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.

£1.5k, last May. A very small affair, just 15 people in total, that included the pub meal and some hotel rooms for our guests. No honeymoon, we had planned to have that this year but instead I held DH's funeral which cost more than our wedding did. Kinda ironic really.

We had a tiny registry office wedding.
Only 6 guests.

Off the peg dress for me & designer suit in the sale for DH.
Bouquet & corsage.
Taxis to ferry us around.
Very nice, high end restaurant meal & champagne & wine for all afterwards.

Cost approx £2.5k

Excluding £2k on wedding rings.

We spent 3.5k booking our honeymoon & probably another £1k while we were on it.

I got married this year, we had 20 guests and it cost around £3k. This was reg office, a sit down meal somewhere nice, then a tea party in our garden. Meal and drinks came to £1k, then a £300 dress, £500 hotel room for the night, £500 for the reg office and other fees, the rest on sundries like hair and makeup, a cake, nibbles and drinks at home, shoes, his suit, a few other bits and pieces like bunting.

I skimped on things that would have made it more, such as decorating the table (not at all - I regret it!), not inviting any friends - family only. No honeymoon, no car (dad drove) and fil is a wedding photographer- so free 😋

€26-28k, 170 guests (21 of which were children), fairly typical Irish wedding. That doesn't include the cost of the honeymoon to Japan and Bali. It wiped us out financially at the time but we recovered and I don't regret it at all.

120 guests and spent about £20k which was cheap for what we did at the time. In Ireland at the time a photographer, videographer and a band would have been £4k at least, we had none. Did homemade cakes and did my flowers myself. Family drove us. But did spend another £10k on honeymoon.

Don’t’ really regret it. We could afford it and we have friends all over the world as well as big families so it was hard to keep numbers any tighter than that. The meal alone would usually be £120/pp but we halved that by having a bbq buffet. The rest of the cost was dress, accommodation, bridesmaid stuff, invites, DJ etc. Dunno how people do it for so little unless they have hardly any guests. Which is fine too!

The cost of the service, plus a cheap frock, small bouquet, shop bought cake, and pub meal for us and eight guests. I've been a bridesmaid many times and never fancied all that for myself.

Oh dear I forgot the rings. So add on another £500. I bet I forgot something else, too. It adds up when you're spending on bits over a few months.

We got married at 11.30am because it was cheaper than 12.30.

We got married on a Wednesday because it was cheaper than any other day.

We also chose Wednesday so that the 20 people we invited would have to take a day of work so we knew they weren't just coming for a free day out.

My dress was from the sale rail in Monsoon, he wore his 'hatches, matches & despatches' suit with a new shirt & tie (construction worker so no need for lots of suits!)

Our friend made the wedding cakes ( 2 chocolate, 1 lemon) for the cost of the ingredients.

My brother took the photos.

Our rings came from the sale at H Samuels.

Chicken & chips all round at the pub after with a slice of wedding cake for dessert

We paid the bar bill.

Home and in my dressing gown by 3pm

It was £800 all in for the same legal certificate others have spent thousands on!

We did it for the marriage and not the wedding!

About £1200 17 years ago. That includes our outfits, transport and venue.

Oh yes, my mum also made the cake! And we got a great photographer just before he got really successful, he now charges about 5 times what we paid!

I think it was £1500ish about 8 years ago

Had 25 people at lovely church service then hired a beautiful room/bar upstairs at a local restaurant and they did a lovely buffet and drinks. No evening do.

Got my dress and flower girl dresses from BHS, borrowed jewellery, friend is a mobile hairdresser so did hair, family member had a good camera so did photos. Wedding cake from M&S. Cheap rings. The main expense was the church service and food really.

Very low key and relaxed but I wouldn’t have been able to cope with a bigger wedding due to poor planning skills and anxiety!

Around 30k (180 guests, very expensive but beautiful venue, free bar, canapés, 3 course meal etc)

Thankfully my parents wanted to pay for it and my in laws covered the bar costs, so nothing was out of pocket for us. It did also mean we could spend 4K of the 9k in cash presents on our honeymoon.

I think wedding prices has gone up post-covid? A friend is getting married and getting quotes and some venues are 18k for hire and food for average size wedding. I couldn’t believe it.

Less than £400 for the day. Register office mid week, us and our mums. I wore a dress from next, and had shoes from the sales which were a bargain £13. Husband only bought new trousers for his outfit, but they were from next too, he had everything else already. No flowers or cake or anything, nice lunch after for the 4 of us.

I got a ring which was £600, he didn’t want one 🤷🏻‍♀️

About 3000 36 years ago. My dps paid 2000 and we got about 2000 in wedding gifts..cash plus lots of bits for our home. 120 guests. Went on our honeymoon a bit later so had time to save again. Really couldn't have had less people as have big families.
Not to be mercenary but nobody here mentioning the wedding gifts of cash which, especially here in lreland, would alleviate the costs!!!

Ours was £5K, similar to your plan but 25 yrs ago.

Including honeymoon about 18/20k. Most of it was paid for by our parents. We only had 35 guests

Just under 4 K. My dress was only £300. Reception for 80 guests with wine about 2k . It's the flowers,bridesmaids,hair ,make up and favours etc that boost the cost.

About £15k excluding honeymoon. Fourteen years ago (today). We had 35 guests during the day and maybe 100 more in the evening. Open bar all day/night. Was very much scaled down from our original plan which was getting larger and madder and would have topped £40k, which I wasn’t prepared to spend on a day for my mother to show off.

£1500,4 years ago,got married on a Thursday,registry office wedding that is a lovely grade 2 listed building,we hired a a little room in a country pub with immediate family only,dress from asos,beautiful day.

We also chose Wednesday so that the 20 people we invited would have to take a day of work so we knew they weren't just coming for a free day out.

Attending a wedding is far from a free day out in fairness, don't really think there's a need to test your guests!

11k 5 years ago. 50 guests, string trio playing, four course meal and several bottles of wine per table, champagne reception with canapés, evening buffet with a live singer, all day photographer, six bridesmaids, 1k wedding gown and veil, a hotel suite for the night before and night of the wedding- and a honeymoon! It was incredibly good value because we got married out of season. Their weddings are usually around 22k in the summer!

12k 10 years ago. Sit down for 90 and then 150 on the evening. Alcohol on tables but no open bar. DJ and evening buffet. Church wedding, Manor House reception. Photographer. One special car for us.

We had forty guests and it cost about three thousand pounds. I don’t know what the honeymoon cost.
Looking back, I think we actually should have had a few more guests but everyone enjoyed it.

I didn't receive any cash! I have a couple of john lewis gift cards with £25 on them to spend. Otherwise I had a nice mixing bowl, a grill pan, some tableware, a cake stand.. just things I wanted but never needed put on my list :)