Wedding Ideas on a Budget: The Ultimate Guide

Photo: Dale Stephens Photography

With the average cost of a UK wedding reaching £18,400 and plenty of couples spending much more, it’s easy to see why many brides-to-be feel the pressure to ensure everything is perfect on their big day.

From the extravagant floral arrangements you see on Pinterest, to the added extras you think your guests need to have a good time (photo booths, sweet stands, magicians…) it can feel overwhelming and expensive. However, the truth is all you really need is a marriage licence, a venue, some good food, and your loved ones. Everything else is optional, and you’ll never regret sticking to your agreed budget.

After just over a year of planning our own wedding, we got married in the autumn and had our dream rustic barn wedding—without having to remortgage the house. While it was still expensive, we were able to save thousands using a few simple money-saving tricks, without compromising on the day. Here’s how.

Don’t pass up on a weekday wedding

Across most venues, the difference between getting married on a Saturday during the height of summer vs a weekday in the autumn/winter is night and day, equating to thousands of pounds in cost savings.

If getting married during the wedding industry’s high season isn’t important to you, then opting to get married during the cooler months is an easy way to save immediately without lifting a finger. As long as your venue has a well equipped indoor space, any unforeseen weather conditions won’t matter on your big day. Go for a weekday wedding in the autumn/winter and you’ll save even more.

While many couples worry that their guests won’t be available to attend a weekday wedding, they’re becoming surprisingly common for obvious reasons. As long as you send your invitations out far enough in advance, it’s highly likely that your guests will be able to attend and wouldn’t miss your wedding for the world.

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Shop for affordable UK wedding dresses

If you visit a regular bridal boutique in the UK, wedding dresses typically range from £1,000 to £2,000 (and sometimes much more) depending on the designer and level of detail on the dress. However, if you do book an appointment at a bridal boutique, don’t be afraid to ask to see their ex-display and sale items, as you can often find designer dresses at a fraction of the original price - for example £500 instead of £1,500.

While I did visit a bridal boutique and try on some beautiful dresses from popular brands like Madi Lane and Essence of Australia, none of them felt like ‘the one’ and so I took my wedding dress search online instead.

Plenty of premium high street retailers offer curated collections of affordable wedding dresses, including Monsoon, Phase Eight and Whistles, which I’d urge you to take a look at. However, during my search I stumbled across a small British brand called TH&TH (To Have & To Hold), which stopped me in my tracks. While TH&TH primarily sells bridesmaids dresses, they also have a small selection of bridal dresses. One of their bridal styles, the ‘Alara’ dress, I just couldn’t resist. It was £250 at the time and after lots of searching, it was everything I’d hoped for.

Photo: Dale Stephens Photography

Opt for high street bridesmaids’ dresses

Purchasing bridesmaids’ dresses can be tricky at the best of times. Finding something that all of your bridesmaids like, in their size, that flatters their figure and suits your wedding theme, without breaking the bank is no mean feat.

Fortunately, I was able to find a beautiful bridesmaid’s dress from Coast in a rich burgundy shade to suit our autumnal wedding theme. It was on sale at the time and came to around £115 each. Luckily, my bridesmaids were kind enough to purchase their own shoes, which helped me save some money too.

You can certainly find more affordable bridesmaids’ dresses from places like ASOS, however I think it’s worth spending that little bit extra if you can to make sure your bridesmaids feel comfortable on the day.

Consider artificial bridal bouquets and bridal party flowers

I knew the style of flowers I wanted for my bridal bouquet (roses and peonies in burgundy and blush with pops of foliage), but forking out thousands for flowers just wasn’t a priority for us. Given we got married in the autumn, we knew that the range of fresh flowers available to us would be more limited, too.

Fortunately after some searching, I stumbled upon an incredible Etsy shop specialising in artificial wedding bouquets and bridal party flowers: Silk Infinity Flowers. I fell in love with this autumnal bridal bouquet instantly. We decided to purchase a range of artificial wedding flowers in this style including my bridal bouquet, bridesmaids’ bouquets, groom’s buttonhole and more.

As these are high quality, realistic looking artificial flowers, they’re still somewhat of an investment, with bridal bouquets starting from £130, depending on the size. However, unlike fresh bridal party flowers which can easily cost thousands and don’t last long beyond your wedding day, you can keep enjoying artificial wedding flowers for many years to come.

