SOME couples start married life in a mountain of debt because they wanted the fanciest of celebrations which they couldn't actually afford. But that wasn't the case for Rachel and Tom Jolley who slashed the cost of their nuptials in half, using clever shortcuts and DIY hacks. They bought table decorations from car boot sales, wrangled free flowers from Aldi and refused to splash £1,500 on a professional cake, roping in family to bake it instead.
And Rachel, 33, had to even get her wedding dress washed before she wore it because it was straight off the hanger. Rachel, a journalism lecturer, says: "When we first got engaged, I think we fell into that trap of thinking, 'Oh, let's have this really extravagant wedding, once in a lifetime.' "We very much wanted a wedding with just the people that we loved, rather than sort of conforming to having to invite people for the sake of it.
"Once we started looking at venues and how much they cost, we were shocked to find out how much it cost to get married and there are so many little things like flowers which can cost thousands." Rachel and freelance photographer Tom, 38, who live in Northamptonshire, spent many nights in the pub brainstorming ways to cut their spending. According to Hitched , the average UK couple forks out approximately £20,700 on their wedding.
The couple had been together for six years before they tied the knot in August. "We still realised we [had] to spend a little bit of money, but people spend like £20,000 to .