Tracey's Do It Yourself Wedding
Under £600
Tracey from Trowbridge got married in August 2008 on a budget of just £600. Her do it yourself wedding was achieved using creative thinking and a little help from her friends. Here's Tracey's story:
We had originally intended to elope so kept our budget really low, but thinking about it later on, we didn't want to exclude family members who we were so close to. So we decided to get married at Trowbridge registry office and have a buffet at my mum's house since there were only 12 adult guests. My mum and dad paid for this, along with a swanky hotel for our wedding night as a very generous wedding present.
The dress
My wedding dress was from the bridal section of a catalogue and had a matching pashmina. Since it was my first order from the catalogue, I got a good discount too.
I borrowed my tiara, necklace and earrings. I also borrowed my two bridesmaid dresses and paid just £12 each to have them dry cleaned.
We got their ballet pumps for £5 in a local bride shop that was having a massive sale. I also picked up my shoes from there as well; they were Italian leather and were reduced from £73 to £20.
My do it yourself wedding elements
I've been doing flower arranging as a hobby for a while and have made my bridesmaids posies from silk flowers, foam flowers and pearls. I also made their matching head bands.
The items were sourced from eBay and cost about £20. I also had enough pearls left over for my bouquet, which I also made myself from cream roses bought from Tesco. I found an instructional video for buttonholes and so made those too. It's easy to do a 'do it yourself wedding' as there's just so much information available on the internet.
I belong to a craft club (Trowbridge Scrappers) and so did all my own stationery at a fraction of the cost. The card was £10, the tape was £1.25 and the gold ink stamp £1. I borrowed a rubber stamp and just spent several hours of my time and effort!
Getting friends and family to help
We're used my dad's car to get to the registry office and he decorated it with ribbons and some flowers for the parcel shelf which he found at a car boot sale for £1!
My friend is a nail technician, so kindly did my nails for the day and the best man's mum did my hair. Another guest made the cake as a wedding present and I asked all the guests to bring cameras to take lots of photos which I'll scrapbook later.
We even managed to have enough left over to splash out £154 on the matching white gold and diamond bands!
Tracey's top tip:
Make the wedding gift list elements of the wedding and utilise your guests' skills!
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
Sharon's Budget Wedding Under £2,000
Heather's £500 Budget Wedding
Liz and Anthony's £4,000 Wedding
Sarahs Budget Wedding Under £1,500
Sharzilla's 1940s Themed Cheap Wedding
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