£100 Budget Wedding Outfit Challenge
This week’s video gave us a chance to shop! We both have weddings to attend this summer and so we are on the hunt for outfits to wear. Laura laid down the challenge of getting a whole outfit for £100 or less. The rules were as follows:
- Total max. spend is £100
- Must include a dress (or alternative, aka two piece/jumpsuit), handbag and shoes
- No discount codes or sale items can be used to come in on budget – so that if you guys want to buy our look later on, then you too will be able to come in on budget.
I’m going to be honest, when I think ‘wedding outfit’, my first thoughts go to Ted Baker, then Reiss, then possibly All Saints…needless to say this would have blown my budget on dress alone. So my first headache was figuring out where I could go to get a formal look for less £££ – I can be a little opinionated about what guests should wear to a wedding. Yes, of course you should feel comfortable in yourself with what you are wearing and we’re not rolling in money, but I think it is respectful to the happy couple that you get dressed up for their event. Unless it’s a festival wedding, I’m not about to show up in a summer dress that I’d just wear any warm day to go to the park in, I’m going to make an effort! So with this added layer of self-inflicted complication I took to my laptop to shop online and picked out a range of things to try from Mango and Dorothy Perkins, sorted! Or so I thought…4 days go by, not even a dispatch notification…1 day until filming this video for you…panic! In the meantime, the lovely Laura has managed to calmly order and receive her purchases from both Oasis and ASOS – kudos to those companies!
The pressure is now on, with only a couple of hours left to shop, I head out the door in full on shopping mode! I like to shop, but I’m a browser who likes to pick things up as and when I notice them – we all know when you’re actually looking for something, you can never find quite the right thing!
I scoot around H&M, Outfit, New Look, River Island, Topshop….(you get the picture)…trying dresses on, buying as I go to make sure I have something on the theory that if I find something better I can take things back another day when I actually have time – filming in the nude is not an option after all! The clock is ticking, time feels like it is speeding up just to spite me, I make a dash to the last shop on my radar, knowing that I have to get shoes and a handbag too (barely even contemplating the possibility of accessories at this point even though I’m likely to have the budget margin), walk through the door and I set off the security alarms! Argh! The last place had left the tag on my dress – naturally the shop was at the furthest possible point within the complex from my current location…back I go! In my mind, as this point Laura is sat at home calmly painting her nails, sipping a glass of wine, contemplating her victory.
Good news! I found an outfit and even managed an accessory in the dying seconds…I am not naked in this video! Hurrah!
Hopefully if you too are shopping for a wedding outfit this season, you don’t find it this unexpectedly pressured! We hope you like what we found and if you’re interested in buying any of the items we’ve got links to them all below so you can shop the look. May my stress have relieved your stress!
Laura’s online shop totalled exactly £100 – skills! My (Rebecca’s) on foot shop ultimately came in at £72.99 (phew!). The question is, who did the best?! Which do you prefer / what would you wear? Let us know in the comments below or on the YouTube video so the winner can claim their bragging rights!
(My online purchases did make it shortly after filming and I have since tried them on…at some point we may upload my try-on sesh. of those dresses to see if you think I should change the outfit I ultimately wear to my friend’s wedding.)
Shop the look
Rebecca’s Outfit (pictured right in thumbnail):
Dress – New Look, AX Paris Silver Bardot Neck Midi Dress, £30.00
Necklace – New Look, Silver Angular Layered Necklace, £5.99
Shoes – Dorothy Perkins at Outfit, Black ‘Blaze’ Heeled Sandals, £25.00
Bag – Accessorize, Dolly Satin Envelope Clutch Bag, £12.00
Laura’s Outfit (pictured left in thumbnail):
Dress – Oasis, FITZWILLIAM FRILL DRESS, £60.00
Shoes – ASOS, ASOS SPEAKER Pointed Heels, £28.00
Bag – ASOS, ASOS Tassel Clutch Bag, £12.00
–Bride Society
