A Grand Wedding and a Dress from eBay
Bride Julie Ratcliffe felt like a princess when she walked down the aisle in her Jasper Conran designer wedding dress that she got for the unbelievable bargain price of £15 from eBay. Imitation diamante and a pearl tiara from Claire’s Accessories >> at a cost of £10 completed her outfit.
Julie’s daughter Jemma and groom’s daughter Ginney were bridesmaids. Both were dressed in red outfits that had been purchased from high street stores, including shoes, hair pieces and jewelry at a cost of £50 each.
The flowers that both the bride and bridesmaids carried had been hand made by Julie costing her £25.
Groom Gary was waiting for her dressed in a suit he already owned and the only new item on his outfit was the flower buttonhole.
Mr. and Mrs. Ratcliffe had both been married before and although there was nothing ‘cut-price’ about their wedding day, they felt the money saved could be put to far better use in building a new bathroom in their home.
Their wedding day was just as romantic and magical as if they had paid the average price of today’s wedding at a cost of thousands.
Reception and Bubbly
They traveled in their £140 hired white limousine to their venue at the local cricket ground which cost them £140 for the day and night. Forty guests attending the afternoon buffet reception and toasted the newlyweds with Asda sparking wine.
Bride and groom cut their £18 Tesco wedding cake while showing off their ‘his and hers’ wedding rings which cost them £109.98 for the pair.
Forty more guests joined them in the evening for a meal of chilli con carne and rice or potato pie with peas. The cost of both meals came to £340.
The photographer has been arranged and paid for by work colleagues for a wedding gift to the couple, and their honeymoon was an already planned family holiday to Majorca.
The whole ‘grand’ wedding was carefully planned and Julie who has an eye for bargains said "We did the sums having in mind that our new house would need work on it, and decided we wanted to spend around £1,000 while having everything we wanted as far as possible," the 48-year-old bride, a children's worker, said yesterday.
"The big day went brilliantly and we had a wonderful time, and when I tell my friends that it only cost £1,000 they can't believe it."
She had been stunned when one hotel wanted to charge £1,000 for the reception venue alone.
"I thought it was ridiculous, so I began looking around and found the local cricket club function room was only £140 to hire for the whole day."
"The bottles looked expensive and the wine tasted nice, so we bought one for each table," she added.
You can see their full costs on the Daily Mail website here >>
