Couple slashes wedding cost down to £3,000 with free dress and B&M décor in dad’s back garden

A savvy bride cut the cost of her wedding by £12,000 and managed to throw an elegant bash for just £3,000. 

Harriet Smith-Walker, 25, from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, was originally due to get married in 2020, but like many others, had her special day cancelled due to the pandemic.

However, post-pandemic Harriet and her husband Kieran Smith-Walker, 28, decided their original £15,000 wedding was far too extravagant for a couple looking to buy a first home together, so the embarked on a mission to cut back on other expenses in a bid to get on the property ladder. 

The couple saved money by hosting the reception in father’s back garden, choosing balloons instead of flowers for decoration and making the bouquet. 

She even wore her grandmother’s wedding dress, which saved on money and added a sentimental touch to the day. 

She said: ‘It was the best day of my life! I’m so happy about the wedding! It was such an amazing day and I loved every second of it, from start to finish.

‘After the first wedding was cancelled we were stuck deciding mortgage or marriage, but we wanted both.

‘It was going to cost us around £15,000. We decided that was far too much when we were looking to buy a home, so we decided to cut the entire wedding down.

‘We are now in the final stages of completion for the house and are looking to move in very soon.’

The couple, who met in Magaluf six years ago, revealed their cost-saving tips but stated they still had the most perfect day celebrating their romance with family and friends. 

The most expensive cost of the day being the church hire – costing £500. The reception was held in Harriet’s father’s garden with a balloon arch costing £260 and a cake, table and linen costing £300. 

Harriet walked down the aisle in a stunning lace vintage dress worth £800, that had once belonged to her grandmother. 

She continued: ‘We also sourced decorations from B&M and Home Bargains, which included lanterns, solar panels, fairy lights and flower wire.

‘For the bouquets we were quoted £75 just for one, so we made them ourselves and it was around £60 for four bouquets.’

The biggest bargain was on the beer, which was nabbed from the reduced section at 47p a bottle. 

Harriet revealed she didn’t spend a penny on the dress, saying: ‘My dress was worth £800 it was actually my nan’s and handed down to me – she was so excited to see me wearing it.

‘In total I think we had around 70 guests so quite a lot for my dad’s garden, and quite a lot of people to feed and water.

‘The food at the wedding was a Jamaican BBQ and we sourced the meat such as a sausages and burgers with a cash and carry card.

‘That meant in total the food came to £262 and the side dishes such as potato salad and coleslaw were provided by family. Unbelievably, we won our cake too.

‘Booze-wise, we picked up any with damaged packaging which was reduced to clear from supermarkets, and with the amount of beer we got discounted it worked out at 47p a bottle.’

As for the music, Harriet said: ‘At the reception we were going to have a band play, which would have cost over a grand, but we opted for two vocalists instead, costing £500.

‘Our head usher was supposed to be the DJ on the night but he got stuck in Portugal so it meant we had to stick a playlist on instead.’

As for capturing the wedding, Harriet said: ‘For our photographer and videographer we used trainees who were looking to enhance their portfolios.

‘This meant the photographer only cost £100 and the videographer didn’t charge us at all.’