....in thinking the cost of weddings is becoming beyond todays young people

[concernedrose]

DS is planning on getting married next year. He and fiance both have good jobs but are paying off student loans, and pay £850 a month in rent for a tiny one bedroomed flat. They also are trying to save for a mortgage. So imagine their (and our) horror at the price of weddings. It seems that to be able to do everything for under £10,000 is virtually impossible in the area we live in. And they have accepted they wont be able to have a honeymoon immediatly after the wedding. This seems a vast sum of money to me, but even calling in favours from friends and relatives, (ie cake making, invitation making, flower arranging) it looks like this is what it is going to cost. Oh well, anyone for beans on toast!!!

[ZooAnimals]

How much does a registry office cost? They probably already have clothes, add on a cake, invitation and some flowers and you're in under £1000 I reckon.

[Flossyfloof]

YABVU.

[LibraryMum8]

YANBU, but...that's what it's going to cost if you want the trimmings. That's what it cost us 13 years ago! And our reception was a day one, we did have a band, but it was in the afternoon, and we generally cut corners where we could. Like I said, this was 13 years ago with only some of the trimmings.

I love dh to death but if I had to do it over we would have eloped. We thought about it but my mum would have been crushed. I was an older first time bride (36) and she was so proud. I just couldn't have done it. But I think we would have announced that we were going to elope right from the beginning so there would be no backlash. Being Catholic didn't help either, had to have the thing in Church, etc. Knowing what I know now, we'd have a Christian Minister in our home and 'be done with it'.

[ApocalypseCheeseToastie]

The trick with weddings is not to tell venues etc it's a wedding

[TheBrideofMucky]

Yes, it's a lot of money. We bought a house first as it seemed like a bigger priority at the time. Of course it's possible to do it cheaply at a registry office but then I don't blame them for wanting to make a big day of it with all their family and friends either. It depends whether they are happy to wait a while and save or whether they just want to get it done quickly I suppose.

[MissyMooandherBeaverofSteel]

YABU, I had my wedding for much less than a grand. Registry office, then pub lunch for 30 people, a normal sponge cake with some fake flowers on it, dress for £80, kilt hire and we booked the lounge bar of our local pub which was free if there was over a certain amount spent at the bar, they gave us the number for the karaoke/dj they used and invites were designed at home and photocopied onto some nice card at a photocopy shop, also we put up a note at the local college for a photography student to do our pictures, she benefitted because we gave her a few quid and they were good for her portfolio and we got loads of lovely photos. It can be as cheap or as extravagent as they want.

[Birdsgottafly]

"there is a lot of wedding industry and tradition bullshit that convinces you that you 'need' to get posh invitations/an elaborate cake/expensive flowers/a £3000 dress or you're letting yourself down on your Big Day"

I don't agree that it is tradition, it is mostly the dogma preached from the "wedding industry".

I was married in 1990 and certainly it wasn't usual for people in my WC area to have what the equivalent income group wants today.

The cost only needs to be high if you need to have a large number of people to the wedding breakfast and not stick to evening invites only.

[deleted203]

YABU. Of course you don't need to spend anywhere near £10,000 on a wedding. You only need to spend that if you are insisting on having a great big white wedding day with all the trimmings. It's perfectly possible to have a church wedding without spending anywhere near that amount of money.

[MikeFlowersPops]

YABU
My wedding 4 years ago cost £3000

[ApocalypseCheeseToastie]

my brothers getting married in May at the bottom of Snowdon, on a campsite theyve hired. They will say their vows in a barn decorated with fairy lights and flowers done by friends. Bride will be wearing a dress from monsoon, her flowervgirls dress was £3 from a charity shop, my brothers boss suit is from a retail outlet wotsit. We're all chipping in with the catering.

The whole lot will come up to 3/4 k max including a hog roast and a celidh thingy, AND it's bring your own beer so theyre v popular......im looking forward to it although I did at the email I recieved with exciting news for 2013...... 'heated showers'

[concernedrose]

believe it or not, £10,000 is not "a great big white wedding with all the trimmings" It is going to be far from that. It is a hotel which is licensed for weddings, the registrar is £550 !, a wedding breakfast for 30, and an evening reception do for a further 50. The guest list could easily be bigger, but they are going to try and keep it at 80. As for big white dress, it wont be expensive, more like a few hundred, and the bridesmaids dress's will be much less. It is the venue and catering which is costs so much, intresting about not mentioning it is a wedding, never thought of that. We are making savings, by doing own cake/invites/phtography/flowers/borrowing friends posh car. We are not being sucked into to the "big wedding" trap, they are being realistic, but i can see how easily spending can get out of control

[ApocalypseCheeseToastie]

never ever mention it's a wedding, especially to the cake lady / man and venue / caterers.

