Oxfordshire, the place to marry Oxfordshire 2019 | Page 46

S P E C I A L F E AT U R E S
Tie the knot and cut the cost
With the average ceremony costing at least £30,000, it’s nearly
enough to make you say “I don’t”. However, you don’t need to spend
a fortune to have a fantastic day…
Work out your budget…
… and stick to it. Sit down together and decide
what you can realistically afford for your wedding
and which aspects of the process are the most
important to you. For example, you may not care
how you get from the ceremony to the reception
venue but you would like to spend a bit extra on
flowers.
Be ruthless with your guest list
This is the first place you need to consider to
prevent costs from spiralling. Sometimes it is
tempting to invite every distant relation or friend
of a friend but with each invitation, your costs are
rocketing. If money is tight, make a list of your
closest family and friends, the ones you really do
not want to miss the day.
Invitations
It is nice to do something terribly original with
wedding invitations but, while this is nice, it can
cost up to £90 for a set. If you want to make your
invites personal, pop into a stationers and pick
up some decent card, gold and silver pens or
a calligraphy pen and set to work writing them
yourself. Stationers also often sell glitter and
other decorative items that you could glue to your
invitation.
If you want flowers on the tables at your
reception, you could do what Alison did at her
wedding: “We bought gerberas from a local
garden centre and put them in pretty plant pots
on the tables as a centrepiece, then told the
guests they were welcome to take them home
afterwards as a way to remember the day.”
Photography
Photography can take up a considerable chunk of
your budget. If you cannot afford the prices of a
professional photographer, why not ask someone
you know who is good with a camera? Jenny did
this at her wedding. “One of my friends was a
keen amateur photographer and I always admired
his pictures at get-togethers. We asked him to take
our pictures and paid for the camera film for him.
It was wonderful having someone we knew taking
our pictures on the day as we felt more relaxed.
The pictures were fantastic; more informal than a
photographer would take but since we wanted a
more relaxed wedding, we were more than happy
with the results.”
For the reception itself, you could buy disposable
cameras and put them on the table, asking guests
to take pictures and leave the cameras afterwards.
Flowers
Simple arrangements can be just as effective
as larger ones, so do not feel you need to go
overboard. A small posy for the bride is often
enough, with one main arrangement in the
ceremony room.
www.squibphotography.co.uk
42
OXFORDSHIRE: THE PLACE TO CELEBRATE