget Wedding - Sarah and Simon

Wow, Sarah – it sounds like you’re totally on the case with the planning and keeping on top of your wedding budget 🙂  We can’t wait to see the photos and hear all about how you enjoyed your rustic themed budget wedding day!

 

Laura x

Budget Bride to Be – Emma is planning a Purple Themed Wedding with lots of Butterflies

Cute Purple Save the Date

Emma and Ash are going to be getting married next year at a Purple Themed Wedding with lots of DIY wedding touches. We had a chat with Emma to find out about her wedding story so far...

 

My other half's name is Ash and we met  six years ago when Ash started working as an apprentice at my Dad's company. Ash was told never to go anywhere near his bosses daughter! Ash later left the company but we remained friends and started talking again in April when I wrote on Facebook that I had booked my flights to Canada for a holiday. He asked if he could come in my suitcase and we haven’t stopped talking from there!

 We got engaged on 21st November 2013; we had been having a rubbish week with some housing problems and had gone to visit my Sister and her family for some dinner. About half hour after we arrived I was handed my then four month old niece and asked to get her ready for bed. I began getting her ready whilst chatting with the family. After unbuttoning her top, I continued talking until I noticed she was wearing a baby vest with the words "Will you marry uncle Ash?" printed across the front! I couldn’t speak and looked up as Ash got down on one knee next to me, ring in hand.

Aorable baby grow proposal!

I am loving the whole process of planning our wedding. We’ve been to lots of wedding shows and wedding fairs and received different ideas from each. We have searched daily for different deals and bargains and are going to be doing some of the bits ourselves to keep a price down. My sister – who is my Maid of Honour - has handmade our Save the Date Invites and she will be making our Wedding Invitations too. We have found lots of cheap but perfect wedding items on Ebay. We also decided to buy bio-degradable paper from Ebay in our Wedding theme colours to make our own confetti. We have also purchased a butterfly shape cutter as this is a major part of our theme too.

Purple and white handmade wedding confetti

 

We get married in May 2015, so we have started collecting wedding decorations and creating DIY wedding projects now so that we don’t have to pay out a lot of money all in one go.

Emma and Ash are having a purple themed DIY Wedding in 2015

On my wedding day I am looking forward to seeing all our plans and ideas come together and spending my day with our family, but most of all I can’t wait to become MRS HALL!

 

Enjoy the rest of the planning Emma and we can’t wait to hear all about the day itself and see your pictures!

Laura xx

Planning a wedding on a £6k Budget – Gemma and Stephen

Gemma and Stephen are going to be getting married this year on the 15th August at Dorton house in Aylesbury. The couple have been planning their wedding on a £6k budget and today Gemma is sharing some of her tips with us for how she has created her dream day…

 

 

How did you and Stephen meet?

Stephen  and I have been together for seven years; we first met in august 2001 when we were at our annual summer camp with the Army Cadets. We lost contact and then found each on Facebook in 2007 and the rest as they say, is history 😉

 

Can you tell us a bit about the proposal?

Steve proposed on the 14th December 2012. It was a complete surprise as I had had a bad day with our daughter, so he had suggested that I go for a nice relaxing bath which I agreed would be a good idea! When I finally got out of the bath, I got dressed in to my pj's and went downstairs. When I went into the front room, all of the lights had been turned off apart from  the Christmas tree lights… Steve was wearing his dinner jacket and was down on one knee he said 'will you spend the rest of your life with me'! Of course I said yes 😀

Gemma and Stephen and planning a £6k wedding

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is your favourite part of planning your wedding so far?

 My favourite part so far has been choosing everything! The wedding has pretty much planned its self as we knew exactly what we both wanted, so it has been great fun pulling all of our ideas together.

The Bridesmaids Shoes

 

The Thank you Gift Bag

 

What wedding budget are you aiming to stick to?

Our wedding will cost in total around £6,000, with the biggest expense being our venue at £4,000.

 

Gemma and Stephen are getting married at Dorton house in Aylesbury

 

What is your best money saving tip for other brides on a budget?

My best money saving tip is to call in favours from friends and family wherever you can. My mum and I are going to make the wedding cake and favours; my hairdresser is a close friend of ours as well which helps! But the best tip that I have is to look in the sales - we got our bridesmaid’s dresses for £15 each instead of £70.

Table Place Settings

Bridesmaids Jewellery from River Island

 

Are you doing much wedding DIY?

DIY is a major part of our wedding. I made our invites, table plan and place settings so they all match perfectly. We will also be doing our own venue decoration which will include bird cages and lovely sky blue chair sashes.

Bird Cage Centre Pieces - Wedding Table Decoration

 

What would be your best piece of advice for all of our other Budget Bride Company readers?

My best piece of wedding advice would be to have the most important members of your family to the ceremony during the day and everyone else can come in the evening. Also, it's your day and don’t let anyone tell you what you should do!

 

Thanks for sharing your wedding plans with us Gemma! Hope that you love every minute of the remaining run up to your wedding in August and we can’t wait to hear all of the details and see the pictures of the day afterwards!

 

Laura xx