Sharon's £2000 Budget Wedding

Sharon married Tommy in 2008 and had a superb budget wedding for 170 guests in her local church hall in Blantyre, Lanarkshire. Their total budget was £2,000 and a few family members are helping out with various elements as wedding gifts.

Here's how they managed their budget wedding under £2000:

The outfits

All the dresses were bought from eBay. They were all brand new and were perfect. My dress was from a seller in Hong Kong and was exactly as pictured – I couldn't have been more pleased with it. I had to buy a petticoat for it which again I purchased from eBay and it only cost me £20, which would normally have been around £80-£90 in the shops.

I bought my wedding dress in February, around the Chinese New Year, so had to wait a few weeks on it, but the seller kept in contact constantly with me. My dress was made to measure. It had a zip up the back and when I questioned about alterations they suggested to limit alterations being done when I received it and instead, that I should consider having a lace-up back, which I decided to get. The dress couldn't have fitted any better. And I have saved myself a fortune!

My flowergirl dresses were from eBay too. They were also excellent, as described and came from Canada. (The wedding dress seller was asapebay and the bridesmaid dresses were adorable-kids-uk.)

I would advise that if you're buying from eBay, especially from sellers abroad, to make sure that the sellers have excellent feedback, are Powersellers and that you pay by Paypal whenever you can.

The groom and his party are all wearing kilts which my aunt and uncle paid for as a gift.

Our budget wedding reception

We're had 22 guests at the ceremony and then we went for a meal at a nearby restaurant. The cost for that was around £17 per head. Then, we're having a much larger reception at the local church hall for 170 guests. We're put on a buffet for £4 per head. Ideally we wanted a venue where we could do the food ourselves, but unfortunately it was already taken on our preferred day.

We picked this village hall because it was local to our town and most of our families stay in the same area, which means everyone can easily get home and it didn't cost our guests a fortune. The bar in the hall is also very cheap for drink. We didn't just want this to be an affordable wedding for us, but also for our guests to enjoy and afford too.

The decorations at the hall matched the dresses which were white, burgundy and baby pink. We decorated the tables with balloons and we put disposable cameras on each table so the guests could take pictures for me. I bought cameras with free processing, which was £13 for 4 cameras.

We got to and from the ceremony and reception in a limo, just so we can share our day to the fullest with our closest friends and family.

Flowers, cake and photography

We used silk flowers to reduce the cost and my cake was made by Tommy's aunt. The cake cost us about £100, but it was one thing that I wanted to be really nice.

Our photographer was a family friend who was only 17, but had won several photography awards. She took some pictures at the service and then again at the evening reception. Afterwards, she gave us the disc and we printed off the shots at our leisure.

Stationery and favours

Our evening invites were purchased online from Optimalprint.com. They were £25.35 for 100 invites, including delivery from Norway. We just had simple favours that cost us under £30.

Honeymoon

We decided to go to the north of Scotland for a few days as my daughter had to return to school shortly after the wedding - so nice and simple.

Sharon's best tips for a budget wedding:

Getting guests to contribute to our wedding instead of buying us gifts saved us quite a lot. Buying all the dresses off eBay made a huge difference to our budget too. It so nice that we were able to pay for our wedding and not still be paying for it three years later!

Other budget bride's stories:

Lindsay's Real Budget Wedding
Amy's Northern Wedding On A Budget
Hayley's Budget Beach Wedding Under £6,000
Caroline's Budget Wedding Under £5,500
My Wedding Under £5,000
Harriet's Cheap Wedding Under £1,000
Lisa's Wedding On A Budget In The North East
Jane's DIY Wedding
Nicole's Maltese Wedding For Under £3,500
Heather's Wedding Under £500
Tracey's £600 DIY Wedding
Liz and Anthony's £4,000 Wedding
Sharzilla's 1940s Themed Cheap Wedding
Sarahs Wedding Under £1,500
Diana's Cornish Themed Affordable Wedding

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