How much did your wedding really cost?

[Blondbombsite]

I’m curious because on here it often seems that if you spent more than £500, you’re looked down on for being stupid and vain but simultaneously your guests are all there under duress so can’t have any inconvenience or expense to attend. Obviously these two things are at odds, so I wondered what the true experience was for most people.

We’re getting married soon and although I don’t know the final costs yet I estimate it will be around 12k in total. That’s for 30 guests, a sit down meal (including canapés first, beef dinner, desert table and cheese table), welcome drinks/ wine with meal and an open bar all night. The biggest expense is food and drink apart and accommodation as we’re paying for all of the bridal party to stay at the venue the night of the wedding and breakfast together the day after.

Enough to make me cringe and wish we'd done something different with the money!

3k but that was 25 years ago so probably equivalent to about 8k now. That did include a2 week honeymoon in Africa bought on teletext.

£5k for everything from dress to reception but it was 14 years ago and for less than 50 people.

Including honeymoon which was expensive, maybe 10-12k?

I wouldn't do it again and I think had I been older when I got married I'd have made different choices.

About 10k including a UK honeymoon. For 35 guests (covid times!)

£3k with 15 guests at the ceremony and 150 guests at the reception.

Including honeymoon, about £10k, 10 years ago. Biggest spend was catering and table hire, but minimal venue costs, wedding dress was £80! It's the little things that add up. Mum did the flowers, I did invites and orders of service etc. very much a DIY wedding bar the food.

No more than £16k for absolutely everything, for just over 80 people.

I loved it. It was very special and I don't regret it at all. But I appreciate we are/were very lucky to have parental contributions both for the wedding and at other times.

That was for about 60 guests plus extra in the evening and evening buffet by the caterers.

£6.5k. DM gave us £6k, and we spent it all. FiL put £500 behind the bar, and gave us the change for fuel to drive to our honeymoon camping trip in Scotland. DH's work lent us a tent.

About £20k excluding honeymoon. We did have a big wedding (over 150 people) with a champagne and canapé reception, 3 course sit down meal, extensive evening buffet, band plus DJ and a free bar throughout though.

We spent about 3k on the wedding but it was just a tiny one in Gretna green!
The honeymoon to the Maldives however was £6k 😬

My advice to anyone wanting a flash day, unless you have rich parents paying for the lot, don't do it, have a smaller one you won't regret it!

I'm embarrassed to admit we spent £15k 15 years ago.
It was a lot of money on 120 people. I didn't want as many as that was struggling to draw the line and had ILs pushing for more people. I wish we'd cut the numbers to 80.

I wouldn't spend that again on one day.

My divorce cost 7x what the wedding did. 🤦‍♀️

14k for 70 all day guests

I don’t honestly know as we didn’t pay for it, our parents did; mine mostly. I think it was between £15 -£20k, nearly twenty years ago. Was quite a big do.

Married 10 days ago.
Wedding was £600 ish all in (venue, dress, suit, flowers etc)
Honeymoon was £2.5k - did a luxurious long spa weekend in the UK, and will plan another for next year when we're more sure of dates etc that'll likely be twice the cost.

About £500 directly by us but we had a tiny wedding, only 10 guests, so my dad paid for a meal for us all at a nice restaurant and my mum paid for a little party after the ceremony with cake, nibbles and champagne. My dress was a sequin dress from Next. It was lovely

2.5k including honeymoon. 75 guests (hog roast in a barn) and a ceilidh. Honeymoon was youth hostelling round Scotland.

I checked on the inflation calculator and in today's money it would be £2,200. Luckily we did not spend it all ourselves.

Oh and we took the money earmarked from parents for a wedding and used it for an extension instead! I love my utility room more than my husband so it was a good deal

Maybe around £5-6k. We went abroad just the two of us, first class flights, hotel, excellent food, theatre, etc. Worth every penny for us!!

20k I loved it, it was an amazing day but I’m now aghast we did spend that much! Funded by parents who desperately wanted a big showy affair after not having one for themselves!

£1500 22 years ago. Divorced and considering whether I can even be bothered to actually marry dp - would be a church wedding which is the cheap bit

£10k not including honeymoon. We had 100 people (no separate evening guests) so about £6k was the cost for feeding them all and the reception etc. The rest we did as cheaply as possible..... my dress was £150 off the rail from Debenhams but it still all added up. In hindsight we should have been much stricter with numbers but at the time we wanted everyone there.

Then about £3k all in on the honeymoon.