Weddings in England - how are they so expensive?

[TheWayoftheLeaf]

I know I'm probably a dumbass. But I just got engaged (yay) to my partner of 9 years. I always knew weddings were expensive of course... but I didn't know HOW expensive.

I've started looking today at venues and to be honest it's just made me really sad. It's all so incredibly expensive. My cousins got married recently and now I'm in awe at the beautiful events they put on.

I suppose I never appreciated it before trying to plan my own. I have about £10,000 to spend. Which in my head was plenty (a deposit on a house in some areas for ONE DAY).

Anyway, I can get married in Cornwall, London or Yorkshire because of family and friends being split across the three. But every venue I see is most of the budget. Or if I find a cheaper venue then the food is oddly more expensive and takes it up to a similar amount. Thousands on just food (and of course all venues ban outside food or only their selected £££ suppliers). At this rate I'll have a venue and food, maybe flowers, and that's it for my £10k.

Does anyone know any nice venues in those areas? (Top of Cornwall not bottom so it's not too long for the rest of the family to get there). That don't cost so so much?

I know I could do the registry office and I've suggested eloping but my fiancé wants a wedding and my parents and siblings really want one because I'm the first to get engaged.

I'm really down by it all. It seems insane. The only wedding venues I don't really like are barns. They can be lovely but they're just not for me - I don't want to insult anyone's lovely weddings I just dislike them for me.

Any ideas? In my dreams it was a beach wedding, an orangery, a greenhouse, an elegant hall. I'd do a forest but with the UK weather that's obviously not possible.

Any advice or ideas?

They want it. They pay for it. Father-of-the-bride paying is the traditional way, after all.

My first piece of advice would be do not get caught up in what other people want. It might feel easier now but you’ll regret it in the long run. As long as you & your partner end up married and are happy with the day, everyone else can sod off. If they’re not just happy to see you happy, they didn’t deserve an input anyway.

Secondly, don’t jump straight to reg office/party if it’s not what you want. Take some more time to research venues & see if there’s any more reasonable. It sounds like you’ve just started searching so you’ll be seeing all the big obvious ones. Follow some local photographers/MUAs etc to each area and look out for their wedding posts. You might get some inspiration there about venues you otherwise wouldn’t see.

It’s not for everyone, but there’s also the option to have a much smaller wedding. My husband & I had just 20 people at ours and it was the best day. He has a big family so it wasn’t a popular choice at first but we just explained to people we weren’t spending a fortune on one day and that we were having the people we’re closest to/spend most time with. It made for a lovely chilled day, no stuffiness & we got to spend time with all of our guests (who were our fave people, no random aunties or Mums pals etc). It was about £12k all in but that included exclusive use so all our guests stayed for free, we covered all drinks etc and my husband bought his full kilt outfit (more than 10% of the spend, double my dress which by total fluke was a display one being sold off so was a bargain - another thing to look out for).

Good luck! It’s a lot but I promise you won’t care when it’s all done, you’ll just be happy to be married. And the ones who don’t like how you did it will get over it, or at least shut up about it, eventually.

I feel rather sad that your wedding is all about other people. Please don’t let them dictate, it’s between you and your chap. All this pressure is so unkind.

Try a winter wedding, quite often this more than halves the cost, in my case it did anyway

You don't need to be there when banns are read. Congregation will pray for the couple getting married so if you are atheist this may not sit well with you?

@TheWayoftheLeaf The easiest, cheapest solution to this problem is not pages and pages of advice about where you can go, how you can save.
it's to stop caring what other people think. That's what you need to concentrate on.
I know it's hard but do you want to forfeit a house deposit just because you are worried Great Aunty Margaret will be sniffy if she has to eat a veggie dinner ?

Hi Op,

Have your wedding off season. We had a November wedding.

Also, plan it quickly! We got engaged and then married in 6 months, in wedding world that is considered ‘last minute’, so we got a discount on both venue and photographer.

I only had 2 bridesmaids and they chose the dress, which was £32 from Zalando.

