Mouthy Money co-editor Edmund Greaves married his now wife Ellyn in 2022. Here are six things they learned about money while planning their own nuptials.

Getting married was the happiest day of my life. But planning and saving to make that day the one of our dreams was laborious, stressful and, at times, very disheartening.

Through planning our own DIY wedding, we discovered a huge amount about ourselves and how we look after our money in the process. Here are six things that we learned.

1. Budget like you’re an accountant

Considering I work in the realms of personal finance media it was a natural fit for me to be the one who did the budgeting. I set us monthly savings goals and a created a spreadsheet to track the process of spending meticulously.

Every cost had to be accounted for and prices were scrutinised carefully to ensure we weren’t going above our budget.

Ellyn was very much the visionary and I, at times, felt like a penny-pinching accountant reining her in. This definitely caused tension between us but ultimately it was only really tight accounting for our money that meant we were able to achieve what we wanted.

But Ellyn also has an incredible eye for a bargain. For instance, the flowers cost us the grand total of £30 after she found a local lady in our area who made them essentially for fun via Facebook Marketplace.  

We did have to make some compromises, but it ended up as the dream wedding we had envisioned thanks to being very strict at all times.

2. Cashflow is king

One of the most useful things I’ve ever learned about money is that it is not necessarily about how much you have of it in nominal terms, but how much free cash flow you can generate to keep ahead of your costs.

It is something investors pain over with businesses and is a really important metric of a healthy balance sheet.

We both earn monthly salaries and just managed our cashflow accordingly, so as to always be able to pay for the right things at the right time, managing suppliers to ensure we never had too much asked of us at any one point.

We never started with £XXXX in the bank then figured out how to spend it. We started with £0 in the bank to spend and had to work out how to save for the right things at the right time to ensure all our suppliers were paid when payment was due without overstretching ourselves.

We pushed all our suppliers to give us firm “pay by” dates and tried to get them to spread out over time so we could plan accordingly for things like the venue, food and other big costs.

Meticulously planning our cashflow month by month meant that we never had to resort to using a credit card or other form of debt to get across the line. 

3. Work out how much you need to save, then add a lot more to that figure

Things went wrong, lots of things. This required money to fix. Plenty of it.

The total cost of our wedding came in just under £20,000. This is just over the £18,400 average cost of a wedding in the UK in 2022, according to Hitched.com. We had initially budgeted about £14,000, so ended up spending over 40% more than initially budgeted.

Once we had an idea of how much everything would (initially) cost, we pushed harder than this target and over-saved to ensure we had more than we needed.

The best-case scenario was that we’d end up with a load of savings leftover. The worst-case scenario could have been that we were left short.

Full disclosure, we did get help from Ellyn’s parents and grandparents too, which I freely concede made things easier, and for which we are extremely grateful.

But ultimately, we paid for around 70% of the event ourselves and wouldn’t have gotten over the line had we not saved more than we thought we initially needed (especially in relation to the next point).

4. Get costs in writing and hold them to it.

We started planning well in advance and lined up suppliers over 12 months ahead. At the outset we did this because we got engaged in the middle of the pandemic and wanted to wait until the world had calmed down a bit.

But we never got initial costs in writing (i.e. in a contract) and this was a huge mistake, especially as we went into a cost-of-living crisis in 2022.

Several providers, including the venue and caterer (two of the largest costs), hiked their prices on us at the last minute and forced us to dip into emergency funds less than a month before the wedding. They didn’t keep to their word and we but had no contract in place to protect ourselves.

Get one if you can and hold them to it. This mistake cost us over £1,000 to rectify ultimately.

5. Don’t be afraid to charge your friends and skimp on some things

We charged our friends for accommodation at the venue, a relatively small cost for them but something that saved us over £2,000 in total. No one seemed annoyed about it and giving it away for free just seemed overly lavish.

We also decided to encourage guests to bring their own liquor if they wanted to. We supplied wine, beer and soft drinks, and had plenty left over.

Getting the right number of bottles of gin, vodka, whisky etc was just impossible to discern so we left it up to people who wanted to drink hard spirits enough that they would bring it themselves.

