From the Professionals: Planning Your Decor Without Spending A Fortune

Budgeting for your wedding can be a bit of a minefield, and pretty daunting, especially when you might not be clear on exactly what you want, the 'look' you want to achieve - and when thinking about what to budget for your wedding decor - well, where do you start?!

Worry not, our very own Whitewed Approved Steph of Venues Covered knows a thing or two about all things wedding decor, and she has a whole set of tricks of the trade up her sleeve - and here she shares with us her ideas and tips on how to maximize your wedding decoration budget...

Says Steph:

Even in these times of uncertainty, couples are busy planning their weddings; however, there is always one stress point that can get to even the most organised couple – keeping within a budget.

Weddings over the years have become notorious for automatically conjuring big £££ signs in the minds of people discussing them, and one place that can make or a break a budget is wedding decor. You can go as wild or as minimalist as you want with decoration, with some couples spend just a few hundred on this element of their wedding day, and then some spending thousands on elaborate setups.

Weddingplanner.co.uk[1] has reported that the expected average cost of a wedding in 2020 (not including honeymoon or guest expenditure) would reach approximately £17,000, with many weddings in more costly areas around the country (such as London) being more than that. If you were to include the extra expenditure from guests, stag/hen parties and honeymoons, this would be reaching further towards and over the £30,000 mark.[2]

In this blog, I’m going to give you some of my top hints and tips for both setting a decoration budget and then maximising that budget, without compromising the feel of the wedding you’re trying to achieve.

Budgeting for your decorations

As with all elements of a wedding day, I suggest to anyone starting out to write a list of ‘essential’ components (i.e. items that you definitely want to incorporate into your wedding) and a list of ‘would likes’ (items that would be great to add if you can, but not essential).

Pinterest and Instagram are great places to start to gather ideas, but be warned – a lot of the imagery used on the sites may look simple, but actually be incredibly costly to produce!

Once you have your lists at hand, do lots of research for pricing and availability, particularly within your local area. Prices of items can vary hugely depending on where in the country you are getting married, as can the amount of vendors available to supply them. Look on websites to get rough figures or prices (do a search of at least 5 or 6 sites) and then use these to base your budget on – it isn’t a good idea to ‘guestimate’ potential costs, as you may then get a shock if suppliers can’t fit within your budget. In fact, a lot of time, it can pay to over budget; this way if a supplier comes in under, you have more money to play with and tick off your ‘would like’ list.

Making the best first impression

Guests will very likely be the first to see your ceremony and wedding reception spaces (as you’ll either be waiting nervously before walking down the aisle, or off having beautiful photos taken post-ceremony); so, creating the right ambience is important, as it can accentuate the emotion within the room. 

Taking a few key pieces of decor (such as lanterns lining the aisle or a statement display behind the ceremony table) can transform a space, and can make sure all of the eyes in the room are in the right direction – towards the front, watching the two of you proclaim your love for one another and get married!

Multi-purposing

Most venue dressers, if you hire items from them, provide an item for the whole day (unless specified) – so it is setup in the morning, and remains until the end of the night.

A good way to stretch your budget is to ask if some items (particularly centrepieces and archways) can be repurposed and used for 2 or more parts of the day.

The most popular items to re-purpose are centrepieces being used as aisle decoration, then being transferred to guest reception tables, as well as moon arches being used fas a backdrop for the ceremony table and then being transferred  to feature behind top table or as cake table decor. Other items that could be repurposed are easels (welcome signs to table plans), backdrops (top table decor to evening photo opportunity) and rustic jars (perfect for outdoor tealights for the darker evenings).

One thing to bear in mind with re-purposing hired items – please check with the supplier that you’re hiring from that is it OK to move and reuse the items. Some hire products (such as backdrops, arches and light up letters) are heavy or easily broken, so should not be moved by anyone outside of their team for safety. This may incur an additional cost for them to come out and move these items for you.

Creating ‘statement features’

Creating features is about making beautiful spaces for the highly anticipated shots taken by photographers, videographers and guests alike. Creating a feature will automatically draw your guests’ eyes to these areas, so that anywhere with fewer decorations are not so obvious. This will also help to keep your budget down, as you won’t have to think about covering an entire space with eye catching trinkets.

Places that this works well, for example, is behind the ceremony and top tables, cake displays, selfie stations, sweet bars, remembrance tables, outdoor patios and (if your venue lacks outdoor photo space) creating an immersive photo opportunity for yourselves and your guests.

Another fantastic statement feature, which works best in high ceiling rooms, are ceiling drapes and hung fairy lights. Although they can be costly, depending on the size of the room, they become a focal point and can distract eyes from additional goings on about the room.

