Is it possible to plan a stunning yet Budget Wedding in Liverpool?
The simple answer is yes! Liverpool is an incredible city full of character and unique and quirky wedding venues. With some outside-the-box thinking, planning a stunning, memorable and personal Wedding in Liverpool while on a budget is entirely possible. Below we will explain how we planned our fantasy Budget Wedding for under £5,000 and the ideas you can take away to plan your own incredible wedding, even if on a smaller budget.
The Average UK Wedding Budget For 2022
There is no way of escaping the fact that wedding celebrations are expensive. The latest Hitched National Wedding survey put the average spend for a UK wedding at £18,400, with 47% of the couples surveyed going over budget. £18,400 represented a £1,000 increase over 2021 and a massive leap from 2020. However, with the cost of living crisis dominating so much of the news in 2023, many couples are now looking at ways to save money on their wedding day.
Before we looked at how to reduce costs, we first wanted to examine where most couples were spending their budget.
Major Wedding Costs
| Venue Hire | £8,400 |
| Wedding Dress | £1,350 |
| Photography | £1,300 |
| Videography | £1,150 |
| Catering per head | £70 |
| Wedding Hair & Makeup | £155 |
Liverpool Wedding Order Of The Day
So now we know the typical wedding cost, how can we reduce our spending?
There's no doubt you can plan the ultimate luxury wedding in Liverpool. However, with the cost of living crisis affecting so many, you may wonder if you can really plan a wedding on a budget in the city.
Liverpool is a city where Julia and I love to photograph. Therefore we wanted to see if planning a stunning yet budget wedding in Liverpool was really possible. One that was affordable yet offered the opportunity for stunning wedding photographs in Liverpool and a fantastic wedding experience. To do this, we looked at it as if we were planning our wedding again. Where we would choose to spend and save. While there are no right or wrong ways to plan a budget wedding, hopefully, our plans will help.
Several simple steps can go a considerable way toward reducing your costs;
- Getting hitched later in the day so that you do not need to plan a sit-down meal
- Getting married on weekdays is no longer considered unusual, and venues often charge less than Fridays or Saturdays.
- Peak wedding season in the UK typically runs from May to October, with dates outside this being cheaper.
If you're willing to shop around, plenty of venues offer special packages for weekday or winter weddings that can help the budget.
Our Budget Wedding Plans
Getting married doesn't need to be expensive; you can actually get married for as little as £57 in Liverpool. But to do this, you neet to opt for a midweek statutory ceremony before 11 am. Most of us, however, want to celebrate the day with our friends and loved ones. So before planning our fantasy budget wedding, we decided to set some critical criteria.
the budget for our fantasy liverpool wedding
Although we were planning a budget fantasy wedding in Liverpool, we wanted the best chance to enjoy the city. We, therefore, decided to opt for a summer wedding, even though we knew this would challenge the budget and picked that date of Saturday, July 8th 2023.
For our fantasy wedding, we had set ourselves a budget of £5,000. This figure was based on the approximate amount given by the financial site NimbleFins as typical for a budget wedding.
Planning a weekend wedding during the peak summer season would seriously challenge the budget.
WHAT WAS GOING TO BE THE STYLE OF OUR FANTASY BUDGET WEDDING
WHAT TYPE OF VENUE did we want for our budget liverpool wedding
Our budget would only stretch a little for florals or room decoration, but we didn't want it to feel like a budget wedding. As the wedding would be in the city, we simply decided to lean into the idea of city chic.
Despite the small budget, we wanted the day to feel unique and extraordinary. Therefore we ruled out many of the fantastic venues across Liverpool offering some great wedding packages and instead decided to think outside the box.
Planning Your Guest List For A Budget Wedding
The most significant impact on your budget is your guest list. A wedding with 250 guests will obviously be much more expensive than 25, so if you are working to a budget, think small. Work through our guide to planning your guest list, and limit your numbers to those who really mean the most to you as a couple.
When Julia and I married in 2016, we did so at a small hotel in the Lake District. Despite being limited to 40 daytime guests, the wedding never felt small, nor did it feel like we had been made to compromise. So while your numbers will vary from ours depending on your family etc., we used 40-day and around 100-evening guests when planning our fantasy budget wedding in Liverpool.
Civil Wedding Ceremonies In Liverpool City
Liverpool has nearly 50 licensed wedding venues across the city, from the unique Alma De Cuba with its eclectic mix of Cuban, Hispanic, and Latin American influences to the Luxury victorian elegance of Sefton Palm House. Liverpool truly is a city with something for everyone!
However, our venue of choice was St Georges Hall to keep costs down. The Grand Jury and Sefton Rooms can both be booked via Liverpool Register Office, meaning there is no additional fee for the registrar to conduct your ceremony at an approved venue.
Having photographed many weddings at St Georges Hall, we know it is a stunning backdrop for wedding photos and one of the nicest looking register offices in the UK.
Ceremony costs vary, but having already decided that we wanted a Saturday wedding, the cost would be £290. We would also have to pay approximately £35 each to give our notices.
Our Total Spend £360
Other costs
If either of you has been married previously, you will need to pay £50 to have the paperwork checked by the register. We would also recommend paying a small fee to allow your wedding car access to St George's Plateau. This can be arranged by contacting St Georges Hall directly [email protected]
Ideas for your Liverpool Budget Wedding Venue
Couples consistently list venue hire as the single most significant expense of their wedding day. For most weddings, the cost of hiring a venue, including food and drink, will average around £8,400. So here, thinking outside the box can really pay!
The city of Liverpool combines history, culture, and creativity, making it an exciting place to plan your wedding. But with a guest list of just 40, we had a lot of flexibility in choosing where to go in Liverpool.
After some careful thought, we decided to choose a mid-afternoon for our fantasy wedding. This timing would allow people to have something to eat earlier in the day and us to plan something more informal later in the afternoon at the venue.
The Search
We used the website venue scanner to search out the perfect space and, in the end, picked Ma Boyle's, Rum and Rumour Kabaret Bar for our Fantasy wedding reception. We were spoilt for choice, but Ma Boyles had the perfect vibe. It was easy to get to from St Georges Hall and was ideally located for capturing stunning wedding photos close to the Liverpool waterfront and with easy access to the church garden of Our Lady and St.Nicholas.
We budgeted around £350 for several plates of finger food / canapés when the guests arrived at the venue and £700 for later in the evening when we would have more guests.
Ma Boyles Menu
We have found at most weddings, the guest will head straight to the bar for their drink of choice, so we decided against welcome drinks. If anything remined in the budget, we might change this later or put some cash behind the bar.
Like a lot of venues, space at Ma Boyles is free to hire as long as you meet the minimum spend (£250 for the Rumour Kabaret Bar), so there was no hire cost.
Our Total Spend £1,410
We also have also create a list of 21 Amazingly Unique & Quirky Wedding Venues In Liverpool to provide further inspiration in planning your wedding no matter your budget.
View More
Wedding Dress
While I wasn't involved in choosing Julias' original wedding dress for our fantasy budget wedding in Liverpool, she did share her choice. As we were planning a city centre wedding, which would likely involve some walking, she knew she wanted something simple yet elegant. Julia ended up choosing a cream / Ivory sleeveless wedding dress from Oxfam for £400. The dress was listed as new without tags and had an RRP of £2077.
We weren't concerned about matching styles with the chic city style, so we would ask Julias' maid of honour and my best man to choose something they liked and would wear again. Then, if the budget allowed, we would add this to our shopping list. If not, we would ask them to buy it.
This post first appeared on ABBEYWOOD ESTATE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY, please read the originial post: here
