We are excited to say that we have had some recent engagement news in the office! With our Mrs2Be bride gathering her wedding quotes already, we couldn’t resist a bit of competition in the office and have been out and about this week to see just how much we could save her on a number of wedding ‘essentials’.
You will be pleased to hear that in total, we managed to save over two thousand pound on her initial quotes and we didn’t even mention Mrs2Be once! So where did our savings come from…..?
Firstly venue decoration, our bride’s best quote for the seat covers that she wanted was £3.95. We had quotes ranging from £2.50 to £4.50 so we checked them out and found that in our view the particular style of cover on offer at £2.50 was a bit cheap looking. We preferred the poly cotton version which we were quoted £3.90 per cover for from one supplier but managed to find the same quality cover at just £3.25 from another. This is the type that our bride was looking for so based on 100 guests (our office bride to be is having rather a large bash!) we bagged a saving of £65 here. We also managed to get matching favors and place cards from the same supplier again making a saving from an initial price quoted of £1.50 per favour to just £1.20 and from £1.10 per place card to just £90p! A total saving of £115 on our venue decoration for a start!
When it came to the photographs, even we admit that this was a bit more complicated to decipher. There are so many packages on offer that it can be hard to compare so we chose a CD only option as this is what our bride was looking for. She had been quoted £650 which seemed to be the average price. The quotes that we got ranged from £300 to £750 and we eventually settled for a package in the middle at £550 managing to also negotiate to just £500, a saving of £150 on the average price. We tried to compare like for like and thought it was important to mention that the quality of the photographers seemed to range hugely. We found that some of the cheaper CD options didn’t seem to have the image range and the photographers themselves didn’t seem to have worked on as many weddings, however there were a few exceptions.
At the more expensive end of the market, the photographers seemed to have a larger portfolio and had been in the industry a lot longer. Our advice here is that unless the photographer comes highly recommended to research, research, research. There’s nothing to say that a photographer charging £300 is any less qualified than one charging £500, but do your research and ensure that you are comfortable with the choice that you make. Don’t skimp on quality for the sake of a cost saving as this is one of the most important items and one that will be with you forever!
When we looked into transport, we had to compare like for like again. We found that the average cost of a car was now at around £350 and a horse and carriage around £650. We based our needs on our bride who will be having a horse and carriage for herself as well as a car for her bridesmaids. We shopped around and played a few companies off against each other coming out with a saving of £50 on the car and £60 on the horse and carriage, a combined saving of £110.
Our bride had chosen a specific gown so we called around to obtain a price, we were able to save £40 by shopping around and found many two for one deals offering the grooms suit for free when the gown was purchased from a particular store. Realistically you may not want to travel far for your gown, however check prices at local bridal houses and keep your eyes peeled for the two for one offers. We also found savings of between £15 and £25 per bridesmaid dress at certain bridal houses when two or more dresses were ordered. With our bride having 4 bridesmaids, we managed to save £100 on the bridesmaid dresses as well as the £40 on the bridal gown, giving us a total saving of £140.
Conscious that she had quite a large number of guests for the wedding breakfast our bride was concerned about the quote that she had received at £50 per head. We spoke to a number of local venues and found that if she didn’t mind a buffet style meal rather than a 3 course formal affair, she could save on average £15 per head. This was music to her ears, as this would allow her to splash out on her honeymoon shopping trip. This gives her a saving of £1500 and is where in this case the biggest proportion of the saving is to be made.
As with all employees of the Mrs2Be office, our bride loves chocolate, so insisted on a chocolate fountain. Having initially been quoted £350 for a 150 person fountain; we found a like for like offer for just £275! This time we didn’t switch supplier as we wanted to stick to a local supplier (to be able to go out and sample the chocolate again of course!) but we did manage to knock the original supplier down to the same price giving us a saving of £75.00.
Initially our bride wanted lots of flowers in her table centrepieces, until she was given a cost of £25 per centrepiece that is! With eleven tables she agreed to compromise with some simple displays with just 3-4 flowers in each. In our view this added elegance and style and cost just £15 per centrepiece saving another £110 here. We also saved on the flowers for the top table by having these transferred from the arrangements at the church, another £40 saving here, giving us a saving total of £150 on the flowers!
We found that the best quote we had for a DJ was £180 and this was the same price that our bride to be had been quoted. We felt that for 5 hours, this was reasonable and were wary of cheaper quotes that we were given as they didn’t seem to be of the same quality so in this instance we stuck to the original quote.
As our bride wanted a toastmaster, she had been told by her preferred venue that she had to have the hotel recommended toastmaster at a cost of £200. This is where it gets interesting as we recently reported on this very issue of hotels demanding that their own suppliers are used for certain items! We found a great local toastmaster at a cost of £150 so now it’s up to our bride to decide for definite on her venue as her other options had no preference. If she does go for this venue then we are sure we will be able to twist their arm and bag another saving of £50!
And for now, our fun comes to an end, although with the bash that our bride is going for, we are sure that in time there will be many more occasions where we can stick our nose for a bargain in! For now our message is simply that there are clearly many ways to save money on your big day but the main thing is to ensure that the quality of goods is not compromised when doing so. Set a wedding budget and have fun seeing just how much you can save on one thing then either save this or splash out on another more expensive item or something you didn’t think you would be able to afford – like the shopping trip!
Happy Planning x
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