I’m the world’s cheapest mum, I threw my daughter’s wedding for £500 and made her wear second-hand lingerie for 50p

A SELF-CONFESSED cheapskate has revealed how she threw her daughter’s wedding for just $700 (£500) with her extreme money-saving ways.

Shelley Watson, who appears in the new TLC series So Freakin Cheap, has been penny pinching for years.

And this isn’t her first time organising a wedding on a budget, having previously organised her daughter Ashley’s wedding for just $1,000 (£700) but this time she is determined to do even better.

Speaking on the show, she says: “I am beyond a bargain hunter.

“We did Ashley’s wedding for $1,000 and we want to beat that record.”

“I will find a bargain and then I will bargain for the bargain.”

Clips from the show see Shelley bargaining down the price of some second hand lingerie to just 50c (35p.)

Giving the old knickers a whiff, Ashley admits that they “kind of smell like old people.”

But that’s not the cheapest part of the wedding, with Shelley’s younger daughter Britney left horrified when her mum announces the venue.

She tells her: “We’re going to have your wedding right here in a chiropractor's office and it won’t cost us anything.”

Unsurprisingly, Britney is less than thrilled with the clinical setting for her nuptials.

“I am tired of not having an opinion of my own wedding,” she tells older sister Ashley.

“I don’t want Shane’s parents to come and see that this is how my family is.”

And if anyone can understand what she’s going through, it’s Ashley who endured her own budget nuptials a few years ago.

Shelley, who appeared on TLC’s Extreme Cheapskates, was determined to cut the cost of her eldest daughter's wedding to Colby Cosgrove.

Rather than splash out thousands on a grand country house Shelley took her daughter to the local school gym.

“The best part about it is it’s free because my friends work here, it’s the perfect place to get married” Shelley said.

However, not everyone was convinced.

Denise, Colby’s mother, said: “I thought it was a f***ing joke, nobody in their right mind is serious about having it in a gym. It’s ridiculous.”

“This is going to be the cheapest wedding ever,” Ashley agreed.

When it comes to flowers, Shelley came up with a budget solution, heading to a holiday warehouse

Shelley explains: “It’s a seasonal distribution company that would have flowers and those flowers are out of season right now so they would be cheaper.

“They could have Christmas flowers.”

The mum bagged an entire box of festive poinsettia for under $10 (£7) dollars, much to her delight.

When the mother and daughter visit a local bakery, Shelley was horrified to hear the sky high costs of a wedding cake.

Shelley said: “I think spending $400 (£285) on a wedding cake is ridiculous, that is wasted money. It costs $2 (£1.40) for a cake mix.”

But the thrifty mum soon came up with a solution.

She baked a cake to give out to guests and they simply borrowed a display cake from the bakery.

“I think the display cake was the better option for their wedding because it didn’t cost us anything, it was free”, she added.

While Ashley was dreaming of picking out her dream wedding dress at a boutique, her mum had other ideas, taking her to a pawn shop.

Ashley had the choice of three dresses, and miraculously she finds one, but sister Britney pointed out it was covered in rat urine.

But that was music to Shelley’s ears as she is able to shave off even more from the cost, bagging the dress at a bargain $75 (£53).

When the big day finally arrived Shelley’s friends were roped in as caterers, preparing burger cheese sandwiches and serving them on school trays.

Shelley added: “We actually have more people than we thought and they’re all bringing their BYOB and they’re also bringing their food and they seemed very happy to do it.”

Groom Colby, who got ready in the boys’ loos, said: “I’m not totally psyched about where and how we’re getting married, but I am excited to make that commitment to Ashley.”

As the organ music was played through a laptop, Ashley made her way down the aisle only to be met by Shelley at the end.

She said: “The biggest secret about this wedding that I have not told anybody yet is that I am an ordained minister and I am going to officiate this wedding.”

In a final money-saving move Shelley saved another $300 (£200) by officiating the wedding herself.

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