Is a wedding day worth it?

We had a smallish wedding, the same 60 people day and night, no bridesmaids, nothing too extravagant.

That's sad, We had more than double that number and, apart from the people that have passed on, have probably seen over 90% of our guests in the last 12 months. We both have big families and haven't changed jobs since.

My husband is the envy of his friends as I was quite happy with a wedding abroad for just the two of us. Got married in Florida at the Waldorf using a local wedding company out there. Saved a fortune and loved every minute of our time there. My husband's friends have had to pay for expensive UK based weddings which they haven't enjoyed. We had a small house party when we got back and my despair for drinks and a Chinese takeaways for everyone which we loved. So relaxed and we put the money we saved towards paying off our mortgage.

We had a smallish wedding, the same 60 people day and night, no bridesmaids, nothing too extravagant. Almost twenty years on and even though some of those family members are no longer with us and photos are a great reminder, I still wish we'd gone even smaller. It was a lovely day, but I can count on only both hands the number of those guests I've seen in the last 12 months.

Only spend as much money as you think is worth it?
What is important to you?
We had 60 people for lunch at a restaurant, friends and family, married at our house, no bridesmaids but we had flowers. I wore a beautiful designer dress I got for $500 AU, found a cheap photographer. All up it cost 7 grand including the honeymoon, 25 years ago. I stressed about how expensive the shoes were 😊
We wanted it to be low stress and we didn’t want to go into debt. So did the things we thought were important. It was a beautiful day and I still remember how lovely it was.

I loved mine from start to finish. It wasn’t overly lavish in my opinion. About 80 guests. The main thing that I was overwhelmed at other than the obvious marriage bit was turning round after the vows and that were done thinking wow everyone we love most is in one room together for us. That’s pretty special. It’s not going to happen again. That moment has stuck with me. I also had a complete ball and didn’t go to bed until 4am. It genuinely was brilliant. I would do it again in a heartbeat

I never really thought of marriage until it was actually looking like a possibility, but the money situation is a bit different as we're both Jewish so kind of grew up with the expectation of our parents paying the bulk of it and it honestly wasn't until I joined forums discussing it that I realised that's not the case for most people!

We did pay for some of it, but parents covered most. It felt totally worth it. Had it been us paying we would have done something a bit smaller and simpler, I think it's all about what you value. We both valued the presence of friends and of our parents' friends, so we were happy to have a biggish wedding (not that big by Jewish standards!) , and catering for that was the main cost .

We spent £2k all in to elope to Vegas, were there 5 days so it was the honeymoon too. Married 13 years with no sign of the marriage ending and so happy we didn't over extend ourselves and spend a fortune on a day.

A last minutes cancellation at the registry office meant I was married on 4 days notice. Party at a local cafe for everyone I knew at the time, 15 bottles of Moët from the local PX, chose clothes from my wardrobe on the morning of my wedding day, dinner in the evening with about 8 friends. My husband booked a hotel room for that night and it had running water at 11pm (we lived abroad somewhere fairly rough so that was very exciting). Honeymoon weekend on the coast. Probably cost c. £500 max, including rings and cake, at least half of which was the Moet. Our families toasted us from their homes, they couldn't have come because of where we were.
I smiled all day, there was no stress and it was all so much fun. Still married 21 years later. If we had got married in England I don't know that we would have survived the conflicting wedding demands of our respective mothers!

I don’t regret the money we spent on our wedding. We were at the dual income no kids life stage. We could afford a splurge. We did not go into debt or even allow a budget that would have seriously strained our finances. So a splurge, but nothing insane relatively to our incomes.

I’d never do it now. Every penny goes towards being parents, but before that happens, it’s nice to have a little fun.

I’ve been to mega bucks weddings as a guest and really enjoyed them, especially as I knew the B&G could afford it. One all bells and whistles one must have cost £40k...she was going to have the second wedding her first wedding really hadn’t been. Beautiful house, free bar, musicians, cheese table,pudding table, 8 bridesmaids.....it was fab,

Ours was about 5k. And about as much fuss as I wanted, we spent money on food...