Again no one seemed bothered – indeed quite a few people said it was a good idea. Better than having a cash bar too which just makes things more complicated.  

6. Pay someone to coordinate on the day

One of the best outlays we made, although far from the cheapest, was to pay someone to actually coordinate everything on the day in the background.

It meant that we were able to actually enjoy ourselves and not worry about whether the cake was in the right place, the right music was played at the right time, or the benches were where they were meant to be.

We also had a major disaster with the caterer on the day and our planner Claire ensured that plans were made to feed all of our guests.

Ultimately when you get married you end up spending all this money. If you can’t actually cherish the experience on the day then what was it really for?

Photo courtesy of Lauren Dillon Photography

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Fiona McAra and her fiancée Lavinia are getting married! In this new series, Fiona will be keeping Mouthy Money updated on how they get on with the money side of planning a wedding

I can happily say that getting engaged was the best day of my life. A big part of that was the ease of it all. I made a plan, roped in an accomplice to help me execute it and done. Smiles and a few beers all round.

Planning for the event that will top that day has thus far been less simple. 

Firstly, budget. Weddings are outrageously expensive. In 2021, the average wedding cost was £17,300. 

Add inflation into the mix and by mid 2024, when we hope to tie the knot, I have no doubt the average will have breached £20k. That’s almost a house deposit, or a fair chunk of one at least, depending where you live. 

While I have no intention of getting near that dreaded figure, I have a nasty feeling we might. I may be fiscally responsible, but my fiancée is more of a financial free spirit. Exceptionally generous, but not to her saving accounts. 

So, where have we started? 

Venues have been our number one priority. While we’re still not 100% sure where we’ll get married, (UK or abroad), we’ve been scoping out potentials and trying not to cry at the costs. 

The criteria? Somewhere nice, where we can do everything all in one place. No hopping from church to reception – if I’m in heels, it needs to be a few steps away.

There’s also another issue – family. Wherever we get married, at least one set of family is going to have to fly in due to this Germano-British union. Therefore, we’re ideally looking at venues with onsite or nearby accommodation for ease – no doubt adding to the cost. However, the rationale is if we’re going to spend a lot of money on this event – it would be nice to actually see people and have them nearby!

This brings us onto numbers. Catering costs per head are rocketing, and means the dream of putting money behind the bar is rapidly disappearing (sorry in advance to any potential guests). 

While the average is £65 a head, I can tell you that places I’m looking at for 2024 are all around the £100 mark – with big price rises from 2023 costs (thanks, inflation). Add in late night snacks to sober people up, and for 80 people it’s getting pricey. 

Venue cost aside (which on average clocks in at a cool £7,600, not including catering), our budget could also be broken based on what day we get married. 

Without thinking I automatically opted for a Friday, until I was reminded that Saturday was preferable for the likes of teachers, many of whom we will likely invite. The result? An average of a £1,500 venue cost increase. Ouch.

While we have oodles of time to sort this, it does make you wonder about spending so much on one day or weekend, when prices are rising exponentially. We’ve already had to turn down a group trip to Bali as a result. 

Despite both being desperate to go, high flight costs means we were looking at nearly £1k just to get there. Add in accommodation, and £2k each minimum looks hard to justify when you’re scraping together for something bigger (albeit which will cost nearly 10x more and for one day…).

So, aside from panicking about my bank balance, what have I learned thus far? Well, for those in a similar position, I’d recommend the following:

• It’s cheapest to get married midweek. If you’re not fussed about what day you tie the knot, Wednesdays are better value.
• Some venues do an all-inclusive option – it’s never going to be perfect as it’s catering for the masses, but it is usually an attractively priced option.
• Don’t tell venues it’s for a wedding initially. It increases the price.
• Try and lock in at 2023 prices if they haven’t released 2024 prices yet. It’s cheeky but if you know it’s the venue for you and you’re happy to put your money where your mouth is, it’ll likely be cheaper than waiting a few weeks.
• Set up savings accounts to help manage the costs. As a natural saver, I have a lump sum set aside which is currently yielding a little interest in an easy access account. If you’re starting from scratch, there are some decent rates going at the moment for monthly saving accounts. While you don’t need all the funds ready and available from the start, it’s good to keep building and capitalising on compound interest – every little helps when it comes to a wedding!