Whether you’re looking for your bridal bouquet, bridesmaids’ bouquets, groom’s buttonhole or a wide range of styles to complement your bridal party, I’d highly recommend considering artificial wedding flowers if you haven’t already.

Don’t be afraid of DIY wedding table flowers from the supermarket

We saved thousands of pounds on our wedding table flowers by simply going to the supermarket, purchasing 10 bouquets for around £15 each and having a little faith in our flower arranging capabilities. Now I’m not saying we’ll be opening up a florist’s any time soon—it’s certainly a skill and an art form that requires many hours of concentration—but we’re so proud that we were able to do it ourselves.

Arranging your own wedding flowers is certainly a risk, especially if you haven’t done it before, which is why I was adamant I wanted artificial flowers for the bridal party to wear (bouquets, buttonholes and corsages) to at least have some certainty as to how the most important wedding flowers would look on the day and in photos.

Using a mixture of artificial flowers for the bridal party and fresh flowers for the tables allowed us to go with the flow while still achieving the overall look we wanted, so we’re glad that we took the plunge. If you are planning on arranging your own wedding table flowers, I’d recommend practicing leading up to the big day and watching some YouTube tutorials to ensure you’re not scrambling to put something together the night before!

Photo: Dale Stephens Photography

Be brave with DIY wedding table decor

When it comes to wedding table decor, sometimes less is more. This is particularly true if the venue and season lend themselves to a more rustic, relaxed feel. For example, an autumn barn wedding is the perfect excuse to get creative without worrying if things look a little rough around the edges.

Pinterest is awash with DIY wedding table decor ideas to give you inspiration, whether you’re searching for budget rustic wedding ideas, barn wedding ideas on a budget, or something slightly more understated.

Our wedding table decor consisted of log rounds, DIY wedding table flowers in vases, mini chalkboards displaying table names, and some miniature pumpkins to suit our autumnal theme. We also used larger pumpkins and LED candles down the aisle, which we repurposed for the top table following our ceremony.

Choose eco-friendly DIY wedding confetti

Using natural dried petals for your wedding confetti is becoming an increasingly popular eco-friendly alternative to the standard (often plastic) confetti. In fact, many venues now insist that you use biodegradable confetti in the interest of protecting the environment.

Here you have a couple of money saving options; if you’re really committed, you could make your own wedding confetti from scratch using flower petals from your garden (depending on the season) and purchasing confetti bags to put them in. The second option is to purchase the dried petals in bulk from a small business online with a set number of DIY confetti bags for you to assemble individually.

We opted for the second option as I had a clear colour scheme in mind. While it took me several hours to painstakingly assemble 75 bags of confetti, it was surprisingly therapeutic and came in at just £24.99! We were really pleased with the result and the confetti worked perfectly on our wedding day.

Take a look at high street wedding cakes for collection

Much like choosing your wedding flowers, your wedding cake will be personal to you and you’ll need to decide if having a traditional, three-tier, bespoke wedding cake is important to you, or whether this is another area where you’re willing to think outside of the box to save money.

Our wedding cake was one of the last things we purchased, although we’d decided to opt for a high street wedding cake well in advance. We chose a simple, two-tier vanilla naked cake from M&S, which we decorated ourselves with a few artificial cake flowers and a personalised wedding cake topper (both from Etsy). Another affordable idea is to decorate your wedding cake with fresh berries and a light dusting of icing sugar.

Both M&S and Waitrose have some delicious and affordable cakes for collection, enabling you to save hundreds of pounds; just remember to consider how many guests you have attending to ensure there’s enough to go around. We actually purchased two identical cakes for £45 each (one to have on display, one to keep in the venue kitchen) just in case because it was still cost-effective to do so.

A final word on weddings for brides-to-be

While it’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of wedding planning and overspend without realising, by having a vision, being resourceful and getting crafty, you can still have the wedding of your dreams on a budget. Planning your dream wedding is ultimately about highlighting the things that matter to you the most and are worth spending your money on, and identifying areas where you can be flexible to make it happen.

Looking for a free wedding budget planner, wedding checklist guide, seating plan template, or simply some inspiration? Sign up to Hitched for free today to start planning.