How to plan a budget wedding in the UK without sacrificing your day

Hitched says the average wedding in the UK as of 2026 costs nearly £22,000.  Millennials spend the most on their weddings, with one in four admitting they dropped more than £30,000 on their special day.  

That cost accounts for everything from the actual venue itself, to the food, outfits, decorations, photography, entertainment, stationary (think invites), transport and other bits. It doesn’t include honeymoons though.  

While most couples fund weddings through savings or with family contributions, others get into debt to have their dream wedding day. That’s where things can get a bit stressful.  

But weddings don’t have to cost an arm and a leg to be amazing! I organised my own wedding a year ago and picked up lots of ideas to slash costs. There are so many ways to save money if you’re happy to get a little inventive and work out the difference between nice-to-haves and must-haves.  

My number one tip? Skip summer weddings.  

July and August are PEAK wedding season months. Everyone wants their weddings then and the prices reflect that. Some venues charge double for the same package in the summer than they would  in the winter. Also, all your suppliers get booked up, sometimes years in advance, so you’ll have to wait ages to find a date that works for everyone.  

In winter? Lots of venues run special offers. Lots of suppliers do too as work dries up. We bagged massive discounts simply by opting for a January wedding. And it wasn’t just the venue, we saved hundreds on other suppliers like our videographer too, because we booked during off-peak season.  

And yes, summer is a gorgeous season, and when the sun’s out, it’s beautiful and warm and perfect wedding weather. But this is the UK. Nobody’s guaranteed a sunny wedding, even if they’d paid premium prices for a July Saturday. A winter wedding on the other hand? A sunny day’s a nice bonus, not an expectation.  

Go off the peg for your dress or shop the high street  

The wedding dress is one of the biggest expenses you’ll face. The average wedding dress in the UK costs £1,532 as of 2026 according to Bridebook, and that’s before you factor in things like alterations which all wedding dresses need (yes, even those made to order). Alterations themselves can cost hundreds of pounds depending on how complex the work is.  

But, if you go off the peg or opt for a high street option, you could bring that total right down. Off the peg dresses, i.e. sample dresses you browse and buy in store rather than ones made for you, can cost you a few hundred pounds rather than thousands. And you still get the boutique experience if you’re after that, as they’re proper bridal stores selling off old samples to make room for new stock.  

Or, if you’re looking for a plainer model anyway, it’s worth exploring high street options. The likes of ASOS and Reiss sell gorgeous registry wedding style dresses from around £100. If you’re not after big, poofy princess dresses, they have lots of wedding gowns under £500. Plus, as the dresses aren’t as complicated, alterations are likely to be cheaper too. Win-win.  

Speaking of wedding clothes, if you’re after a veil or other accessories, check out resellers on Vinted or online shops like Etsy. You can get nearly brand new (or brand new) stuff for far less than what you’d spend in a wedding shop.  

If you’re brave enough, you can even find your dress (at a significant discount) on sites like Vinted, but I was a little apprehensive about ordering something and not liking it and then having to resell it (wedding dresses are notoriously difficult to resell).  

Go for a free venue – think rustic pub rather than manor house  

Bridebook says the average wedding venue hire can cost anywhere between £3,000 to £15,000 and that’s excluding catering. That’s a huge chunk of most people’s wedding budget!  

Now, this one’s very individual as I know lots of people have a vision for their day, so it might not be an option for everyone. But, if you’re on a budget, you might want to think about wedding venues that are free to hire.  

My suggestion is to scope out rustic pubs near the church or registry office where you want to get married. There are so many gorgeous ones with lots of character – think open fire places, wooden beams, beautiful beer gardens (if it’s nice out). And, they don’t typically charge a venue fee as you’ll be paying for your food and drinks while you’re there. 

A pub wedding doesn’t have to mean a sad looking function room that hasn’t been updated since the 60s, so give this option some thought if you’re after a budget wedding. You could save yourselves thousands.  