I went to wed2b for my wedding dress, much cheaper than having one made for you.

DJ is much cheaper than paying for a band. Many people prefer a DJ anyway.

We stayed in a hotel up the road from the venue, hence no need to pay for a wedding car.

Our wedding cake cost £80, not tierd, and none of it went to waste.

What cost the most money was the food. We had a sit down meal and then an evening buffet, but we had far too much food.

You can also get cheaper invitations from places like ebay, and we used a free website for RSVPs instead of asking for return by post.

We have booked a very small wedding for 24, meal in a pub, registry office, no evening do. Cheap outfits, me doing flowers, no extras, no photographer, cars etc.
(Second marriage in our 50/60s)

Cheapest we can do is just under £3000.

It costs a fortune.

Oh also, I got fake bouquets made! Much cheaper than real flowers, and you don’t have to worry about them being delivered on the day/day before.

https://www.lustyglaze.co.uk/weddings/your-day-your-way/

Have you looked at this for a winter wedding? Much cheaper. I got married in the Cotswolds on the 1st Feb and it was the perfect crisp frosty day with the sun shining all day. It was far cheaper and they had winter packages especially to attract brides and grooms.

I got married in a local church and we celebrated with a BYOB in the village hall. Spent on a hog roast and decent band. Asked people for help. People still say it was a great day. Don't waste your money. It's about the marriage, not the wedding day.

Look at Teepee weddings? My friend had one and it was just gorgeous and not too expensive.

Elope. Focus on you rather than everyone else.

Packages at local historic houses are a good idea (my friend had a gorgeous wedding four years ago at one near Halifax that didn't cost the earth) - and I don't know if anyone has suggested it, but how about getting married at a museum? Loads of them do wedding packages, and they're often in beautiful buildings and settings.

I really don't know why weddings cost so much. I'm holding an event in Central London in September, the venue hire (a theatre) and food for 420 people has come to approx £6k. We are having a buffet from Benugo for lunch.

When I got married years ago, the cost of a limo hire was £300 more when I said it was for a wedding than when I had enquired without mentioning it!!

I found wedding planning so stressful! Lots of people book their wedding for 2/3 years down the line so they can continue saving for what they want. That way you're also protected from prices increasing as you've paid a deposit.

We were lucky in that where we are from it is still common for parents to pay for the wedding. We got married in a lovely 4* hotel and it was about £5500 for the reception of 110 guests and 20 more evening guests, which my parents paid. My in laws gave money for our honeymoon and bought the men's suits. We paid for the photographers, band, cars, flowers, hair and makeup ourselves.

There are absolutely ways to make it cheaper. I found wedding cars were an absolute fortune but a local taxi firm had fancy black cars and they put ribbons on them and the drivers wore suits and they did it all for £200 instead of the 900 I was quoted by a wedding car company!

Whatever you do, don't feel like you have to do it a certain way because of what others want - have the day you want, especially if you're the one paying for it! Definitely don't get into debt or anything for the sake of one day.

Years ago on TV (I think Don't Tell The Bride) I remember seeing a wedding venue where it was sort of like a little farm village.....I know you say you don't want barn etc but hang fire, and listen to principle behind it. The set up something like a big converted barn which was really nicely done (wouldn't know it had been barn) and in the 'complex' was a bridal
Suite and guest rooms, all like mini houses. It's hard to describe as it was a long time ago I watched it but the beauty of it was that because the guests laid for their accommodation the bride and groom
Didn't have to pay for theirs or the venue as guest accommodation covered it all. It wasn't excessive cost for guests, just normal hotel room price. It was all set up really nicely, like having a small village to yourself for your wedding. Everyone was very complimentary. I can't remember where it was but sure it was Derbyshire or Yorkshire. It was such a clever idea to keep costs down.
I did a Google and found link below to similar scheme in Cornwall. The guests accommodation is deducted from your event costs...

Price guide
Our Exclusive Hire Package includes the Bridal Couple plus 30 guests, with an option to increase guest numbers up to 140 in total.

