Fun Budget Friendly Wedding with DIY Decor & Floral Dress

There is so much warmth and kind spirit in today’s real wedding feature. Welcome to Lauren and Sean’s fun budget wedding in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, which was achieved remarkably, for less than £5000.

Their day is proof that you don’t need to spend vast sums of money on your wedding and with a can-do attitude can craft the day of your dreams. They focused on heart and sentimental touches, both with their ceremony and the DIY decorations.

I have to rave about their fantastic outfit choices too. Lauren supported small businesses with her look and I adore her floral wedding dress. Sean meanwhile went for a kilt and chose his family tartan for an extra special touch.

Thanks ever so much to Donna Murray Photography for sharing these totally gorgeous images with us. Be sure to read the lovely words from Lauren and Sean below too.

Fun Budget Wedding

The Proposal

In a deviation from Sean’s original plan, he proposed in our back garden, at the start of the pandemic, on the day Lauren was about to leave to work in Shetland (we’re both doctors) for an unknown number of months. He used Lauren’s grandmother’s ring (it was a gift, he didn’t steal it).

The Vision

A totally relaxed, fun, colourful wedding day, which really focussed on us and our family and friends (who were coming together for the first time in ages). We didn’t want to get too bogged down in frills and expenses and were determined to do as much as possible ourselves. We also wanted to appreciate and honour our awesome venue!

Budget

We think we managed to stay under £5000 (we didn’t TOTALLY keep count…).

The Venue

Sean’s wonderful colleague (and our dear friend) generously let us use her family home – a beautiful croft in Westhill, Aberdeenshire. We spent weeks and weeks clearing out the old tractor shed and had the ceremony in there. We held the reception on the surrounding land and were blessed with glorious sunshine.

Your Outfits

Lauren: I was really keen to support small businesses over the pandemic, so my outfit was almost totally from Etsy (as was most of the stuff we bought for the wedding!).

For my dress, I knew I didn’t want something traditional. After lots of browsing and video calls with my mum, I found a gorgeous floral dress by Jordan de Ruiter that I immediately fell in love with. She was amazing in creating a custom design for me, adding a train and altering the bodice.

I had a custom underskirt made by an Etsy creator (DreamPetticoatsShop), and my veil was Etsy too – I went for a crystal-studded super-sheer veil by Britten Weddings.

I wore little pink glass stud earrings that were a present from Sean from a local crafts market, and a simple silver necklace from a lovely Etsy silversmith. The only non-Etsy purchase was my shoes – I found ridiculous high-heeled white wellies on a wee discount website for £11! I assumed it would rain, so they seemed the right choice.

Sean: I had always planned to go the traditional route, and had wanted to buy my own kilt for a long time. I chose the County Fermanagh tartan as it’s our family tartan, worn with an Arran Navy Tweed jacket and matching fly plaid.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have an opportunity to rock the full regalia again, so I’m especially grateful to the team at MacGregor & MacDuff for all the tips and hints, and for making such a special occasion so easy! Shout out to Nichola and Molly from West With Style for sorting out my braids!

The Ceremony & Music

This was absolutely the most important part of the day to us. We had a Humanist ceremony, led by Leigh Bradley from Humanist Society Scotland (she was fantastic). We wrote the whole ceremony ourselves, making it as “us” as possible (except for the two readings, which we had our friends choose for us and surprise us with on the day – one went for a gorgeous poem he wrote himself, and one managed to turn the lyrics from “Never Gonna Give You Up” into a heartfelt tribute).

We used the ceremony to really show our loved ones our humour and our sentimentality, to celebrate how much we love each other and how much it meant to us to be getting married and to let everyone know how much we appreciated them being there with us – especially after the year we’d all had. We laughed and cried through the whole thing and we still talk about how great it was pretty much every day.

Lauren surprised Sean with her entrance music, picking a stripped-back piano rendition of “Falling Slowly” from the film “Once” – it was after watching this film together that we said “I love you” for the first time. Lauren’s cousin in California provided a beautiful acoustic recording of The Eagles’ song “Peaceful, Easy Feeling” to play while the schedule was signed, and we walked out to “Baba Yetu”, the theme song from the video game “Civilisation Revolution” (Sean loves this game. Lauren isn’t a gamer, but has previously sung this song in a choir, so it was the perfect crossover!).

Your Photographer & Filmmaker

We chose Donna Murray, who’s from Aberdeenshire, and just did the best job. She was so warm and friendly and put us instantly at ease, but also managed to be incredibly stealthy – capturing beautiful candid moments that we absolutely could not remember her being there for!

The Styling & Decor

We did everything ourselves! Lauren bought hundreds of felt pompoms on Etsy and used them to make dozens of metres of garland in the colours of her wedding dress, and bought hundreds of metres of cheap white voile material online. We draped the barn in these and filled it with potted plants and flowers.

We found a giant old rug rolled up in one of the sheds and used it on the floor to make everything extra cosy. We had swallows swooping in and out throughout our ceremony, as they were nesting in the rafters – which was awesome.

We didn’t worry too much about styling the rest of the venue and let the gorgeous Aberdeenshire setting speak for itself. We found lots and lots of chairs and tables on Facebook marketplace and didn’t bother with matching anything.

We put jars of wildflowers and white voile on the tables and used entirely biodegradable cups, plates and cutlery. We kept to a vaguely white and gold theme with our stationery and napkins. Lauren’s friend made our cake, and it was DELICIOUS. For food we had a big barbeque (and a well-stocked bar), which went down really well.

Lauren decided to try her hand at floristry, using entirely wildflowers and garden flowers from around the croft to do her own bouquet and those of the bridesmaids – and had loads of fun with it. The bouquets all wilted in the heat a bit (and the groom/groomsmen were so caught up in the excitement of the day they forgot to wear their buttonholes) but it didn’t matter at all.

The Honeymoon

We had a 10-night UK road trip, staying in small AirBnB spots in various national parks – and spending 2 nights in a gorgeous 5-star spa hotel (Whatley Manor) to finish the trip.

Memorable Moments

We spent a LOT of time leading up to the wedding writing a personal card to each guest, which was waiting for them on their seat before the ceremony started. We wanted to tell each and every person how much they meant to us and how glad we were to have them there, and it did mean everyone was pretty emotional before anything had even started yet.

Lauren’s bridesmaid Amy lives in New Zealand and was unable to travel due to the pandemic. She was able to be a virtual bridesmaid and was carried down the aisle on an iPad. “She” was passed around all day, socialised with everyone, and even gave a pre-recorded, beautifully edited video speech, and it was like she was there.

We also live-streamed our ceremony to about 50 guests who couldn’t attend in person due to number restrictions and were able to spend some time after the ceremony speaking to them all on zoom.

Sean was surprised on the morning of the wedding by several of his colleagues who had shown up to staff the bar/cater, which was amazing, and they were such a special part of the day.

Advice For Other Couples

Focus on what you genuinely want from what will be (the cliches are true) one of, if not the most wonderful day of your life. Don’t feel you have to spend time and money on details you can’t be bothered with, as there is very little you actually “have” to do!

Lauren and Sean thank you SO much for sharing your fantastically fun budget-friendly wedding. It’s been a real treat.