February 26, 2008
The Cheap Wedding Tips newsletter brings you the latest money-saving and budgeting tips for your wedding as well as lots of great ideas on how to have a perfect cheap wedding.
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Contents Of This Issue
- WIN £50 in our free prize draw- What’s new at Cheap Wedding Success
- New version of the wedding planner to download – now in Excel!
- Cheap wedding tip
- Final thought
WIN £50 IN OUR FREE PRIZE DRAW
Fancy a bit of pampering or need an extra £50 to get that little something extra for your wedding? Fill in our quick survey about your wedding today and we'll enter you into our free prize draw to win £50.It’s quick and easy, so enter now and start planning how you could spend that £50!
What’s New At Cheap Wedding Success
Well Valentine's day has passed and March is only around the corner. I’m looking forward to spring with its pretty flowers and lighter evenings. With all these dark nights though, there’s been plenty of time to add quite a bit to the site. So here’s a round up of the best bits:Cheap Wedding Rings
It’s around this time, that you’ll need to start thinking about your wedding rings. There are lots of rings to choose from on the high street, but often you’ll find them over priced. If you shop around, you can save a fortune. This article shows you where you can get up to 50% off the price of your rings, but it’s not everyone... Read more >>>
Another way to save on your rings is to choose a wedding ring set. Sets can either be just for the bride (wedding band, engagement band and if you're lucky, eternity ring) or you could have ‘his’ and ‘hers’ sets. Either way, if you buy more from the same jeweller, you’ll have the opportunity to save more. Find out more about wedding ring sets here >>>
Cheap Wedding Chair Covers
For those you hiring a big venue, you’ll need to start thinking about your decorations and one of the more expensive items will be chair covers. Now, not everyone needs them, but if you do, then this article is a must read. It’s all about how you can save on your covers and who are the best suppliers. Read now >>>
Paying For A Wedding
With Valentine’s just passed, perhaps a few of you have just got engaged and have started planning your big day. Recently, one bride-to-be wrote in asking how she should go about paying for her wedding and where she should start planning. So find out the basics of planning your wedding here and learn how you can easily pay for it too. Read more >>>
Feature Your Wedding On Cheap Wedding Success
Why not share your tips and ideas for your cheap wedding with other brides-to-be. We’re looking for case studies to feature on the site and we’d love to hear about how you’re managing to have the wedding of your dreams. So why not get in touch?
The Wedding Planner Is Now NEW & IMPROVED!
Keeping track of your wedding budget just got easier! The new version of the Cheap Wedding Success wedding planner is now an Excel spreadsheet, so it will automatically keep track of your budget for you!Download the latest version of the wedding planner now.
(Don't worry if you're not an Excel pro - the sheet is protected, so you can't muck it up! And if you haven't got Microsoft Excel, then you can use the good old PDF print out version.)
There’s still the guest list tracker, table planner and other tools too, but now it’s just even better! Download it now >>>
Don’t forget, you’ll need the password: happyplanning
Cheap Wedding Tip
I was in Tesco the other day looking for a small gift box for a piece of jewellery I was giving to my sister-in-law. As I was hunting around the gift wrap and cards, I stumbled across a new section on ‘weddings’ and they had loads of great stuff for making your own wedding stationery and favours.They had these lovely little treasure boxes that were filled with embellishments – probably enough for at least 25 cards, all for only £4.99. They even had the blank cards to go with them. If you made your own invites this way, you could easily create them for under £50... it's worth thinking about.
So, it seems an ever expanding service from Tesco. You’ll be able to find them in the superstores, near the gift wrap and card section.
Have you got a cheap wedding tip?
Do you have a good idea, handy hint, or creative tip that you’d like to let others know? Then share it here and help other brides save too.
Final Thought
I’ve been talking to quite a few brides-to-be recently and it seems that few of them know the importance of a contingency budget, in fact, most didn’t even know what a contingency budget was. So to set things straight, I thought it’d be useful to explain this – mainly because it will be save you a bit of money, or at least ensure you’re prepared.So, here goes. A contingency budget is an allowance in your budget for things that you might have missed. Most people set a contingency budget of 10-15% of their project budget. For a wedding, 10% is normally fine. This would give you a fund to dip into if quotes change or you decide to go for something a bit different or pricier than planned.
For example, if my wedding budget was £5,000, my contingency would be £500 (at 10%), taking my total budget to £5,500. I would still work to the £5,000 as planned, but if the price for something, say my dress, came in at £50 more, then I could use my contingency budget.
A contingency budget allows for these little extras. It allows you a bit of freedom to cover any nasty surprises, or nice necessities that you hadn’t thought of. I guarantee, there will be several of these and so a contingency budget is a must!
To make it easier for you, the Cheap Wedding Success wedding planner automatically calculates a contingency for you so you don't need to worry about it.
See you next time!
Nicola x