Leanne and Chris get married on a £5000 Wedding Budget
Leanne and Chris got married in 2011 on a £5000 wedding budget. As a wedding supplier herself (Leanne runs Love Letters – you can see her creations here, Leanne knew all the ways to save money on her wedding, whilst still keeping things stylish!
We had a chat with Leanne to find out how she pulled off her dream day on a £5000 wedding budget.
♥ Tell us a little bit about how you met your fiancé and how you got engaged?
We had been together for 13 years before we got married (now 16 years!). We met through friends and started dating and never looked back. We got engaged on Christmas day! The last present under the tree was for me and it was a big box - I unwrapped it to find a smaller box which I unwrapped to find the ring box! Still thinking it would be a pair of earrings I was totally shocked to find an engagement ring. My husband got down on one knee and proposed! The ring fitted so perfectly - it was the best Christmas ever!
♥ What was your favourite part of planning your wedding?
Our favourite part about planning the wedding was getting stuck in and making as much as we could ourselves. I enjoyed getting my glue gun out and creating some beautiful invitations that cost me a quarter of the price they would have to get printed up. We also loved attending every wedding fair we could to look at venues and speak to all the different suppliers. We got some great ideas and tasted lots of lovely wedding cake too!
♥ Tell us about how you made the most of your £5000 wedding budget
We had a £5000 wedding budget so we were really careful to make sure we shopped around. We were really good at finding something we liked and then researching how we could make it fit our budget. For example we wanted to make sure that we had a nice wedding cake but we couldn't justify the expense within our budget. My husband took on the challenge of sourcing us a reasonably priced wedding cake. Our cake was an iced sponge wedding cake from Marks and Spencers with some lovely iced fairy cakes from Waitrose. I decorated the cake with some purple ribbon to match with our colour scheme and we displayed the cupcakes on a three tiered cake stand. Everybody loved the cake and said they tasted great! I don't think people would have known that we bought them from a supermarket.
♥ What is your best money saving tip for other brides on a budget?
Go to all the wedding fairs you can – wedding suppliers offer enticing discounts to you on the day and you will find that you can get so much more for your money this way. Also be flexible with your wedding date - don't choose a date first. Find the venue and see what deals they are doing then fit your date in with them. You could save thousands of pounds on your wedding budget.
♥ Who were your favourite budget wedding suppliers?
Our favourite budget wedding suppliers were probably the venue. As I mentioned we found our dream venue but couldn't afford the price. We went back to the venue when they were hosting a wedding fair and found that they were offering certain dates for a greatly reduced price. After a couple of glasses of wine whilst we checked through our diaries we booked a date and paid the deposit there and then! The venue was Brownsover Hall in Rugby. At the same wedding fair we came across a wonderful florist - Jane Andrews Floral Design (who also got married at Brownsover Hall). She totally understood our budget and helped us to create exactly the look we wanted to fit our budget.
We also found a lovely photographer - White Rose Photography - who did us a fantastic deal and we have some beautiful photos as a result .
♥ Did you do much DIY?
We made our wedding invitations, the table plan and the post box for cards and gifts. We also painted our own MR & MRS wooden letters which led into us starting up our own business - Love Letters. We now supply lots of weddings with hand painted wooden letters and signs for their special day.
♥ What did you enjoy most on your wedding day?
Seeing everyone enjoying themselves and feeling special!
♥ Did you have a theme for your wedding day and if so, how did you decide on it?
We didn't have a theme as such but we wanted to use the Cadbury purple colour as the main scheme of the day. My beautiful bridesmaid wore a dress that I sourced online. I wanted to have pearls as my jewelry to have a bit more of a vintage style; I found a lovely tiara from Glitzy secrets and purchased faux pearl necklaces and bracelets from a highstreet store to match.
♥ What would be your best piece of advice for all of our other Budget Bride Company readers?
Don't fall in to the trap of feeling you have to have what everyone else has. For example we didn't need a wedding car as I stayed the night before in the hotel and my husband travelled with his best man from home to the venue. To us a car would have been a pointless extravagance that we didn't need. Find what is important to you and stick to your guns.
Thanks so much for sharing your wedding planning secrets with us Leanne!
Laura x
