Real Wedding Stories: Cynical Single to Engagement Party Pro
If I’m being completely honest, I never dreamed of getting married.
I was never the little girl who planned every detail of her big day or who walked around with a pillowcase on their head. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I had very serious conversations with ex-boyfriends where I told them, “You have to be ok with me never wanting to get married. It’s just who I am”. I thought weddings were a waste of money, a loss of independence, and, quite frankly, a loss of identity.
But, that didn’t deter the all-knowing, ever present nay-sayers in my life. They loved telling me how it would all change when I met ‘the one’, that I’d soon see the error of my ways, and that ‘they were just like me at my age’.
Naturally I knew better. I knew I would never change my mind, and that I would happily live my life as Miss Independent and never be defeated by a bad man or an American stick insect. I was happy being Miss Jones forever.
Then I met Tom, and he was everything you read about in books. He’s kind, sweet, clever, funny, and undoubtedly the very best half of me. I can’t imagine my life without Tom in it, so when he asked me to marry him in the same place we had our first date, there was only one answer.
Wedding planning has been a dream I never want to wake up from. I keep telling friends I don’t want it to end, in spite of the end being our actual wedding day! I’m truly trying to make the most of this time, soaking up every aspect, and letting my “too much” gene run riot.
This brings us happily to how I planned our engagement party. It was surprisingly easier than I thought, and probably took around two months of intermittent planning around my busy full-time job as an HR professional and part-time job as a rabbit parent. Let’s jump into the steps I took, all my considerations, and, of course, the cost!
Step 1: The venue
Location: Our house
Cost: Free
I wanted to keep our engagement party as budget-friendly as possible, considering we now have a wedding to pay for! I reached out to a few locations who were asking upwards for £2,000 just to rent their venue, not inclusive of food or drinks. This didn’t feel reasonable or feasible to us for what was meant to be quite an informal affair.
Luckily, we (and that’s a royal we, to clarify, because I didn’t do anything) have just finished renovating our first home. We have a lovely open plan kitchen/dining room with big bright windows which lead out onto our patio. It’s the perfect spot for hosting, and we were so excited to be able to show off our new house to our family and friends. Plus, it’s free (if we forget about the mortgage!).
Step 2: The decor
We used: Ginger Ray Party Supplies
Cost: Around £120
I wanted a pinky, rose-goldy, girly theme for the engagement party (sorry Tom!). I explored a few different options for party supplies, but I liked the style of Ginger Ray’s products and appreciated that their website was sorted according to party type, theme, and colour scheme. This made it easy to navigate all the rose-gold and pink options, and helped me envision what the big day would look like.
I opted for 2x pink balloon arch kits (on sale for £10 each), an ‘Engaged’ balloon banner, a pre-inflated pack of helium balloons in the shape of champagne bottles and stars, “Mr & Mrs” Confetti and a variety of paper cups, plates, and napkins. Overall it came to £120, which I split with my partner.
Considering I have no experience, I’m pretty pleased with how things turned out. I built the balloon arch myself, using glue dots to stick the balloons to the wall. The ‘Engaged’ balloon banner was easy to work with, and I was able to scatter the confetti around haphazardly. I built the balloon arch the night before and it still looked perfect the next day.
Step 3: The food
We booked: Millie’s Grazing
Cost: £20 per head
Guests should always leave a party well-fed and well-watered, so I was passionate that I wanted good food and lots of it. We worked with Millie’s Grazing, a grazing table company covering the North West and North Wales. Jas (not Millie!) was a pleasure to work with, setting up over the course of 1.5-2 hours and chatting with me and Tom the whole time. Jas and I chatted in the weeks leading up to the party about dietary requirements, preferences, and what kind of space she would need for the most effective display.
We set up the table in the main party room so guests could see it as soon as they walked in. We catered for 40 people with a guest list of around 50, and there was plenty of food for everybody. Many even went back for a second plate! Everyone commented on how delicious the food was, and the display was an absolute show-stopper. I can’t recommend Jas enough. In fact, we liked her so much that we’re using her for the evening buffet of our wedding!
Side note: As much as we loved it, this was undoubtedly the biggest expense of our engagement party. If you aren’t planning to have a caterer, your engagement party will be much more reasonably priced.
Step 4: The sweets
We had: Single tiered cake and iced biscuits
Cost: Around £50
It’s difficult for me to say exactly how much this section costs, as I made the cake and iced the biscuits myself. As an avid baker, I had a lot of the ingredients and equipment already, meaning the upfront cost of these treats was relatively low. However, I estimate it would cost around £50 to buy all the equipment and ingredients needed from new.
