First time wedding planning, budget

[Foamybanana93]

Hello, me and my partner have been engaged 3 years, we started looking into wedding planning but put it off as wasn’t the right time and wanted to buy a house first, we have no decided to start planning again, we have a venue in mind but have no idea on how to set a budget, how much realistically it’s going to cost, so was wondering if people could give a rough idea on how much their wedding cost or how to set a budget !

Thank you 🥰

[MoHunter]

Congrats! Sounds similar to me and my fiancé, we got engaged 5 years ago lol. We bought a house first, then (unexpectedly) got pregnant, decided to get all (two) children “out of the way” first. Now planning our wedding for May 2019.

My personal opinion is - work out when you want to get married, how much money you can make/save between now and then, and that’s your budget. You then choose venue/dress/extras and number of guests within this budget.

Or if you’re set on a type of venue, visit a few and get an idea of their prices - if what you dream venue is way over your budget you can always delay your wedding date.

We’re only having a really small wedding (30ish adults) so my budget may not be helpful if you’re thinking of having 100+ guests obviously.

I expect our total spend will around the 7k mark but haven’t got everything booked yet so that’s an approximate only. Our venue is under 3k including food and some drinks.

Good luck!

[Nomad86]

£8k including honeymoon for 65 people.

Start by setting a realistic budget you can afford without getting into debt. Nothing will cause stress and resentment at the start of your marriage like a great big bank loan.

If you're on a tight budget, enlist family and friends who can help instead of getting you a wedding present. My uncle did the music for the reception, my brother in law has a posh car he drove us in. My grandma made the cake and had it professionally iced as her gift to us.

See what you can do yourself. I made my own favours, invitations and seating chart.

Prioritise what is important to you and spend more there. I didn't care about the invitations for example.

Go to an ordinary florist, not a specialist wedding one and give them a budget. Ask which flowers are cheapest at that time of year. For £300 I got a bouquet, plus three small ones for the bridesmaids, button holes and centrepieces.

Hire the suits. Buy high street dresses for the bridesmaids. Monsoon have a lovely bridal range. My bridesmaids already had matching shoes from my sister's wedding so wore those.

If you don't want to get your dress from the high street, ask the bridal shops if they ever have samples sales and when they're likely to be.

Oh and consider a Friday wedding, it's much cheaper.

There are loads of other ways to cut costs without compromising on quality, you just need to decide what's important to you.

[HoneyBee03]

We're in the swing of planning ours and our budget is £1.5k. We both had an idea of what we wanted including the ceremony and venue, so once we found out prices we got it booked in and it's made planning everything else much easier! We're having our ceremony at the registry office on the friday, followed by the reception at our local village hall on the Saturday.

Work out what's important to you and what you can do without. Photography and food are usually two of the biggest costs, but we've done away with the photographer and we're having a buffet to keep the spend down and avoid having to limit our massive guest list.

And I agree with PP about avoiding debt! Just do what you can afford. Some of the nicest weddings I've been to have been those on a low budget because everything was handmade or done by family and friends which gave the day a really personal touch.

[kindnessreins]

We decided a month ago to get married and christen our DD in feb of next year. It's cost us around £3k for a church wedding and a social club reception with 2 caterings, photo booth, bouncy castle, decor, dj etc etc

[kindnessreins]

@HoneyBee03 might I ask, did you manage to stick to your £1.5k budget??
We've spent £3k and that was doing everything as cheaply but nicely as possible

[Reccy2018]

Nomad86

£8k including honeymoon for 65 people

65 people went on your honeymoon?

[SheWoreBlueVelvet]

You doing it the wrong way round. Set your budget first then see what you can get for it.
You have a brilliant wedding on any budget. It's a how long is a piece of string scenario.Avoiding anything calling itself a wedding supplier is key.

Top tip is to limit numbers of both guests and wedding party. Every extra person adds to costs - not just the "£45 per head for a meal" but of invites,stamps, extra chairs,tables ,place settingsetc etc.