OMG. £110 pp quote for a wedding.

[romanceit]

What sort of madness is this?! Yes it is a hotel package but I've been to two or three weddings in this hotel and it's certainly not a particularly high end one.

Living in sin it is!

Then a hotel venue won't have great food. It's always a bit meh.

It's not a racket. I mean, it is, but also it isn't. DH and were out for dinner last weekend and paid 200 quid for what you described in the OP and it wasnt super-fancy either. Things are dear now. They have to buy the ingredients, cook them, heat a venue, hire servers, keep their rooms maintained and cleaned at a reasonable level, pay their own tax and VAT on top...

As someone who has owned several restaurants I can say that you've been offered a good price. Food and alcohol prices have rocketed (along with delivery costs) and don't forget someone has to cook your food (minimum of 3 chefs plus assistant and the KP to wash up is likely in a hotel). The cost isn't just ingredients....

Oh and Friday is the weekend. Wednesday is the cheapest day but Monday to Thursday counts as off peak.

Are you, or any family, members of a club OP? Like Golf club, sports club, sailing club etc?

Often they have nice clubhouse where you can hold a reception and the catering, and drinks in particular, will be much cheaper.

That's what we did as my in-laws were members at a fancy golf club. Fraction of the price of a hotel reception. We got married in church

You don't have to have a 'big' wedding just because other people invited you to their wedding ... we got married (34 years ago tomorrow ) in a register office with lunch for five guests afterwards. No stress, no hassle and no one ever told us or insinuated that they were offended not to have been invited.

If you want to spend £1000s on one day ... then go ahead ... but I was much happier to have a small wedding and use our savings for our home & paying off the mortgage 12 years after we married.

I’m laughing at the OP’s horror at chilli or pork baps in a field. Tbf, I went to an AWFUL pot-luck wedding with some of the worst food I’d ever encountered – some people really can’t cook! And plenty didn’t even try, there were giant share bags of crisps and M&S picnic food in plastic pots dumped half-arsedly on the buffet table. And not enough food for 150 people anyway. Thankfully it all ended at 8pm after dinner; no dancing, no music. But the bride and groom were happy and had spent all their money on the things that mattered to them; her big diamanté Disney dress, flowers, fancy cars between the church and this peculiarly uncelebratory reception.

It doesn’t have to be that way, though, OP. Friends married in a barn in the countryside near her childhood home and it was lovely. We’d all travelled far so staying overnight in advance of the day, so all on hand to put fairy lights about the place and decorate. A catered three-course meal. Finding ways to do it on the cheap is only crap if your friends make crap chilli, or you’re not generous or imaginative with what you lay on.

But of course a hotel do costs a lot pp: hotels cost a lot. The overheads x margin x general rise in costs across the board = £110pp. If you’re determined to do “hotel” and worried about offending with numbers cuts, well, (a) don’t, only the truly mad get offended over not having to fork out for attending a wedding and (b) choose a tiny, boutique hotel with max of 30-50 guests. Then claim it’s a very special and personal to you venue.

We had a street food van at out reception

What other costs are you looking at?

Get someone else to ring and get a quote for a family celebration meal for the same / similar number of people.

My friend did this and it was a LOT cheaper.

Alternatively, have an afternoon wedding for a smaller number with afternoon tea, and open it up to more friends with a buffet in the evening.

DS waitered at a Golf club this summer, their wedding g package is £45pp

Whereabouts are you based, OP? There are some stunning venues in the North East that have fantastic out of season deals on, we've been looking and while I can't convince my betrothed to drag everyone up to north of Newcastle, Le Petit Chateau blew my mind and had some fantastic packages. Worth a look if the location works for you!

120-150 is a lot of people, but if you have large families I can see how it adds up.
Do they do a discount rate for children?

I would definitely have a think whether there is a 'group' of guests you could exclude. how many are there on the list you haven't seen in ages? Are you inviting your parents' cousins because you feel you should? etc.

Otherwise you have to either suck up the cost or downscale.

We got married on a Friday.
Bonus for your costs is that less people will probably be able to make it.

OP you're being extremely rude to people who are trying to help you

You want a hotel. That's fine. But it's not on to slag off how other people chose to celebrate their marriage and say they didn't do it "properly"

It sounds like you want a big wedding at a venue that will do everything for you. That’s going to come at a price, if you can’t afford it you’ll have to have a rethink and come up with a different idea.

You must be able to get cheaper! I have booked my wedding for 2024 and we are paying a flat fee of £8500 + £50/head for extra guests. That includes food, DJ, decor and welcome drink. We will be adding on a drink for the toast and meal - about an extra £1200. That’s at a castle

We had a registry office wedding and then buffet in my DGM front room. Everyone was in the garden ( council house). Our 30th anniversary is next year.

You cut cloth accordingly.

Have you considered a very late afternoon ceremony and not having a sit down meal but more casual food and then straight into party celebration. Some wedding venues will do this on less popular dates. More casual and fun and can afford to not exclude people no day and evening guests. As an older bride second time round opted for this set up. Expensive weddings are not a marker as to the success of the marriage, as I learnt bitterly the first time! Though another option is just to do it quietly and then invite people to a big party.

Realistically though your costs are:

£110 per person
~ VAT at 20% = £91.66 per person
£40 for a meal + service
£15 for three drinks + service
£3,800 in room hire which also covers your room setup, table linen (£5-8 a cloth) bar setup, security, dance floor (takes 1-2 hours to lay) and your event coordination. Rooms generally have to be available from 3pm the day before so you lose income from a corporate event you could take on a Friday too.

Based on 120 guests.

It used to take me on average 28 hours of time from the first showaround to the moment I finished each wedding.

Everyone wants to get married in summer, everyone wants to get married on a Saturday and that does bump your room hire up I’m afraid, there’s only 12 weekends to do that in.

It might sound like a con, but there’s lots of event managers out there who will tell you it’s bloody hard work and if it wasn’t for the bar spend that’s not always guaranteed, we wouldn’t do it.

Just elope for the wedding bit and then have a huge drinks party somewhere with drinks and canapés and speeches. Could be a hotel, or the pub or a village hall - but will cost less but you can still have everyone.

Get married at the registry office on the quiet and organise a dinner dance at another time to celebrate then it would have the wedding price tag attached!

Catered "proper" food and wine for over a hundred people will cost a lot - it's inevitable. Most restaurants would turn around three or four normal sittings in the time a wedding takes including set-up, so that's the amount of profit they need to make up to make it worth their while.

Once you get to a hundred guests, the dress, flowers, car become trivial by comparison with the cost of catering.

That's not always possible - family politics can be tricky, and you don't want to upset friends either.

But it is OK to say that you can't afford a posh wedding, and use one of the cheaper options talked about on the thread.

Or you can elope, and then have a huge party to mark the occasion a bit later (see how the prices fall when it's not a wedding - PILs had a huge bash to celebrate their Golden anniversary, using it as an excuse to get everyone together, and it was nothing like wedding costs)

Pick a smaller venue. Blame the venue size on the smaller numbers.
Or
Get married abroad - cheaper and less people will come.