Photo by Evelina Friman on Unsplash

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Mouthy Money Your Questions Answered panelist Paul Britton answers a reader’s question about how to get a refund for money paid to a wedding caterer who died before the day.

Question: The caterer for our wedding tragically died just before the day, after we had made all the payments of around £3,500. We don’t have much information on the death, and as sensitive as the problem is, what recourse do we have to recover our cash? As far as we are aware they were operating as a sole trader. TM, Carlisle

Answer: You may be able to settle the outstanding money quickly and simply by contacting the caterer’s estate. If this doesn’t happen, however, you may have to claim back the money through legal action. 

The first thing to do is look at your contract, if you had one, to find out what obligation each party has and the best way to settle the contract. Even if it’s not a written contract, but a verbal one, the same rules apply.

It should have details about what happens if the caterer, or the people employing them (you and your partner), die before the work is conducted.  

While this will be unique to the contract you had, the most common terms are an automatic termination on the death of either party, or the right to terminate, where either party may terminate the contract but it needs to be performed until terminated. 

Although they sound similar there are two key differences. The second example requires the surviving party – you – to take steps to terminate the contract as it won’t happen automatically. You can usually do this by serving a notice to the caterer’s estate or following the termination clause in the contract.  

You should also find details in the contract about what happens to any money already paid out, as in your case. 

It may say that the caterer’s estate can keep any prepayment you’ve already made, even if the obligations were not performed. If it says this, it will limit your ability to claim for breach of contract and get the money you’ve paid out back. 

Yet even if this is the case, statutory and common law control a party’s ability to limit its liability so this doesn’t mean it’s impossible to have the money returned to you.

It might also be considered a ‘frustrated’ contract.

A contract can be terminated on the grounds of frustration if something happens after it’s made which mean it’s no longer possible to finish.

For something to be considered ‘a frustrating event’ it needs to have happened after the contract is entered into, be a fundamental act that strikes at the root of the contract, be no fault of either party, and it needs to make the contract impossible, illegal or radically different from when the parties first entered into the contract. 

You, as the surviving party, could argue that a frustrating event has occurred. This is because, the caterer died after the agreement was formed, the death goes to the root of the contract and was unlikely to be contemplated or foreseeable by the parties at the start of the contract, it was not the fault of either party, and it’s now impossible for food for the wedding to be provided by the caterer. 

If it’s decided that a contract is frustrated it means neither party is obligated to comply with its terms and if any further funding is due it is no longer payable.

Money already paid can also be recovered. This comes if the Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act 1943 (the “Frustrated Contracts Act”) applies. The Frustrated Contracts Act states that money paid before the frustrating event (death) can be recovered.

If this happens the money will need to be paid to you by the caterer’s estate.  

Once you’ve read the contract, especially any clauses dealing with death, frustration or liability, you then need to contact the representatives of the caterer’s estate to see if an agreement can be reached and your money can be refunded. 

If you had wedding insurance, it’s also worth checking your policy to see if you can recover the money through your insurer. 

As a last resort, if you aren’t able to come to an agreement with the estate, you will need to issue a debt claim through the caterer’s estate. Also known as a money claim. You’ll need to pay court fees for doing this which will be around £200.   

Paul Britton, director and solicitor at Britton & Time

About our expert: Paul Britton is a top litigation legal expert and founder of Britton & Time, a multi-award-winning law firm based in Brighton & Mayfair. Paul graduated from the University of Law, Guildford in 2014 and has been qualified as a solicitor since 2017. 

Coming from a multi-legal background, Paul supervises all practice areas at Britton & Time. Paul primarily works on litigation matters, both civil and criminal, family issues, employment matters and landlord and tenant dispute, and continues to act for clients on a variety of matters both from the Brighton & Mayfair office.

Mouthy Money Your Question Answered compiled by Rebecca Goodman

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/blur-breakfast-chef-cooking-262978/

Have you got a money question? Find out how to get your query answered

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Cost can be a huge deciding factor when it comes to choosing your wedding venue, destination, invitation list or wedding dress.

