What was your wedding like?

[Firstty]

What did you have in mind when you first started planning it? How many people did you have? How many did you want? How much did it all cost? What venue and food did you have?

We are just starting to plan and our first count up of guests was almost 200!! Just trying to think about what is realistic.

Ours was a big, fancy thing in a castle in Shrewsbury. I think it cost £30,000 all in, lots of guests and a free bar.

However, we didn't get into any debt for it and if we'd needed to borrow, we'd have gone for a smaller, cheaper wedding rather than borrow.

I don't know 180 people I don't think. We just had immediate family to the ceremony and wedding breakfast, and friends to the evening for cake and bubbles. Having said that we did it on a Monday, after work, at a time we knew people would have eaten.

People who need/want a bigger wedding is up to them. I find weddings very stressful no matter the size because people always give their opinion, and it usually conflicts with yours 😂

Beautiful. No guests.
Just DH and I on a beautiful sunny day on the banks of Lake Windermere. It was exactly what we wanted.

I had a "proper" wedding dress and a brilliant photographer - then we had a champagne afternoon tea in the gardens overlooking the lake and then a 5 course dinner.

We stayed there for 5 days total. Bliss. I hate conventional weddings.

register Office, 8 guests (all immediate family) then lunch in a lovely hotel where DH & I stayed for the night after. Totally chilled, no stress affair and it was perfect.

We did start out planning the whole she-bang, church and big reception after. And then I freaked out about the thought of so many people looking at me. So we scrapped that plan and went for a quiet wedding. And I wouldn't change it for the world.

Ours was perfect. We had a register office wedding on a Sunday (they messed up the paperwork so opened up especially for us, nightmare at the time but turned out perfect) and we had about 10 guests. Took them all out for lunch at lovely riverside pub, then we drove off that afternoon for a week in the Lake District with our 6 month old DD. Was blisteringly hot and we sat for hours in the garden of our little wood cabin.

We then had a family/friends party at home 2 weeks later with a huge BBQ and around 70 guests. We hired a marquee that covered the entire lawn and I'd do it the same way all over again.

Like @FudgeBrownie2019 we had a wedding that cost the equivalent of £27k. But we wouldn't have gone into debt for it. That bought us catering for 180 guests, church wedding, and then a big party in Richmond Park (a posh part of London) until midnight. Dress, cake, live band, the works. Followed by 2 weeks touring India with a driver, luxury hotels etc.

Thing is, we've been through tough times financially since then, when we were scraping for £50 to buy food. But do we regret it? No - money comes and goes. We're back now, we're comfortable, we've gone through the tough times together, and I'm SO glad we did that wedding 'properly'. By which I mean, we got the wedding that we wanted. And that's all that matters - what's important to you.

Don't worry too much about the future, that's my advice. If you live in the future, you're full of anxiety. If you live in the past, you'll always find regret. Just do what you want - now - and deal with the rest as it comes. You've got your whole lives ahead of you.

We had the wedding we wanted, lovely barn with lots of open space.

100 daytime guests and an extra 30-40 in the evening.

We spent a lot of money on our wedding, but we were happy to do that, as we were only going to do it once and wanted to make it special and something we both enjoyed and knew people would enjoy. We made sure to provide lots of food through out the day as it was a long day. We had canapes, 3 course sit down wedding breakfast and in the evening had pizza buffet and put a bit of money behind the bar for drinks.

I have no regrets whatsoever on what we spent

I'm getting married in April.
We are having us two, two witnesses and a photographer (old friend)

We just wanted a tiny wedding that was about us and not having to worry about guests/money/transport and all that stuff.

I can't wait.

@Firstty for that many guests, £20,000 doesn’t sound that bad actually.

I did what was expected of me, biggish church wedding, reception at local hotel and evening disco. I wish I’d had the church with minimal guests followed by a meal at a nice restaurant with close friends and family.

We married mid week and had a small, intimate wedding at a beautiful country house hotel. My dress was very plain, cream raw silk with corset bodice and ball gown skirt. I wore a crystal tiara and carried a tiny posy of roses. DH wore black frock coat, grey stripped trousers, gold silk waistcoat and cravat. BMs wore plain cream silk shift dresses and gold Jimmy Choos. No wedding flowers just lots of rose petals and candles on each table. Traditional four course wedding breakfast with champagne and a 3 tier, but very understated wedding cake. Evening reception for 100 extra guests with disco and hog roast. Halfway through the evening DH and I escaped into the gardens for sometime alone and wandered about in the moonlight and snogged. It was a perfect day. Honeymoon was 2 weeks in the Caribbean.

