Steph got married!

Sarah’s design assistant Steph writes about her recent experience planning a wedding on a budget but still making the big day personal, special and unforgettable…

Hi, I'm Steph, Sarah's design assistant. I'm a jewellery lover, theatre maker, craft obsessive and at the end of July 2025 I got married!

My partner and I have been together a really long time but it is still super exciting to take this next step in our relationship. Billy proposed in July 2024 on a walk around the deepest lake in England. I'm not ashamed to admit, I cried! We spent the rest of our trip in the glow of being newly engaged and didn't reveal the news until we were back, at which point everyone immediately asked if we had a date set! Of course, we didn't, we were just trying to enjoy the moment, but, partly from pure excitement, and partly because people did keep asking, we set about starting to look at venues and vendors and planning the perfect day. This was when we realised...weddings are expensive.

The average cost of a wedding in the UK in 2025 is estimated to be £23,250. As someone who works freelance in the creative industries, I don't have that kind of cash lying around. Of course, we could have planned our wedding for a couple of years time to give ourselves room to save, but as a freelancer, my schedule is very changeable and planning things in advance can be tricky. We also didn't want to create huge amounts of pressure on a day that we had been planning for 2 years. Also, we really didn't want to start our marriage with completely depleted savings and spending that much money on one day didn't really seem to us to be something that aligned with our values as a couple. That being said, we love a party and the idea of getting everyone we love together in one place for a huge celebration was too good to miss, so we had to get creative...

Everyone is unique and if a huge picture perfect wedding with all the bells and whistles is what you have always dreamed of then of course you should go for it, but for us the DIY rustic style says a lot more about us as a couple and we felt that it was really important to try and not create unnecessary waste or spend on excessive extras to try and make our day stand out. By doing everything ourselves we found that we were able to curate a wedding day that really spoke to who we are and hopefully meant that our guests had a hugely enjoyable experience (I know I did).

Here are some of the things we did to make our wedding personal and affordable for us:

the venue

Our ceremony venue was the beautiful St Pauls Walden Bury estate, we wanted to have an outdoor wedding and the grounds here are so stunning that it was the obvious choice. It is also within walking distance to our reception venue.

Our reception venue is where we were really lucky, I am the co-artistic director of an outdoor theatre space called The Living Theatre and was therefore able to host my reception here, a luxury I am aware that not everyone has. By having my wedding at the theatre I was able to have full flexibility over every aspect of the day, including layout, timings and vendors which are sometimes restricted by other venues. Additionally, I was able to celebrate in a place that is important to me and represents a huge part of my life and who I am as a creative.

Outdoor weddings in the UK are always a risk but we mitigated that by hiring a tipi from Country Tipis, a wonderful company local to us that provides marquees, tipis and other coverings that fit the rustic aesthetic we were going for. They were so communicative and helpful and we were even able to attend a small wedding showcase they hosted at Vanstone garden centre to get an idea of what products they offer.

While DIY-ing your venue is an amazing way to save money and make the space personal, it is important to remember that you won't have the luxury of an in-house wedding co-ordinator or staff to run the day for you. So, unless you have very organised friends and family willing to don a clipboard and headset so that everything runs smoothly, you might want to consider hiring one for the day.

FOOD AND DRINK:

Besides the venue, this will probably be where most of your money will go when planning the wedding. As mentioned, a lot of venues will require you to choose from a list of trusted vendors or from their in-house catering services, which can add up to a huge amount depending on how many people you are planning on inviting. Add to this the cost of alcohol, canapes, evening food and the wedding cake, and you can see where the 23 grand comes from.

Having free choice of vendors was a huge plus for us as we could consider food trucks, BBQ catering and more; however, I am coeliac and Billy is a vegetarian, so finding a caterer suited to a fully outdoor venue with no kitchen, that also provided completely gluten-free food with options for a variety of dietary choices was unbelievably tricky. As a coeliac with friends who also have coeliac disease and other food allergies, it was really important to me that all of the food at my wedding was completely gluten-free. With the right vendor, non-coeliacs won't notice the difference, but it means everyone can relax and enjoy the day without fear of cross-contamination.