The average cost of a wedding in the UK is £30,000, making it the second most expensive place in the world to have a wedding, according to research by jeweler Angelic Diamonds.

If you’re having trouble trying to budget for your special day, why not try a so-called destination wedding?

The perks of a destination wedding

Getting married abroad is increasingly popular with couples as the savings can be huge.  

Angelic Diamonds claims that UK couples can save up to £28,532 — or 95% of the average UK wedding – just by getting married overseas.

You might also enjoy warmer weather and sun for an outdoor celebration, without the risk of a passing rain shower.

Thailand is the cheapest wedding destination, at £1,468, closely followed by Russia (£2,202), Turkey (£2,988) and Sweden (£4,558), according to the research.

Check the laws of the country

It’s important to know the laws of each country before planning an overseas wedding, as marriage rules can be very different to what they are in the UK.

For example, in Thailand, the cheapest destination for a wedding, you need to go and obtain an “Affirmation of Freedom to Marry” from your respective embassy or consulate in Bangkok.

The same document needs to be professionally translated into Thai and legalised at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

You can find a good summary of the marriage laws of many popular wedding destinations on the Angelic Diamonds website.

A representative from Angelic Diamonds said: “There are so many things to take into account when planning any marriage, especially if you’re dreaming of a destination wedding.

“As well as learning more about the laws and customs in each country, it’s important to consider the costs. From paying for the flights to booking a venue, destination weddings can sometimes stretch your budget.

“However, if you know what costs to expect from each country, you can make your plans without having to worry.”

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Family members are fantastic during weddings, everyone loves Auntie so-and-so tearing up the dancefloor with her happens-at-every-event rendition of Thriller. They can be awesome pre-wedding too for helping you create invitations or make centrepieces. Family can be the worst offenders though.

The only people who should be inviting people to your big day are you & your future spouse

They feel like they can stick their noses in and demand, in an often undemanding way (how do they do that?!) things. They had been invited to a neighbours daughters wedding so they’d like to invite their neighbours. Excuse me? The only people who should be inviting people to your big day are you & your future spouse.

When my wife and I (applause) were planning our big day, we had a bit of an issue with a family member. We’d decided that partners of cousins could come if they were engaged or living together. The venue wasn’t huge, we didn’t have a massive budget and in all honesty, there were other people we’d rather invite than someone we had met once or twice. Sound fair?

Now we have a lot of cousins between us so we didn’t see this as too much of an ask, however there was a case of someone kicking up a fuss, ringing up my wife, making her cry by saying some horrible things and eventually stating that they’d give up their invitation so this person’s partner could come. As you can imagine, I got really annoyed and we stuck to our guns. Why should we pay for the meal of someone we don’t want to be there, we hadn’t even met the guy!?!

It is your wedding. You shouldn’t have to justify your guest list, or the vehicles you hire or don’t hire to get to the venue, or if there is a free bar or not. People should want to come along to celebrate your love, regardless of if their partner is invited, or if the food option isn’t to their taste. If they kick up a fuss, tell them to not bother coming.

This is what winds me up about weddings and ultimately, paying for weddings. The worst thing you can do is start your marriage in debt. Finances are the leading cause of stress in a relationship, being the catalyst for countless divorces.

If you want to contribute, how about paying for the people that WE want to come?

So why do people want you to pay through the nose for a cake which costs hundreds or to invite their old college friend from the other end of the country? “We’ll pay for them to come” is a key line from family members trying to get their way. The key response should be, “If you want to contribute, how about paying for the people that WE want to come?”

Whilst this isn’t necessary as you shouldn’t have to justify your financial choices, we decided that, instead of sweets for favours, we’d make a charity donation for each table.

We ‘bought’ clean water for a couple of hundred people via Oxfam, the same charity we organised our wedding gift list with. Sugared almonds might be traditional they’re not helping the homeless, battling cancer or saving the elephants are they? Who’s going to question giving to charity?!

So if you’re in the tricky waters of wedding planning, dig your heels in. Celebrate with the people you want, in a fashion you’re perfectly happy with, leaving you in a financial situation to comfortably start your marriage together. It is YOUR special day, everyone else is just invited.

