Forgive me if I stray from my normal topic of beauty & health to talk about an extremely important date that’s happening next year – the day I become Mrs A Payne! (Yip I know before you even say it I will become ‘a pain’ – its 100% guaranteed that this is going to be the start of my dad’s speech…). So over the next year & 9months there will be a splattering of posts on my blog dedicated to my journey to wedded bliss. I will try to keep my Bridezilla moments to a minimal and hopefully there wont be too many cry’s for help and tears of frustration instead of joy, but if any wife’s out there who have navigated the minefield that is organising a wedding or any future brides who are on the same journey want to give me so advice I am all ears!!!!
So far since we got engaged things have just fell into our laps and our wedding has been coming together naturally such as the venue and finding my dream dress 1 year earlier than I was even supposed to start looking…! But last week my other half Paul and myself did the stressful thing and started writing our list of what we still need to organise. Paul has his little list of what he has to organise – the band, piper, my car and the kilts so you should have seen his wee face when he saw the rest of the list! His cry of what the ‘bleep’ are favours was followed by ‘ehhhhh we better get saving hard!’.
The next natural step was to haul my butt to a wedding fayre which I did on Sunday with my wee mamma in tow. It was great to get some more ideas & inspiration, as well as some free makeup, a hand massage & sweeties! The good stuff aside the big shock of the day was how expensive photography is. What shocked me the most was that what I had budgeted for photography and the video seemed to be what it costs (basic package as well) for the photography only! I’m telling you our mum’s had it so right back in the day when it was a family friend that took the pictures and a pal of your dad’s that took the shaky video, that every so often goes blurry or cuts off people’s heads. Okay okay I admit it that’s not what I want, I at least want that one perfect picture of me and Paul and a nice video that we can look back and watch with the future kids and enjoy. But one thing I don’t want is for the photography and video to cost almost the same as the actual wedding! So the lesson I learned on Sunday was that I will need to shop about for the best deal, try to keep it simple like we want our wedding to be and try not to stress too much.
I really want our wedding day to be special but I don’t want to start our married life together in debt so any wedding cost saving ideas you lovely ladies (or gorgeous gentlemen) have I would looooooove to hear them. So far I have a friend making my cake and tablet favours at a fraction of the cost of a usual cake and I am considering silk flowers instead of real flowers for my wedding bouquet. Any other great ideas????
Look out for my other posts coming soon about knowing the right venue for you & how I found my dream dress by going to only one shop!
❤ Annmarie xx
The small but mighty ramblings of a redhead 
Photography prices absolutely floored me. It’s crazy how much they charge and you have to be careful to make sure that the copyright doesn’t stop you from making as many copies of the photos on your disc as you want. I don’t really want a photographer anyway as I hate photos of myself that I can’t control, I’m so self conscious, but everyone has insisted we get one. I’ve seen one that does a nice package at a reasonable price but I don’t know if he is willing to travel to Glasgow. Planning is stressful!
I’m glad you’ll have a few wedding posts over the next wee while. It’s nice to have another wedding related blog to read. I think wedding stuff will eventually take over my blog before August!