We are looking at a really low key wedding. I have never really wanted to get married but now I just really do however we really don't have any spare cash at all and I can't see how to do it the way we want cheap enough .

How people spend a load is beyond me for a day but each to their own eh!

Huge waste of money. I’d rather put it towards a home instead. We have already told our children we won’t be paying for weddings, if they want to waste money they can waste their own.

I don’t buy all the hype of the perfect day though and hadn’t been dreaming about it since being a little girl. A marriage is so very much more than the set dressing on the day.

We had a tiny wedding and paid for it all ourselves. I know friends who have taken a loan out for a wedding and that's bonkers, imagine it must be depressing to start married life with a huge debt.

I don't thik huge expensive weddings are worth it. All that money for one day when it could be useful later in life.

Big white weddings are a con. Gives too many men the excuse to put off getting married and too many women and children ending up with no legal protection.
DH and I got married 19 years ago, in a shed, in the woods and had a pub reception. Nothing fancy and it was all done for less than 2K.
We spent more on our honeymoon, a month in the Canadian Rockies :-)

I loved my wedding day and both me and my DH have said we would happily do it all over again if we had the chance.
All in, it cost just under £10k and that included my dress, 2 tailored suits, venue hire, catering for 50 people and a honeymoon in New York in the run up to Christmas.
I did a lot myself, was very careful with my money to make it go further like making my own invites, party favours, seating chart etc and everyone said what a wonderful day it was.

We got married when we were on holiday with our 2 oldest children in USA. Nobody else was there.
I don't regret it for a minute. It's been 20 years and not once have I wished that I had a big day in UK.

2 of my daughters have decided they want a small ceremony and have no desire to plan a huge wedding.

I think it depends - mine was everything I swore I’d never have!

I always maintained I’d go quiet and low key but after DH’s parents passed away suddenly and within 6 months of each other he wanted all his family there.

So last year we had it in a hotel which also happens to be his favourite restaurant, even though I’m a complete tom boy I had a full length ball gown with a cathedral length train and even though we are child free we invited all the kids - we even had a Disney princess come for them - it was incredible.

Total cost - £13,377.25 and worth every penny. I mean don’t get me wrong there were things I’d not do now or didn’t work as well in practice but nothing drastic.

Our one regret was that his parents weren’t there - I wish we’d done it years earlier.

No it's not worth debt or going without things you need but it's possible to have a great wedding without spending a fortune. There's easy savings and compromises that mean you can still have a memorable day

We spent £10k. Worth every penny. Best day of our lives.

I had a medium sized wedding 24 years ago and that was perfect. The wedding and honeymoon cost £5500. It was a nice registry office with a hotel meal for 40 and then 30 more in the evening for a buffet and disco. I didn’t have a hen do or any bridesmaids.

What @MarmiteOrGoHome said
Like most girls I’ve been imagining what my wedding would be like since I was little but now I’m older I’m wondering if it’s worth all the money?

Can we please please stop spreading this myth? Unless someone has some adequate research to back it up?

I imagined lots of things for my future, cool job, superpowers, children... not a single image of my wedding.
I got married for less that £300 all in.

Some people might really want to celebrate with a big wedding, great if that makes them happy.

Nope. Still married 19 yes later but I wanted a small wedding, religious DH wanted the big day. He would probably say it was worth it. I feel we would still be where we are now if it had cost £10 or £10,000

It’s not a given that girls/young women dream of a wedding day!

Not worth it IME. Massive waste of money, even more so now that housing costs are so high relative to earnings.

DH and my DM both wanted a big wedding, I still wish I’d stood my ground.

Challenges for us was that DH despised a parent’s partner (for good reasons) and didn’t want a small group as it would piss him and other family members off to have that person there. He would probably have done just the two of us abroad, but that would have upset my DM, who - and her family - had strong ideas that all extended family being there was a must.

£10k for us and yes, worth it.

But we already had a lovely flat and no dependents.

We’d budgeted £6k as we could afford that ourselves without any debt etc.

Two family members gave us a completely unexpected contribution of £5k total so we upgraded the reception to served food rather than buffet and paid for all booze.

It was worth it 100% but wouldn’t be worth going into debt for in my opinion.