How we had a London wedding for less than £15,000
On a Saturday, 87 guests, open bar, live music, amazing food (with 📸 and 📽️)
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I got married 6 years ago this week — on 2nd June 2018 — and I have never printed a single picture from that day.
Apart from some images posted to my personal Facebook page post event, and a couple of Instagram stories the day after, I’ve never shared images on my socials either.
Very few people — other than family and friends at the time — have seen snaps from our wedding.
There’s no particular reason for this.
The pictures are glorious and our wedding is still — to date — the best goddamn party I’ve been to. But despite society falling over themselves for a pregnancy, wedding or anniversary announcement, I’ve never felt compelled to publicly broadcast memories from that wonderful day since we tied the knot.
Which I sometimes think is a shame. Because what we managed to pull off is kind of amazing.
Apart from a professional photographer and videographer, and a florist to make up my personal bouquet and the buttonholes (I did the rest of the flowers myself), our wedding was an almost entirely DIY affair.
And it’s time for me to share how we did it.
In this post I’ve written about how we managed to DIY most of our wedding and how it came in at under £15,000 for 87 guests, on a Saturday, with an open bar, live music, incredible food and at a central London venue.
It includes a gallery of pics and explanations of all the things we made, did, bartered for or organised ourselves, how we did them, and how much they cost.
Plus a cinematic 3 minute highlights video from the day.
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Guests only remember 3 things
I had previously read a tip from a wedding planner that guests really only remember three things about a wedding: the food, the alcohol and the music. It’s the holy trinity of a great party and they were the three most important elements for us (Matt and I) too.
We were to have 87 guests and we intended to create a day people would talk about for years to come. Not by throwing money at a cookie cutter celebration everyone had been to ten times before, but by making it personal to us. It must have worked because those who came continue to tell us – six years later – that it was the best wedding they have ever been to.
I recently read an interview with Jon Bon Jovi (I used to be obsessed) describing the moment in the 80s the band made the decision to no longer have a manager. At the height of their fame, they decided to go it alone, to do it all themselves. It was completely unheard of at the time. They were repeatedly told it couldn’t be done, that they needed management.
‘But who could possibly care more than us?’ was Jon’s response. It made me smile with recognition when I read it. The decision turned out to be one of the best the band ever made.
Doing it ourselves and on a budget
I felt the same way about our wedding. I knew no outsider would be able to give the same attention and dedication to the day as we would — our personal touch would be lost via the conduit of a middle person. Which meant any kind of wedding planner was never even a consideration.
So as much as was within our power, we were going to do, make, organise and barter for everything ourselves.
I came up with a budget of £15,000 all in — anything more than that felt like silly territory. That budget had to cover absolutely everything.
From the big chunks like the venue, food, booze, decor, my dress, his suit, waiters, live entertainment, photographer, taxis, guest transportation, videographer and karaoke room after party in Soho. Right down to the ink to print the invites and menus at home.
Every penny spent was recorded. We came in at £14,805.43 (budgeting is one of my strong points).
That sounds like a lot of money. It is a lot of money. And the average cost of a UK wedding in 2018 was £17,674 (although that doesn’t mention head count or where in the country). So we weren’t far off.
But considering the weddings of friends and family before and since have frequently topped £30,000 (sometimes even £40,000 — ouch) – and ours was on a Saturday, for 87 adults (no children), in central London, with inordinate amounts of excellent food, an open bar and live music – I think we did really very well.
I didn’t think it would actually happen
It’s funny because, prior to Matt proposing at breakfast overlooking the Bosphorus in Istanbul in August 2016, I had made peace with the fact he probably wasn’t ever going to ask me.
We had already been together 8 years by this point (we got together quite young) and I hadn’t heard a peep. Then out of nowhere, I lift a piece of flatbread up at the restaurant table, it reveals a diamond ring sitting in a dish of kaymak (clotted cream with honey) and BAM - he proposes.
I don’t think the delay was ever down to a lack of commitment or certainty. But more because, organising and having a wedding is just quite a bit of faff. Far easier to just keep putting it off. I totally got it.
A big fat wedding
Sure, a public celebration of union with those who mean the most to you is a lovely thing. But also, the lure of sloping off to marry on a beach on the sly with no one present but the family dog is strong. All power to those who do this, I think it’s great.
A bit like my parents who cemented their love by marrying in Bloomsbury registry office in central London in 1977 with just two friends present as witnesses, followed by a nice meal in a local restaurant; 47 years later, they are still very happily married.
But we decided we did want a big fat Turkish / Mauritian wedding1.
Our natural aversion for spending money on things we can probably do ourselves — plus my innate ability to sniff out a rip-off from half a mile (I have my Mum to thank for that) — meant we categorically weren’t prepared to pay a penny more than what we felt was a fair and just price for the goods and services.
Which meant we were going to have to do most of it ourselves.
The empowerment of doing it yourself
I often refer to the empowerment I feel from doing things myself (see The power of self-reliance) and our wedding was peak “We did this.”
The prospect of taking it all on was daunting at first. But with good planning, several spreadsheets, self-belief, friends and family willing to help, and dedicating snatched evenings and weekends over several months to making, designing, researching, shopping around, negotiating and planning, we did it.
We exceeded our own expectations.
I suppose the purpose of me sharing all this is to remind you that, whatever big and intimidating project you might have coming up, if you are willing and able, you can probably just do a lot of it yourself.
And so here’s a gallery of all the things we DIYd with explanations of how we DIYd them and how much they cost. Plus a professionally shot cinematic 3 minute highlights video.
Note: I cut my hair (see Short hair: why it took me 30+ years to do it) within a few weeks after the wedding, so please also enjoy some of the very final pics of me ever taken with long(er) hair.