In the end, we found Well Nice, a gluten-free fish and chip van with options for vegetarians and vegans. They are used to catering festivals and outdoor events, so a lack of kitchen space didn't faze them. The price per head for a food van is also a lot more affordable than for a three-course sit-down meal, plus fish and chips is a crowd-pleasing meal that will satisfy our guests' hunger. We had so many comments about how much people loved the food, so this really proves that you don’t need a full sit-down dinner to impress.

Instead of having a huge wedding cake in one flavour that some people might not like, we opted to make a dessert tower. We had a small cake (GF of course) placed on the top of a tiered stand that also had cookies, brownies and slices of loaf cake on. This not only meant that guests had a choice of dessert, but it also made making everything myself a lot easier. Unless you are a bake-off wannabe, batch baking brownies and cookies is a lot more doable than trying to create your own massive tiered cake that is decorated to be Pinterest-perfect. I happen to love baking, so this task is something I enjoyed in the week leading up to the wedding, but if you are not a natural baker, you can buy brownies and cookies from local bakeries to create the same effect, and it will save you a lot of money on a huge, elaborate cake.

OUTFITS:

This is where I REALLY lucked out. At the theatre, we work with an INCREDIBLE costume designer and maker who very kindly agreed to make me a custom wedding dress. She is amazing, and I will be indebted to her forever. Jade, you are a dream.

However, if I didn't have this luxury, second-hand would have been the path I would have taken. I buy pretty much all of my clothes from charity shops and apps like Vinted or eBay. It is important to me to not contribute to fast fashion as much as I can, so a second-hand wedding dress would have been an obvious choice. There are so many wedding dresses listed on places like Facebook Marketplace and eBay, or you can go to boutiques that specialise in pre-loved and vinted dresses.

For my bridesmaids, I opted to give them all a colour (in this instance gold) and encouraged them to find their own outfits. This means that they can pick something suited to their style and body type, and they have the option of buying second-hand or purchasing something they might want to wear again. I love the fact that they get to show their personalities through their outfit, and they can pick something that fits their budget. In order to tie the outfits together more I make dried flower headpieces for them all to wear, I went to Columbia road flower market to pick out some blooms that dried in my kitchen for 6 weeks that I then wove together to make flower crowns. This is a fun activity that you can do with your bridesmaids as a cute 'crafternoon' session where you can enjoy a glass of bubbly and the latest gossip while making something towards your wedding.

THE RINGS:

As someone who has done a jewellery-making course and works with an incredible designer, making my own rings was always a no-brainer. In keeping with the rustic style that Billy and I love, we opted for sand-casting. I carved designs out of wax and then created an impression of the design in a mould filled with sand. The gold is then melted and poured into the mould to hopefully make the perfect cast of the design you created.
As we made these at home, we were able to both get involved in the casting of the rings, which felt really special. As every casting comes out slightly differently, no one else in the world will have rings exactly like ours; they are the perfect representation of our unique relationship.

Of course, if you are not a jeweller but you want something unique to you, talking to a bespoke jeweller is the way to go. I feel strongly that the rings and the photographer are the areas that I would not compromise on in terms of money. These are the things you are left with after the sun has set on the wedding day, so you want them to be of quality and truly representative of who you are.

EXTRAS:

Invitations - Our save the date was a digital design that I drew on a free design software and sent via text (everyone you know is probably in some kind of WhatsApp chat). I designed our full invitations myself using Canva and used their printing service to get them printed. We love beautiful, intricate invites, but they often are discarded, so we focused on a fun design that was essentially a postcard with a QR code that led to our wedding website (free to set up) with all of the extra info on it.

Flowers - my dad grew cut flowers on his allotment, but being outside, we aren't short of beautiful blooms, so foraging is also an option. In the end, the bouquets were stunning, and it was really lovely to have my dad involved in creating them.

DJ - We asked all of our guests to choose a song on their RSVP, which we then put into the ultimate party playlist, plug-in and go!

Table settings - Facebook Marketplace has been my best friend throughout this process. Look for people in your area who have just got married and have napkins, decorations and table number signs to sell on. I sourced my napkins, table runners, centre pieces and even confetti this way. If you are crafty you can always personalise, dye or alter things to fit your theme perfectly.

After the party finished, both me and my new husband were blown away by how perfectly the day went, how full of joy we felt and how much love we felt from our friends and family. Our wedding was truly a reflection of us and we wouldn’t have changed a thing.