It's just a party, no bugger has to tell them what sort of party !

[MidniteScribbler]

YABU. My wedding cost $1500 (about £1000). We had a cocktail party by a lake, served finger food. Still managed to provide food and drink for 80 people for that. Used our own music, did my own hair and makeup. If you want to do it cheaply you can and still have a fabulous time. If you absolutely must be a 'princess for a day' then you have to pay for it.

[concernedrose]

Toastie......i really love the idea of a celidh at the bottom of snowdon, it sounds fab!!

[BlatantRedhead]

DP and I talk about what we want for our wedding all the time, but if we got everything we wanted we'd never have the damn thing because it would cost so much! When we eventually tie the know I won't be spending some extravagant amount, it'll be as cheap and cheerful as we can make it. Cant even think of wasting £10,000 when we should be using to buy the house we'll raise our children in...

[ZooAnimals]

All those things are optional though. Lovely if that's what you want, but not necessary, not a case of 'oh no, how are we going to scrape £10,000 together'. It's a luxury. If you want it, have it, but don't moan about the cost.

Personally, I think spending £10,000 on one day is insane.

[BlatantRedhead]

*knot, ffs...

[nailak]

yabu, hire a community centre hall for fifty pounds an hour, decorate it yourself, or use hall above a restaurant so they can cater.

[Bogeyface]

Well for a start, get rid of either the meal or the buffet. If your budget wont stretch then he cant have it, end of!

For our wedding we priced it up and realised that having 70 guests for a late afternoon dinner worked out cheaper than 40 for dinner and the rest in the evening with a buffet. We got married at 4pm so we only had to feed everyone once. Or, have a more substantial carved buffet, again later on.

We also approached a hotel and they gave us a deal for the whole thing, so the meal with wine and sparkles for the toast, plus extra wine for the tables, cost under £1000. They gave us table cloths and napkins to co-ordinate with our colour scheme and let us use their table decorations. We used their PA system and did a play list on our ipod (with another as a back up!). We got married at the registry office for less than £100 and then had a poet friend of ours do (what we consider to be) the proper ceremony at the venue before the dinner.

The whole shebang including flowers, cake (just remember, they included a cake too), 4 BM dresses, suits, my dress etc came in at under £2000 and the people that know what it cost still can't quite believe that we did it on so little.

It can be done, you just have to adjust your expectations. Or throw a £10,000 party, its up to you.

[GTbaby]

Op I think u need to look at a different venue. No way do u have to spend that much on a guest list of 80!

I had a party for my son. 150 guests. Food n DJ. Paid for the bar tab. For 4k. We didn't have a cake. Spent very little on decoration. N have not included my outfit cost. But it is doable.

Doubt mind mentioning roughly where u live? As I'm sure there r other cheaper venues.

[Bogeyface]

We were invited to an evening do a few months later btw, and the invite said "There will not be food at the evening party, so please eat before you come!" no one took offence that I heard of, and we didnt miss it at all. Saved them a fortune though.

[Thumbwitch]

How close is the nearest registry office? It will cost them a lot less to marry there than to haul the registrar out to licensed premises. Save about £400 straight up.

With the hotel that we used for our wedding (5y ago, cost ~£5k) we were actually going to be charged a surcharge for having fewer than 50 people to the meal. I think it came in at £55 per head for the reception including wine on the table and this was our biggest outlay.

I don't quite see where your son and his fiancée are spending the money if they're DIYing so much? We DIYd cars, photographers, flowers, cake and pretty much anything we could get away with. Didn't have decoration flowers other than those which came as part of the venue package (Table dec included in price) so it was only my bouquet really, which I did myself, ditto the men's button holes (just my Dad and DH) and MIL's corsage.

Mostly YABU though - weddings don't have to put people into debt or cost the earth.

[Bogeyface]

www.castlehoteltamworth.co.uk/WeddingBrochure201213.pdf

This is where we got married. Had the ceremony in the Wedgewood room and the meal/dance in the Tudor room. We paid extra to have the ceremony room for an hour.