Photo by Tom Pumford on Unsplash

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I’m getting married. Sound the klaxons! No, seriously, it’s kind of a big deal because when I was 10 I signed a contract to state that I wouldn’t get wed as I didn’t believe in marriage as a constitution. However, I’ve since changed my mind (I’ll be elaborating on this further in another post, betcha can’t wait?), and at the grand old age of 33, I’ll be wed in October this year.

True love isn’t cheap

Never one for letting a romance get in the way of a chat about budgeting, my partner and I turned swiftly from the joy of our partnership to the cost of a wedding. A typical wedding will set you back thousands, and that’s on top of the wads of cash couples will have already spent during their courtship. According to data from Gumtree, Brits will fork out an average of £6,382 from first date to ‘I do.’ So, for most couples, the finances splurged on a potential wedding could arguably be better spent on a deposit for a flat or towards the cost of kids (real or planned). It’s the same for me and my partner – we certainly don’t want to start off married life in debt for the sake of a big old fancy wedding. But equally, we do want the day to be special, have room for our large families, and be an event. It only happens once, right? *Insert cheeky wink.*

Being honest about your budget

With all that in mind, one of the first things my partner and I did after we had come to terms with the momentous decision we’d just made, was talk about our budget. We have always been honest about cashflow. I wrote recently about how my partner helped me get out of debt a couple of years ago. We are lucky in that we already have savings and that both sets of parents have also offered to help. I do not want our wedding to be stressful – we’ve all heard the horror stories, right? Sharing the load emotionally when you go through a big transition with your partner is also something that relationship expert and psychologist, Dr Becky Spelman, advised when she recently worked with Gumtree.

That’s something me and my marginally better half are careful about too and we have now set a budget, done a handy spreadsheet, and divvied up jobs between us. We are also very clear on the aspects of the wedding we don’t want to shell out for, and – lucky for us – we agree on those things. Case in point – decorations. The cost of ready-made decorations and hire of items (such as table cloths) mount up quickly. However, my favourite weddings to attend have been the ones where the couple and their family and friends made decorations or the cake. Not only can you save tonnes, you also give it that all-important personal touch. This is why we plan to make all of our decor – from hand-knitted bunting to lanterns – we’re making or upcycling the lot.

Get creative to get the wedding you want

If you don’t possess natural designer skills (hello, that’s us), it can be overwhelming to think about how you’re going to deck out a large room or a hall for your reception. Luckily for us, we have some members of our respective families who are crafting masters. We’ve been bowled over by the number of people who’ve offered their skills – my advice to all to-be-weds? Accept all offers of help! Also, take ideas from the weddings you’ve been to as well as those pictured on websites such as Pinterest and then purchase those items on sites such as Gumtree, which can be much cheaper than shopping on the high street.

Why I love the internet

My mum’s already been working on wedding lantern prototypes – yes, that is what we’re calling them. They’re made using knitting wool, glue, and balloons. Mum came up with the idea after finding this how-to video online – fascinating, right? Not only is this saving us a tonne of cash, it’s also pretty fun and they’re looking better and better, if I do say so myself. You can buy a load of wool and balloons on Gumtree and other recycle and reuse sites online for not very much at all. Once we’ve made them, we’re going to string them with a long old line of fairy lights. Fairy lights are a wedding staple, obviously, but you can’t be buying them in the shops – buying them online is way cheaper and you’ll have far more access to bundled deals as well as lights used only once from other people’s weddings – look at these beauties! I’ve also got my eye on these lovely lanterns – I’m getting married in a large, rather dark hall and we’ll need some help with lighting!

My friend Suze saved hundreds on her wedding dress last year, too. She told me about a nifty idea she had that really paid off. She’d fallen in love with a particular designer, and tried on her perfect dress in the shop. It looked stunning but there was one rather obvious snag – it cost thousands! Not one to be thwarted, she then found the dress on Gumtree for a fraction of the price by inserting the name of the designer into the search bar. And that, ladies and gents, is why I love the internet.

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For as long as I can remember, we’ve been saving towards some sort of big goal – whether that’s buying a house, getting married etc., which has made it easy to understand our savings. We’d look at the bank and see that we had X amount saved towards our big goal, easy-peasy.