Ditch the stationary and go digital  

Couples spend anywhere between £150 to £400 on getting their save the dates, invites, and thank you cards printed, according to Bridebook. That doesn’t event include postage, which costs a fortune these days.  

Ditch all that and go digital. I designed our save the dates and invites on Canva. It cost me £10 for a one-month subscription to the Pro site and there were tons of templates to choose from I could tweak quickly.  

I used the free WithJoy website to collect RSVPs online and tell people info about the day. Plus, I could mass email everyone from there too if I needed to send updates.  

We also didn’t do thank you notes, we just stuck to texts which we sent out to our friends and family after the event. Let’s face it, all that nice stationary will just end up in recycling soon after, plus you’re doing your bit for the planet by keeping things digital while freeing up space in your budget for other stuff. I call that a win-win-win.  

Ditch the traditional wedding day structure  

Wedding days are looooong affairs! Think about it – you've got the ceremony, followed by cocktail hour which TikTok says now has to include an aesthetic grazing table plus a magician apparently, followed by a three course wedding breakfast, speeches, cake cutting, dancing, more food, more dancing, cake, aaaand more dancing!  

All that adds up. If you have 50 guests, you’re paying to feed and water 50 people about four times throughout the day, plus entertainment.  

But, who says you have to have it all exactly how it’s always been done? Why? Some couples hate late night parties. Well, nowadays, there’s ceremony and afternoon tea options. Everyone’s home in time for a nice, chill takeaway on the sofa after a lovely day out.  

Others love the idea of the party, but don’t want the long drawn out wedding breakfast. Skip it! Have an afternoon ceremony and go straight into the evening bit. You can do a buffet to cut costs further. They call this a Twilight Wedding and it usually works out much cheaper as you literally only feed and entertain your guests for half the time.  

There’s lots of ways to play with your wedding day structure and keep things on the lower side cost wise. But, the shorter the day, the cheaper it ends up being.  

Distinguish between nice-to-haves and must-haves  

These will be different for everyone. For some, ornate floral arrangements are super important, so they’re willing to splurge there. For others, they want the day documented and will be hiring a top end photographer AND videographer to capture every moment. For others yet, the wedding car is key.  

All of these can end up costing an arm and a leg. But, they’re not all must-haves, and when you’re on a budget, something’s got to give.  

For example, let’s say the photography and videography is key. You really want the day recorded so you can look back on it. That’s fine. But you’re looking at an average cost of £1,500 for your photographer, and another £1,500 for your videographer. There are cheaper options if you shop around, of course, but this is roughly what you’ll pay for someone who knows their stuff.  

You might find that, at that point, you need to shed money elsewhere. In that case, the wedding cars might need to be replaced by really nice family members happy to give you a lift. A wedding car can set you back £500 easily, so it’s an easy one to cut out of the wedding budget; it’s nice and all, but it’s ultimately a very expensive prop.  

Stay off social media (seriously)  

There’s about a gazillion wedding day trends on TikTok and Instagram these days. Social media will have you thinking you need to put on a whole show to have a decent wedding.  

Serpentine layouts are apparently all the rage these days, as are fancy grazing buffets at drinks hour, oh – and if you can throw in a bespoke his-and-hers signature cocktail for all the guests too! And the decor, where would we be without drapes! Drapes everywhere! Hanging off the ceiling, at the very least! And the florals? Make sure they’re...structured, avant-garde, not just thrown together quickly!  

But who’s all this for, exactly? Are you doing a shoot for a wedding magazine? Are you trying to curate the perfect Instagram post? Or are you trying to celebrate the union of two people? Let’s take a step back from TikTok and Instagram, block a few hashtags and remind ourselves nobody’s going to remember the serpentine table layout or whether the flowers were avant-garde enough (whatever that means) in twenty years’ time.  

Ultimately, it comes down to this – drop all the expectations of what a wedding is supposed to be and host a wedding that reflects you and your partner (and your budget, ideally without going into debt on the same day you start married life together).