I’m not willing to pay for anything I can do myself, so when I was quoted £80 for a cake and £160 for 80 iced biscuits, I thought to myself, “Not a chance”. I baked the cake myself on a Thursday, did a crumb coat on the Friday, and iced the cake Saturday morning before the guests arrived. It was a 3-layered victoria sponge, sandwiched with strawberry jam and covered in Betty Crocker’s vanilla buttercream. I reserved a tub of buttercream to mix with pink food colouring, and piped small rosettes along the outside edge of the cake and where the cake meets the silver cake board. I also iced our names on top, and stored it in the fridge until it was ready to serve. I don’t have a photo of the cake because it was quickly devoured before I got the chance to take it!
The biscuits were a hack I saw from TikTok. I bought 60 M&S butter biscuits and searched ‘M&S personalised Icing Cutter’ on Etsy. I was able to buy a personalised icing cutter with our initials and the date we got engaged on for around £8. I paid a little extra for fast shipping. Once it arrived, I cut out little discs of fondant icing, stamped them with the Etsy stamp, and attached them to the biscuits with a thin layer of strawberry jam. I dusted them with some edible gold lustre I purchased on Amazon, and voilà! Everyone commented on how professional they looked, and I think I may now have an accidental side-hustle as a biscuit maker for my friend’s events!
Step 5: The drinks
We had: Prosecco, beer, and soft drinks
Cost: Around £120
You can’t go wrong with prosecco, beer, and soft drinks. It really does offer something for everyone and keeps things simple. I sent Tom on a mission to Aldi the morning of the party to buy 10 bottles of prosecco, some boxes of bottled beer, and fizzy drinks like Fanta & Coke (or whatever the Aldi equivalent is). I’d estimate we paid around £120 for all the drinks, and they were nice to have, but a lot of guests (especially the younger ones) weren’t expecting to be given free drinks. I’d say 80% of guests showed up with what they intended to drink, so if you’re on a budget, you can probably skip this step.
Step 6: The fit
Tom wore: White t-shirt, open button-up shirt, shorts, and white trainers
Cost: Nothing, as they were already in his wardrobe
Medi wore: Vinted Meshki dress, white bow heels, pearl headband
Cost: £60 for the dress, £12.99 for the headband, shoes were a gift
Now we move on to the all-important outfit! I cannot recommend Vinted enough as a means for finding second-hand wedding gear. Looking at Meshki’s website, my dress should have been £120 new, but I was able to snag it for just under £60 including postage. I bought my dress from a lovely lady who wore it in the evening of her wedding and no longer had a need for it. I also plan to wear this dress on the evening of my wedding, and then I might sell it on again à la Sisterhood of The Travelling Meshki Dress.
The shoes were a (very generous) gift from my partner. They were my dream wedding shoes and I couldn’t be more grateful for them. I plan to wear them on my hen parties, the evening of our wedding, and any bridal activities that demand heels.
My hairband was a simple pearl headband I found on ASOS. I just googled ‘Pearl headband’ and scrolled until I found one I liked. I’ve worn it a few times since so it’s definitely a versatile piece.
Tom’s outfit was the definition of smart casual crossed with boujee garden party. He didn’t buy a new outfit for the party, so don’t feel like you need to!
Step 7: The invites
What we did: Texted people
Cost: Free!
Ok, ok. I know it’s not the most aesthetic, but it really was the quickest and easiest way to get the message across. We’d already created our wedding guest list (thanks to Bridebook’s handy wedding guest list tool!), so we already had an idea of who we’d invite to our engagement party. We simply let them know the date, time, rough dress code, and let them know how excited we were to celebrate with them.
Step 8: The music
What we did: Speaker & Spotify
Cost: Free!
Cheap and cheerful, we moved the speaker from our television into the party room and connected our phone via Bluetooth. We played a generic ‘Summer Songs’ playlist to get the party started, and as the night progressed, we switched to a mix of dance songs and 90s bangers. The best part was that everyone could add their favourite songs to the queue, making it a more fun and personalised experience.
And there you have it! That was our engagement party. We spent around £1,000 to bring it all together, but you could reduce the cost massively by making your own food or choosing more low-key decor. The key takeaway here is that it’s entirely possible to create a beautiful and memorable event on a budget, with a little bit of creativity and resourcefulness.
Now the engagement part is over, we’ve moved on to wedding planning. Wish us luck!
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Happy Planning!
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