Guests at our wedding might have assumed that there had been no expense spared, because it certainly looked that way.

From the gorgeous Somerset house we chose as our venue, to our tiered cake and my two dresses, it appeared every inch the extravagant celebration.

As Ed and I took to the floor for our first dance, we reflected that not only had everything been perfect, but we’d managed to get everything we wanted for £22,500 less than the off-the-peg price.

When we started planning our September 2023 nuptials a year earlier, we quickly discovered that the moment you mention the word ‘wedding’ most suppliers inflate their prices. Being an accountant, I wasn’t prepared to be ripped off by what I’ve dubbed the ‘wedding tax’.

Instead, we became ruthless about our priorities for the big day and did endless research to find the best deals.

Wedding planning

Ed and I met on a dating app in November 2021 and had our first date on the ice skating rink at London’s Natural History Museum. I told my mum that it felt so different to other dates I’d been on. By the time Ed and I returned from our first holiday together in Mexico six months later, we knew we wanted to spend our lives together.

Exactly a year after our first date, Ed proposed with a gorgeous diamond ring in the most romantic rooftop restaurant in Morocco, scattered with rose petals.

Though both of us are close to our parents, we’re also fiercely independent and decided at the outset that we wanted to pay for the wedding ourselves.

We dreamed of a memorable day, but not one that was going to cost us £50,000 – like some weddings we’ve been to – and leave us in debt for years.

Neither did we want to take our vows in a registry office and celebrate in a bar afterwards, as that wouldn’t have felt special enough.

Marrying on a weekday

After viewing four venues in Kent – where Ed’s from – we fell in love with Orchardleigh House in Somerset after my mum spotted it on her social media feed.

Had we got married on a weekend in July or August, we’d have had to pay £20,000 for the venue, civil ceremony, champagne reception, wedding breakfast, evening celebration for 80 guests and bridal party accommodation the nights before and after the wedding.

But simply by choosing to marry on a Friday in September that price immediately dropped by £7,000 to £13,000. With savings in the bank, we secured a further 5% discount by paying the venue up front instead of in instalments.

Although getting married on a weekday means some guests may have to take a day’s holiday from work (or might not be able to get the day off at all), we didn’t have anyone who couldn’t make it. In fact, our friends and family told us they loved it as they still had the whole weekend ahead of them.

Meanwhile, our country house venue ensured we had a beautiful, ready-made backdrop for our wedding, meaning there was no need to spend a fortune dressing it with floral displays and grand table decorations to make it look pretty.

Saving on photos

From the moment we booked the venue, we set our budget for the whole wedding at a maximum of £20,000, leaving us with £7,000 to play with. That may still sound a lot of money, but we had to be shrewd to stick to it.

Venue aside, the biggest expense was a video and photographs to ensure we’d have precious memories to look back on. The initial quote was a jaw-dropping £2,500 — £800 of which was for a coffee table photo album.

I told the photographer all we’d need was the video and a digital file of the hundreds of photos he took on the day. He agreed and our bill was reduced to £1,700.

Bargain wedding dresses

You might think I’d have splashed out more than that on my dress, but I actually got two bridal gowns for just £100 each because they were made bespoke by a dressmaker in Pakistan.

My mum’s gift to me was to fly me to her native Pakistan so I could have two dresses made – a traditional red Pakistani bridal gown for the ceremony and wedding breakfast, and a white one for the evening party.

Each one was bespoke and similar dresses I’d looked at in the UK were around £10,000. I wore them with an existing pair of pumps – nobody sees your wedding shoes anyway, so I saved at least £100 there.

Reduction on wedding invites

We also pocketed £200 by asking a very creative friend to design our wedding invites. They were printed at a company in Oxford who quoted five times less than their sister branch in London (top tip – look for suppliers outside the major cities), and then we assembled them ourselves at the dining room table.

Ed’s five groomsmen and my five bridesmaids chose and bought their own outfits to complement our colour scheme of dark blue and turquoise, and the girls did their own hair and make-up, saving £500 on a make-up artist and hair stylist.

DIY flowers

As for wedding flowers, they’re so expensive – up to £1,000 just for the bride’s bouquet. My dress was beautiful enough without flowers so I didn’t carry anything.

Meanwhile, instead of blowing a fortune on floral arrangements for the tables, I bought several bouquets of roses costing £20 each from M&S the day before the wedding. One of my green-fingered friends and his partner arranged them in used wine bottles that we’d spray painted.

Our cake was the cheapest we could find at around £300, a friend sang as we signed the register rather than us forking out around £1,000 for musicians, and I found a hair and make-up artist who was a steal at £250 – around £350 cheaper than those specifically marketing themselves for brides.

Our honeymoon, a two-week Caribbean cruise, cost an additional £5,000, which we paid for with savings and a contribution from our parents as a wedding gift. Our friends very kindly gave us money towards honeymoon activities such as zip-lining through the rainforest and swimming with stingrays in Antigua.

The total bill for the wedding itself was around £19,000, a saving of £22,500 which is now being put to the best use ever building a new family life with our five-month-old son.

We’re proof that you can have a dream wedding without a ridiculous price tag.

Pernia’s savings:

• Saved £10,000 on wedding dress by having it made in Pakistan

• Saved £7,000 on venue by choosing off-peak date and paying up-front

• Saved £1,000 on wedding singer and musicians by getting a friend to sing

• Saved £1,500 by not having a wedding bouquet and buying M&S flowers

• Saved £800 on photos by skipping the printed album

• Saved £350 by using hair and make-up artist not marketed for brides

• Saved £200 on wedding invites by a friend designing them and using a non-London printer

• Saved £350 on a DJ (half price) by using Poptop, a platform for party planning/entertainers

• Saved £100 on shoes by wearing pair already owned

• Saved £1,250 by not having table and venue decorations (i.e. no additional flowers, covers for the dining chairs, candles etc)

Total savings: over £22,550.

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