But, since saving for our wedding, budgeting hasn’t seemed so clear. We knew we had money but didn’t know how much we could spend on things and were almost afraid to spend in case something like an unexpected bill reared its ugly head and we got stuck. This is when we started working on a proper budget. One that covered all our goals.

For as long as I can remember, we’ve been saving towards some sort of big goal – whether that’s buying a house, getting married etc.

Let’s face it, the word budget is pretty boring. It conjures up thoughts of spreadsheets, formulas, things not adding up, and sitting at the dining table with your better half with a pile of bank statements looking very confused. All those things, I’m sure, you don’t want to be doing. I certainly don’t. So we didn’t do any of that. Instead, we approached it in a pretty simple way. We asked ourselves a few questions. One, how much money do we have? Two, what are all our bills? Three, what do we want to do/buy in the future? That was how we started.

First off, we looked at all of our accounts and added up all the money we had. We didn’t include any money that we knew was coming, like salaries or birthday gifts, we only dealt with real money that we actually had which kept it much simpler – that was our starting point.

Secondly, we wrote down all our outgoings; that’s the monthly bills and the yearly ones that can sometimes come as a bit of a shock, and the other less than exciting things like putting some aside for home and car maintenance. The yearly ones then got divided by 12 (or sometimes less, if the bill was due sooner) and those along with our monthly bills made up our ‘bill pot’. Now, as long as we had enough money in that pot every month we knew our bill would be paid.

By saving this way, we have exactly what we need when the holiday comes round – no struggling to pay for it with only two months to save.

Next, it was time to think about the fun stuff.

Do we want a holiday this year? Yeah! Well, how much do we want to spend on that? £2000. Right, well let’s spread the cost out and save £167 a month. By doing it this way, we have exactly what we need when the holiday comes round – no struggling to pay for it with only two months to save. We continued to do this; writing down everything we wanted to do or buy that isn’t an essential bill. These things don’t even need to be happening this year. Maybe a goal is a house deposit saved for three years time. Whatever it is, write it down and divide the amount up between the months.

By doing this, we now have ‘pots’ for things we need to pay or want to save for. Then, whenever we have any new money (i.e. our salary), we make sure to divide it all between the pots according to how much we need to save for a goal or to pay a bill. This way, all of our money is doing a job and working towards goals, fun things, and the essentials. It’s made our money so much clearer. By just having a quick look at our budget, we can know how much we can spend.

If you want to read some more about this way of budgeting, I believe a lot of people call it the ‘envelope system’.

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Back when we were shopping around for cakes, I contacted numerous wedding cake suppliers that were in the delivery area for our venue, and pretty much all the quotes we received back were so much higher than we ever could have imagined. All we were looking for was a simple three tier cake that would feed around 100 guests, and we were quoted everything from £450 to £700. Now, I know it’s someone’s profession and a lot of time goes into making that cake, but £7 for a slither of cake, that my guests probably wouldn’t miss if it wasn’t there, just seemed unreasonable!

So, what are your options for a budget cake?

Bake it yourself

Now, this was our first plan. I’m lucky enough to say that my mother-in-law is an incredible baker, and was planning to create a real bespoke cake for us. However, when it came to the logistics of getting the cake to the venue on the day of her first son’s wedding, setting up when she should be getting ready, finding somewhere refrigerated to store the cake overnight before the wedding etc., it became a bit of a nightmare! I’d still recommend this route if you have a friend who can help you out, but it does need to be someone who’s not a main part of your wedding! Alternatively, you could ask all your friends and family to bring something sweet along, and set up your own bake sale type dessert table – this alleviates the stress from you and really gets your guests involved with your big day!

Find a local bakery

Take the word wedding out of your search and it really opens your options up. We found a local bakery and coffee shop only 10 minutes down the road from us who make the most amazing brownies and cakes, and were willing to do bespoke orders. We ended up ordering a two tier strawberry milkshake sponge, decorated with freeze-dried strawberries, buttercream, and peaks, plus 120 brownies in wonderful combinations for under £300 – delivered and set up! That’s half the cost of some of the quotes we were given, and pretty much double the amount of cake, too. Plus, the brownies were an absolute winner with our guests, with some of them pinching them throughout the day before the cake was cut!

