The time of year and the day greatly determines your wedding
costs and your ability to negotiate. It
is simply a matter of economics. If
demand is greater than supply then this pushes up the market price. This is true of every commodity, weddings are
no exception. Peak season for wedding is
April-October and increasingly popular is winter weddings Dec-Jan. Venues are likely to be less accommodating to
negotiation for weddings in these times, even if you have the skill of a Jedi
master! That said it is not
impossible. Our wedding has been booked
for August-peak wedding season and we still got a bargain and I am here to tell
you how, here are my top tips!
1) Know the must haves, should haves and could
haves
Know the times, days and months that you are
willing to compromise on and the things that you are not. For us we wanted summer (July or August) but
were flexible on both days and times.
This is good to identify for looking at ways to reduce cost further down
the line (which I will come to at a later point).
2) Time (day) is money
Be flexible on your day. Saturday is premium price territory that is a
fact. It is not to say you can’t save
some money, but you are unlikely to get a great deal off. If you are really looking to get the best
value for money then opt for a midweek wedding.
It is true that most of your guests will need to take time off work to
attend, but if you mean something to them this shouldn’t be a problem. If you like this option, then I would suggest
you pick a midweek day in the school holidays.
Teachers don’t have the flexibility as others to take days off in the
week in term time and therefor booking midweek in the school holidays considers
this. In my own wedding we were happy to
be flexible on the day of the week, choosing a Thursday (in school holidays). This was great for our venue as they have an
assured event mid-week and allows availability for Friday and Saturday for
another wedding.
Guaranteeing you will increase a standard
Sunday-Thursday daytime/evening trade for a hotel (probably by a substantial
amount) is a great platform to negotiate better menu prices, drinks packages,
room rates etc.
3) Wedding breakfast or evening meal?
One of the largest costs in your wedding
will be your food and drink provision.
If you have a lot of guests this can quickly bump up a budget wedding to
a bumper wedding. David and I come from
two large catholic families (and we are still breeding – queue mental image of
monty pythons ‘the meaning of life’) and this was a major hurdle for us, as we
had 150 guests. I will talk about venue
options more specifically later but for now let’s focus purely on timing.
It’s not rocket science to understand that
if you feed your guests once, i.e later in the day, you will save yourself a
lot of money. Opting for an afternoon
wedding, with perhaps a high tea (usual cost within hotels varies from
£6.95-£15.00 per head) followed by an evening meal/buffet/bbq might just pay
for your wedding dress, in the money you would save. For other money saving options, look at
moving away from a formal sit down meal for an informal buffet or BBQ later on
in the day. Run the numbers and
see.
4) A wedding later means less expense for
guests too
You might not be the only people on a budget,
your guests shell out quite a bit of money too for your wedding, not just on
the gifts but the outfits and accommodation.
Opting for an afternoon wedding gives your guests the option to travel
the day of the wedding, saving on a hotel fee.
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