Budget Friendly Winter Wedding: Abbie & Tristen

Dale Weeks Photography

December 31, 2013

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Abbie and Tristen were married at the iconic The George Hotel in Rye. They had a beautiful and alternative wedding, but one that didn’t break the bank. As the venue was so gorgeous already  that they didn’t need to spend a fortune decorating it, a few stings of bunting and some homemade paper flowers and place names was just enough.

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The majority of their budget went on their photographer but they even saved on that by only hiring him for 3 hours. Pretty much everything else was DIY or a bargain. In total they spent just £2000! “We originally weren’t planning on having a professional photographer but we are sooo glad we did!” began Abbie. “The feelings of the day are captured forever!”

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The bride bought most of her amazing outfit from eBay! Her dress set her back just £27, her headpiece was £7 and her shoes were a fiver! They also saved money by allowing their bridesmaids to wear whatever they liked, making and icing their own cake and constructing the bouquets themselves from flowers bought locally.

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“Our wedding was relaxed, personal, homemade and giggly!” she explained. “My sister and I could not stop giggling pretty much right through waiting outside to walk in, down the aisle, the vows, everything!”

“All the homemade things made our wedding unique. I was really pleased with my bouquet especially! It took ages and I made some of the buttons myself with our initials on. There was a lot of trial and error to get everything right. My advice to other brides wanting to save money would be to do as many things as you can yourself, I spread it out over a time so it didn’t seem like a big mission, it made me feel very proud on the day to see it all.”

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“Also, you don’t have to have any traditions at your wedding that you don’t want!” she concluded. “We chose not to have speeches as the thought made us pretty nervous, a few people said something but it wasn’t planned. The other thing is to have fun and keep it small if you can. We had 24 family and 5 friends at our wedding. Our other real friends understood we couldn’t afford to feed them at £45 a head and came to join us in the evening.”

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