•	Price you pay – from £8540 (includes 32 resident guests)
•	Prices vary depending on days of the week and time of year
•	Contribution from resident guests £5250. This is deducted from the price you pay
•	Additional guests are £50 per person
•	Maximum capacity 140 guests
•	A total of 42 guests can stay and there is local accommodation for overflow
•	Price includes most of the things you need to budget for

www.thegreencornwall.co.uk/exclusive-hire/?gad=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwvynqJftgAMVUA4GAB3iDwVAEAAYASAAEgKUIPD_BwE

This. My mum was a registrar in the 80s. The only options for weddings in the UK when I had my first wedding ( 1989) were registry office or church. Hotel/ Stately home locations didn't exist in until years later

https://crabandlobster.co.uk/

We got married here, the per person price is not cheap but the venue is amazing so you don’t need a lot of the extras if you don’t want them. We had an amazing day and didn’t have to worry about a thing.

We married in 2018 in birmingham, we had a registry office then walked across the canal to a 'celebrity restaurant' and hired a function room, room hire was free is we spent £3k min on food and drink

We did a registry office then a party in a marque that a local farmer used for his daughters weddings the day before. He was very happy to share all the costs and even let all our mates camp out in the marquee over night :)
Be creative and look for non weddingy options

Trerice House just outside of Newquay! They were so helpful accommodating our needs and could have worked with any budget! It’s national trust so I think that helps with the limiting of cost!
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/cornwall/trerice

Church wedding - £1k and a beautiful venue to get married in, even if you're an atheist. Im not religious but got married in a church because DH's parents are

Village hall - very inexpensive and can look beautiful done up.

Local caterers, shop around and pick the cheapest. Wedding cake - ask a friend to make or DIY with an online guide.

Do the flowers yourself (I ordered just white roses and gypsophila to arrive two days before the wedding and made the bouquets, button holes and venue flowers myself with those two. Vases for each of the tables with their own bouquets. Flowers were stunning, and very cheap.)

Needle & thread, Reformation etc have stunning cheap wedding dresses online nowadays. Another big save.

Don't do London - £10k won't afford a London wedding.

Bands - do you have any friends in bands who would do it cheap?

I'd spend the majority of your budget on the venue tbh, then shop around to do the rest on the cheap. However church + rural village hall with beams etc is your best bet if you need to keep the venue cheap and you can't afford anything £££

If you did as the PP suggests and have a brief register office marriage and then a proper beach ceremony eg with friend or family member officiating, that can surely be your “real wedding” because it’s the one with aisle, the dress, the guests, the vows you choose to make?
I have several friends in France where you have to have a legal marriage at the town hall, all of them did this bit very quickly at minimal cost and spent time and money on their church or countryside wedding which to them was the real bit. It’s much more usual there to separate the legal from the ceremonial, lots of people don’t even do it on the same day. I also know people in the U.K. who have done similar, they are non-conformist Christians and wanted to marry in their regular church which is not licensed for weddings so they married on the Friday in a register office and then on the Saturday had their church wedding which to them was the ‘real’ one where they made their commitment.
If you do similar with your beach idea everyone will know of course that it’s not a legal wedding, but it will be the ceremony you want and your fiancé and parents should get the elements they want. It should be much cheaper too because you can arrange most of it yourself. If your parents can’t accept needing to separate the legal and ceremonial to achieve the wedding you all want then would be rather foolish of them as what should matter is seeing their child marry (and they should be grateful you are trying to accommodate their wishes)

I actually found getting married in my local church was cheaper than having it in the hotel.
I found a local restaurant and used their dining room instead of going to a hotel.
I found my dress brand new with tags in a charity shop for 20 quid. Husband hired his suit.
I got fake flowers instead of real
A friend made our cake
We had no band at the reception, just a dj
We did a half day with the photographer, no video.
Tbh there are loads of ways to save money on a wedding and I agree that saying the word wedding Jack's up the price.