Frugal wedding malarkay - 1

Now this isn't the kind of post that will appeal to many people but some folks have asked specifics of what we're doing with 'Wellyfest 2013' to try and have a wedding celebration 'our way'.  So whilst its unlikely to be helpful - in the manner of reflection I'll lob a few wee snippets on here. Hmm well its ages til we do the 'I do' bit in beautiful forests - well at LEAST a week.

SO what on earth can I tell you about the experience so far? Before we went crazy with the planning we decided who we wanted along. Having debated long and hard about exactly who/where/why we wanted to celebrate our wedding. Then came the budget we could have done it little and spent a few hundred pounds - we wanted our closest chums and family so we bit the bullet and decided to go for it - we want to have a holiday at Xmas (as usual, this year we'll also call this a honeymoon) and hopefully look at buying a house next year - so we've considered £3k to be the region we'd be comfortable spending. (If you can ever be comfortable spending that kind of money on something as decadent as a party). We know we'll have to say - no we can't afford x/y/z but that's OK, we need to prioritise, and that's fair.

 

The main facts really are that we're attempting to have a wedding in a forest in Scotland, with c100 fab guests and a very fun party for a budget of £3000. We want it to be as paper free as possible, as waste free as possible and as home made as possible.

I had utterly no clue where to start, so I found a book. Well the dearest ex-cellist found a book, in the library. It was called  'Your wedding Your way.'  And thus the games began. And the book was free, good start. N'er a wedding magazine has graced this house, borrowed or otherwise. There are oodles of books in the library on wedding planning, who knew. I normally head straight for the cook book section. The one thing I would say about this process is if you want something a bit different stick your elbows out, give them a sharpen and stick to your guns. Its worth YOU and your DEARLY BELOVED making a list of what you DON'T want and what you do want and remembering to reflect on it often. The book helped me see that. It's so easy to get sucked into the frenzy. Yes, even I found myself fondling favours and telling myself how pretty they were. Step away my lovely, they're NOT on the list. Nice as they are you don't want them - remember? STICK TO YOUR GUNS.

 

So back to this list then, we decided what was important to us and what wasn't. Lots of the non-essentials were ditched, not to say that they'd not be lovely but they weren't as important to us as other things. So after deciding we'd like to have a moderately sizable celebration, along came some of the things we really care about.....and I've lobbed in some costs, these might be actual, estimated or totally unrealistic, but lets see how we do. There is a wee contingency, I think most people call the that kids uni funds but lets not kibble over which ISA it comes out of.

So current allocated spends are -

 

Outdoor wedding in a forest of our choice - cost £402

We 'could' have found a free venue - we chose to spend some of our money on an NTS venue which we both love - and that had a cost. Our choice, its a special place and after much wrangling with the poor warden I am ASSURED all the money raised in that venue is SPENT in that venue - good enough for me. We chose the autumn - forests look fantastic in this season, its my favourite season (aside the other three) so why not. And in a very frugal manner - you instantly have a very easy to bring into the venue theme. So our 'rustic' autumnal theme was borne of both love and frugality. Cunning huh.

 

A Humanist Ceremony - cost £350

We chose a Humanist ceremony as it suited our philosophy of life. So a standard ceremony would have been a less costly choice, but it wasn't for us. We've been to few Humanist gathering and find them to be deeply moving and very lovely. There is an additional legal cost on top of this, which I'll varies where you live.

 

A community venue - cost c£400 + all additional costs like corkage etc for the evening TBC

We wanted a community hall/venue to host our 'home made' knees up. Community venues around the country and often offer a unique space to have an event it. Feels nice to be using our chosen community's facilities and acknowledging their role in every village/town/city. Its often the heart of a community and we wanted to celebrate our event in such a place. The one thing I would say is shop around. Community halls often offer a really good money for value service whilst other establishments we've found quote very differently if you ring them for a 'wedding for X amount of folks' or email them about a 'conference for the same amount of folks'.........just saying. The W word seems to add a goodly amount to a cost in some establishments.

 

Grub - c£500- excluding toasts/wine

Well any frugal lass would smart at the cost of a 'shop bought buffet' and when feeding the combined McFlowers rabble a buffet is generally the best way to do it. They are prone to food fights. So having thought it all though before we started down this process I said to Mr McF to be - 'I think we should do the grub' - a firm nod from himself, 'Of course, best phone Aunty C then and see if she's free to take on the head wedding chef's job'. And she did. We'll go in to this bit a lot further in another post - grub and the making of a feast for a frugal amount, is a the subject of much head scratching and a post all of its own.

So before we've got dressed we're sitting on chairs wondering how on earth spends are already in the region of £1652.......

So far as of today's date the approximate allocated spends are around £2900/£3000 and we've got a couple of weeks to go. And, yes I know the above doesn't take count of all that money - a girl can't spill the beans on where all the money's allocated, in just one post now can she.

I'm away to put a flannel on my head and lie down - that's a lot of money isn't it and we're not even dressed yet.

A wedding in PJ's perhaps?

This isn't perfect - I'm sure we'll make a whole heap of mistakes but what's ever perfect about a marriage. Might as well start as we mean to go on, with good intentions and a canny eye on the budget. And we're having a lot of help with many aspects of it all - friends and family are being amazing, and for me that sense of love and friendship embodies who we are. Whilst its hard to sometimes ask for help of such a magnitude - I'd sure as hell do the same for anyone I loved too.