Debi x
Aw didn’t realise you were Glasgow based Debi, we will need to get a wee bloggers met up arranged at some point 🙂 Glad I wasn’t the only one that nearly hit the floor with the prices. I’m sticking with photographers in Ayrshire, think the expensive of their travel would tip my budget over the edge lol
Looking forward to reading your wedding posts, I keep telling myself I wont turn into a bridezilla but I seem to be getting caught up in the hype of it and cant stop reading about weddings and getting lots of ideas. I am trying to stay grounded but ebay and searching for winter wedding items has become my new obsession instead of make up and hair products. Even bought favour boxes at the weekend instead of a new top! lol what is to become of me haha x
Debi, I’m sure any photographer would be willing to travel. And it IS nice to read some other wedding related posts/blogs. I have had some hair pulling moments over our budget, I’ve actually just chosen my photographer. I’m so picky, most I contacted were pushing £2000 start from, but mine is less than 50% of that and ticks the boxes. Good luck with finding yours. Karis x
Ah exciting! I became obsessed with mine! We just had a small wedding and I had the dress and the flowers I really wanted – pink rose and thistles & got gorgeous candles and tying the knot matches from Cox & Cox which tied in with my invitations. Exciting and expensive times ahead! xxx
pink rose & thistles sound lovely, trying to keep out wedding as small as possible. I am having a winter snowflake theme 🙂 but keeping it a simple as possible xx
My hubby is called Paul too! We got married with ziltch money. My parents paid for the buffet (by a local community enterprise) and cake (three tiers of minature cupcakes looked great and saved a fortune), although my aunt in law didn’t agree + bought 2 iced fruit cakes (the wedding ones) from M&S lol. Got my dress from Asda (seriously) and everyone thought it was designer! Got my flowers (satin) + my little girls dress on ebay + all shoes + waistcoats were 1/2 price in BHS sale – actually the men’s suits were the most expensive from a local suit fitter + all bridal dresses were 1/2 price (think it was also BHS). We got married in the registrars and did it up with flowers (from a local shop), my in laws paid for the venue (a local hall), we got a local DJ for cash price + a friend of a friend did the photography for free to build up his photography portfolio! My uncle and a friend of the family shoved some ribbons on their ‘nice’ cars + we had heart shaped gold balloons for the table settings. I got our favours (magnets) from vistaprint online – I downloaded a picture of two swans sitting together in the shape of a heart (from google images), then asked for them to print the pic as magnets and they arrived in the post lol. My friend’s sister is a hairdresser and great at makeup, so our morning was spent sipping vino at her house 😉 All in all, think we did it for just over £500. So you can definitely do it on a budget and still look and have a great time xxx
OMG Dana you have totally inspired me! your wedding sounded so lovely and very personal and I cant believe it was only just over £500! Wow totally amazing. We have been really lucky so far my mum and dad are buying my dress, cake & favours, my cousin is getting the flowers (which I have saw on ebay for only £26) and Paul’s mum and dad, as well as his sister (who is my only bridesmaid) are helping towards stuff too. The venue is what has tipped us over the edge of it being bigger than we originally thought but we got engaged there and we just love it so much so it will be so special for us to get married there. My new obsession is ebay. My plan is to buy something each month, just bought the favour boxes, next month its the snowflake table confetti and so on. Sold several dresses I no longer wear on ebay and got a few more things to sells and everything goes into my paypal account for the wedding things fund lol Also to help my mum and dad with paying for my dress (the most expensive thing I will even own and wear in my life!) we have done a couple of car boot sales and so far they have paid for a shoes, veil and went towards some of my dress. Got another one in april, I will prob be the first bride ever to walk down the aisle in a brand new (expensive) dress bought my car boots sales! No wonder Paul calls me low maintenance instead of high maintenance! Always said a wedding doesn’t have to be big and fancy as long as your loved ones are there and its special to us that’s all the matters 🙂 Thanks again for the inspiration Dana xxx ❤
We are all about planning the perfect day for the budget conscious bride. Come over and say hi. Look out for those DIY posts and vlogs, there is money to be saved with a little bit of creativity. Good luck in your wedding plans. I look forward to reading your wedding posts . Karis x
Thanks Karis I will have a little nosey and hopefully get some inspiration 🙂 xx
ohh exiting happy wedding planning! i am starting to plan over on my blog soon too although still 12 month away but its abroad (germany) i “found” my dress 2 yrs before i got engaged lol now i got it (safely stored at my friends house), budgeting is hard and we yet to write well complete the whole list but i am intending on doing alot DIY only do minimalistic flowers and hopefully get some ebay bargains along the way! can i ask you where you are thinking of hiring (if you are hiring) the kilts from?? my fiance wants to get some too but i wouldnt have a clue where to look tia
Aw thank you 🙂 Oh looking forward to following your wedding planning journey. We don’t get married until next Nov so plenty of time to plan but trying to get lots of things ticked off early so avoid stressing about them nearer the time. I looooove my dress, going to do a post soon all about how I found my dream dress (it really was fate) and also how we choose our venue. Ebay is great for bargains, got a few so far and thinking of getting our invites from ebay. We are hiring the kilts for our groomsmen but my OH is hoping to buy his kilt. We live in Ayrshire in Scotland so plenty of places for us to hire from, where are you? xx