A wedding on a low budget

[Translate to English:] Foto: Lars Kruse

Steffen and Britt are both on student grants, but they invited more than 150 guests to their reception and wedding party. And Britt managed to live her dream of wearing a proper wedding dress. They explain that the key to organising this kind of thing lies in the careful use of spreadsheets, army-style planning, and help from friends and family.

“We were used to organising big events for several hundred people in the party committee, so the wedding was actually a relatively small event. It’s only a simple question of mathematics. Four pallets of beer, 30 litres of gravy and so on,” says Steffen as if he did this kind of thing every day of his life.

Britt adds:

“The first thing we did was draw up a proper budget. And then we stopped going to the cinema, we didn’t give each other Christmas presents and birthday presents, we asked for money or support for the wedding instead of wedding presents, we had cheap holidays and so on. But we have still had some fun – we’ve been to plenty of parties as well.

Strict planning routines

Britt’s financial and mathematical background was also useful during the planning phase.

“We were pretty strict with our planning. All the expenses were entered in a spreadsheet which also showed who was responsible for what. We changed the colour to green once each job was done. That made it easy to keep an eye on the tasks that needed doing and the money available.”

They also kept a close eye on special bargains; and they bought the booze in Germany, where it’s cheaper.

Make the most of your network

Britt and Steffen also called on their large network of friends and family. Their parents gave them some financial support and helped with the catering.

“And I did the invitations myself with one of my friends,” says Britt.

“We’ve got a friend in the Aarhus Girls’ Choir, so we got them to sing at the ceremony. And one of our friends helped with the food,” adds Steffen.

Doing a lot of the work themselves and getting their family and friends to help meant that they could keep the cost of the wedding down.