Go with the alternative cake

Another option is to go with something that can double up as your evening food. Throughout our many hours trawling through wedding fairs for ideas, we came across a few suppliers of pork pie ‘cakes’ or ‘cakes’ made from stacked wheels of cheese. You can get both of these for under £250 for 100 guests if you shop around, which is a steal if you’re using it to replace your evening food! However, I would recommend speaking to your venue before booking this option, as some do try and charge a corkage fee for these types of cakes to make up for their loss of business. I think our venue quoted us £5.50 per person which significantly upped the price per serve!

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There are so many centrepiece options that can cost a fraction of the price you’d pay at a florist. I’d recommend having a look at all the ideas on Pinterest before tackling this section – that way you know exactly what you need and how much it’s going to cost you. We decided to go with jars of flowers, keeping the wedding relaxed with this handmade touch – plus, we didn’t need as many flowers as we would have to fill a big vase. You can, of course, buy glass milk bottles or mason jars to use, but for the really thrifty ones among you, get washing out any sauce/pickles/jam jars. Depending on how much time you have to do this in, you may need help from friends and family to collect the jars to ensure you have enough. When preparing them, you can keep the jars clear, wrap them with ribbon or string, or spray/paint them to fit in better with your theme.

For us, wedding flowers was one of the smallest pots in our budget, but we made it work by being inventive with the money we had.

When it comes to getting the flowers, either head to your local supermarket a day or two before the wedding or, even better, get up super early and head to your local florists market to grab a bargain. Either pick a flower you like and get different colours for a simple elegant look, or mix up your flower species in a small, controlled colour palette for more of a wildflower boho look. If you don’t fancy turning your hand to floristry, then consider other pre-made options like potted orchids. Or, if you’re following the Pantone Of The Year for your colour scheme, you could pick lots of varying succulents and build them up on wooden blocks for a real modern Instagram-worthy wedding look! Plus, with succulents, you don’t have to worry about them drooping on your big day, you can take them home and keep them after the wedding, and they pretty much work for any season!

If you are still precious about having flowers as a part of your centrepieces but don’t feel super confident about putting them together yourself, you could give dried flowers a go. They can give your day a really romantic whimsical feel and, again, they’re not going to start to droop on your wedding day – that’s one less thing to worry about! Not only do dried flowers cost a fraction of what fresh flowers do, but you can practise arranging them until you’re happy with the finished look. You can even buy them bit by bit so you’re not overspending on flowers that you’re not going to use.

The post Wedding budget wonders: cutting the cost of your centrepieces appeared first on Mouthy Money.

So, what handy household items should you make sure to include in this list?

Money

Link your PayPal account up to your chosen gift registry site. This will enable the more indecisive relatives to cut out the middle-man, and just give you a cash sum as a gift. Some people may also feel more comfortable doing this, as money is a present that will always be useful (until it’s gone!).

Tableware

Gone are the days of the cheap crockery and cutlery that you used to use at university. Ask for some decent quality tableware while you have the chance; as long as it doesn’t get broken, it’ll be with you for decades to come (much like your spouse!).

Pots and pans

Hardly the most exciting of present requests, but good quality cookware is indispensable, and can be quite pricey! Searching off-market stores like Home Sense with the gifter might also be a good option, as (in my experience) their good quality pots and pans tend to also be quite affordable!

Linen

Start your marriage off with some fresh bed sheets and towels, and make sure you ask for good quality brands from shops like John Lewis, Toast, and Cologne & Cotton.

Art

Few things make a house a home more than the art hanging on the wall. It might not be something that you usually spend money on, but as long as someone else is getting you a gift, it’s worth sticking at least a couple of prints that you like the look of on your list. For my list I chose this classic Moomin print by Tove Jansson – colourful and vibrant!

Remember to add a variety of price points to your wedding wish list – this way, if someone is a bit tight on money then they can get you something cheaper, and if someone is feeling generous they can also find a gift that they know you’ll like.

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