Floral displays

Flowers and floral displays can eat up a huge chunk of your decoration budget, and as growers and exporters have had issues with supply due to the coronavirus outbreak, it is unlikely that flower and foliage prices will be coming down for the foreseeable future.

A few things I have learnt from florists over the years, can help stop your flower costs spiraling.

• Use flowers in season – each flower variety has a season when they grow best, so are at their most abundant. This means that wholesalers should be able to do deals for florists on these in season flowers. A good florist will be able to suggest colour coordinating florals that will tie in with your wedding date.
• Avoid commercial holidays – Valentine’s Day and Mothers Day are the two most expensive times for flowers, and particular flowers will be in high demand; so roses in February and pretty, scented pastels in April may not be the best idea, budget wise.
• Florists have minimum order quantities, so ordering displays with lots of different flowers may work out more expensive than ordering more statement flowers and using cheaper ‘fillers’.
• Think about potentially giving away floral displays as gifts to special people (grandparents, etc) or as Bridesmaids gifts, so you can re-purpose them. Make sure you tell your florist your intention first before giving away vases, as you may have hired them instead of bought them. They will either be able to add the buying price to your order, or tell you where to buy vases yourself.
• Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that having just foliage will be miles cheaper than having flowers – tropical foliages (such as eucalyptus and palm) still have to be grown and shipped to the UK, just like flowers, so incur the same costs of handling that need to be passed on to the customer.
• A trend coming through from America at the moment is combining real and artificial florals and foliage into the same displays and bouquets – this means you can have expensive looking, or out of season, artificial blooms combined with fresh. Not only does this mean that the costs are lower (as fresh out of season or statement flowers are expensive), but it also means that you can keep a part of your wedding with you at home (by removing the fresh elements after the wedding).

Using what your venue has available

A venue has an abundance of things that are available for you to use for your wedding, and a lot of the time they’re free to use or come as a part of your package with them!

• Check within your package about chair covers and other add ons – some venues have chair covers built into their package prices, and some also include sashes! Plus items like easels, cake stands and cake knives are easy to forget, but very handy to have.
• If your venue has ‘pretty’ chairs (such as Chiviari or Cheltenham style chairs), you could then get away with having a simple bow or chiffon drop to add colour to the room, meaning no additional chair cover hire.
• Some venues have a small selection of centrepieces available – if they suit the feel of your wedding, then why not use them?
• Make the most of the outdoor potential of your wedding venue – does it have beautiful fields or old stone walls that would make perfect photo backdrops? A gazebo suitable for an outside ceremony led by a celebrant? A patio area for cocktails and canapés? Use these to add to your guests experience, and enjoy them – they’ll be part of the charm that made you love the venue in the first place.

Talk to your suppliers

The last, and one of the most important tips, is to talk to your suppliers and be honest about your budget and your style, even before booking with them. This way, we can look at what you’re trying to achieve and try to find solutions for you...sometimes working within a tight budget may not work for the style you’re after, but we try our best to find something that will work.

We’re also here for you to help with any questions or issues you may have about any aspect of your big day...kind of like an agony aunt, only without writing to a newspaper!

I regularly have Brides and Grooms message asking me for advice on anything and everything (from speech writing, to supplier recommendations, to how to tie a bow tie, and even attempting to work out how to seat people who dislike each other!) It’s one of the favourite parts of my job, being able to work with Brides and Grooms and get to know them. Having that help from suppliers is a fantastic free added extra that you may not have expected at the beginning of your planning journey, but that can end up invaluable.

Although we run businesses, the wedding industry really is unique as we all fell into our jobs because we love the excitement, the joy and the love brought about by weddings. We love that our couples have chosen us to help them, and we genuinely want all of our couples to have the most amazing days possible!

About the author

Stephanie Hobbs is the owner of Whitewed Approved Venues Covered, a Swindon based wedding and event decoration business, specialised in transforming spaces and providing the ‘WOW’ factor for special events. The company has been in business for over 9 years, and in this time has been privileged enough to have worked with over 700 couples to help design their special days.

For more about Venues Covered, we urge you to check out their directory page to view their decor hire and venue styling services!  Thanks for all the advice Steph, it's absolutely invaluable!

Happy planning!

From Team Whitewed

Blog references:

[1] https://weddingplanner.co.uk/wedding-inspiration/the-costs-of-a-wedding-in-2020

[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/wedding-cost-uk-average-how-much-marriage-ceremony-bridebook-a8460451.html?amp