I can't remember exactly how much it cost but it was roughly about 25,000?

Smallish. Same 50 people there day and night. No cousins that we never see, no workmates, no bridesmaids, no first dance. No thousands and thousands spent on buffets and DJ's, just a few thousand wining and dining our closest family and friends with quality food and drink. And a large diamond engagement ring and honeymoon in the Maldives with the savings. Not one regret.

100 guests in a registry office that had been a school so held in the ex school chapel. Reception in the village hall in the middle of nowhere so surrounded by trees. Nothing super fancy but lovely day, set up a table with crafts for our six younger guests ages 2 till 7. I had a one off dress from a small bridal shop and an original 1930’s Crystal tiara. A friend made the bridesmaids dresses as a gift, one of my friends is a professional photographer, used a friends jag as the wedding car. Honeymooned in Kenya, stayed at treetops and went on safari and then beach in Mombasa.

However the venues I've looked at so far are around £80 per head just for food- and that's the cheap option

Large village hall?

We got married in a church and then HUGE party in a village hall for 130 guests (plus 20 on the evening) for less than £10k

Church - £500
Hall - £300
Food (afternoon tea) - £14ph
Food (evening bbq) £15ph
Hired help (paid by hour) for food - £500
Wine/Champagne - £500
Dress - £100
Bridesmaids x4 - £250
Groomsmen hires suits - £1k**
Flowers - £200
Linen hire - £400
Fridge hire - £500
Chair hire - £450
Thank you gifts - £250*

**unplanned spend given that i had brought my dress from a charity shop. DH went to look at suits despite me saying it’s fairly informal so go with nice jeans and a shirt type look (Pinterest has a lot to answer for) and he comes back saying he’d ordered suits). It’s the only regret of the wedding for me. Hired, so nothing to show for it and the lads took their jackets off after the ceremony, some even got changed, as they felt too restricted.

*i had a lot of physical help from family and friends leading up to the day. You hire a venue with no staff which is plain and boring looking, you need to make it look nice. I’m not creative but I leaned on people that were.

Ours was lovely, just had immediate family for registry office and then around 60 guests for reception in local pub and we managed to keep the budget to what we could afford

Oh and ours including everything only cost £1800

We married in the days when you only had 2 choices of venue (local church or local registry office). We had 120 guests for the day rising to 180 in the evening (work mates and wider circle of ours and our family's friends).
We had a couple of freebies - a relative played the bagpipes and a friend used one of his car hire company's posher cars in place of "wedding cars". Friends of DH made and iced the wedding cake as their gift.

We had a barn in East Sussex, about 80 guests, ceilidh in the evening, fairly rustic theme, cost about £16,000 in total. Perfect, perfect day.

I would have equally loved getting married in the woods or having our reception on a steam train but I couldn't have all the ideas I wanted!

We wanted a very small wedding that effectively shunned all the pomp and ceremony. We kind of got that but our venue and registrar really pushed for the all the fuss. They meant well but did not understand in the slightest that we didn’t want the day to be about us and to be more about the joining of two families. I spent most of the day grimacing and honestly, if I had to do it again I just wouldn't.

We had about 35 people, post ceremony drinks, three course meal, very generous evening buffet, DJ and outside entertainment for around £5k. That included the £1500 we put behind the bar thinking that as it was a 5pm wedding it would last the night, but despite the bar being very reasonably priced it ran out by 11pm.

Everyone who attended seemed to enjoy it and ultimately we got married without any hiccups and for not too much money so alls well and all that

137 people.
Cathedral service - 25 mins.
Buses to country house hotel.
No evening guests.
3 course dinner, lots of booze.
Ceilidh band.
Kilts, hats, drinking into the wee hours. Bagpipes.

It was wonderful. My mum organised most of it. She got the day she wanted and everyone has a fabulous weekend.

I loved every minute of it. cant believe it was so long ago and that so many people who were present have passed away