How much did you budget for your wedding?

[Keurig]

I’m getting married shortly, really low key affair. 3 star hotel, no bridesmaids/groomsmen, no cars, no white dress. Was assured I could do it for about £10K, but final costs will actually be about £25 - 30K. Is it usually a ‘take the first number you thought of and double it’ scenario? This is not a question of affordability, more expectation!

Interesting answers. Number of guests:65. That’s what I was interested to hear - it is low key and it is that price.

we had to pay for a certain number of rooms as per the rules of the hotel, and so I guess the cost of that is pretty much the cost of the food too. Because of this, we are paying for brunch the next day too, but that doesn’t seem to be where the creep has come in. That is all well below 10K. I have been held a little to ransom by the musician but - again - that’s not exclusively the creep.

@Peekaboobo the cake is 400, the music 1350 and the flowers 2K. I guess I didn’t expect the flowers to be that much

Sounds like an average wedding to me.

So can you break the costs down for us? I can't see how it's adding up to so much.

You should have just got a venue without a tie in to rooms

Mine was uber low key, we got married in Vegas 😂, thoroughly enjoyed it. This was in 2008 and the currency exchange was pretty good, all in all the whole thing came to 5k, stayed in Vegas for 1 week then bobbed over to San Diego for a week, staying in Motels.

We both really hate traditional weddings and it’s so expensive. When we got home some friends had arranged a little party and wedding cake, it was lovely. We wanted intimacy and not paying a fortune for family that we don’t particularly like. Like the old saying “you can choose your friends”, we did it for us. I would never spend 30k on a wedding, that’s a shocking amount.

Can you let me know where is doing wddings at £30 a ahead please. We are looking at organising a wedding for 70 guests and the cheapest we have found so far is £75 plus a venue fee. Without venue fees we have found around £120

Can you say where this is please as its extraordinarily cheap and we are looking at arranging a wedding next year and everything is around £18k. I am getting stumped as to which venues people are using to come in this reasonably.

We were £7k back in 2018 and that was with us getting some great deals.

Our cakes were a gift from DH's cousins who had a cake business. Photographer was a friend of mine so he was just a few hundred compared to the couple of thousand that pros were starting at.

My dress and shoes were second-hand so a fraction of the price. DH wore a kilt so that was hired. Our venue was free (catering by the restaurant downstairs was around £2k which was our biggest cost but it was an absolute spread of amazing Indian food with choices for everyone, a huge buffet in the evening which a vegetarian friend told me was the best range at a wedding buffet she had had and we also had 2 bottles of wine on each table in this cost too). Our DJ was included with the venue (so also free) and he was brilliant.

I made all our invitations, table plan and stationery myself as I used to have a card making business so I knew what I wanted.

I won competitions for little extras like colouring packs for kids and signs for the wall. We didn't need them but it didn't cost us so they were a lovely little extra.

I did have some little extra touches we splashed out on just because we had saved on other things so we had a magician while we went for photos and then a caricaturist in the evening (we still have our caricature framed on the wall like many guests do).

We had around 50 people for the full day and another 20-30 in the evening.

A friend got married last year and other than hotel deals a lot of the venues they looked at were around £4-5k with about the same again for catering. It's easy to see how the costs add up.

It’s unusual that you pay for all the rooms, usually the guests do. I could understand it if they asked you to pay for any rooms not taken once guests have had chance to book.
It does seem a heck of a lot for flowers, and music - but you sound like you really want the music. But I still don’t understand how you’ve spent so much.

Oh I also made my own bouquets with foam flowers to save money there. I still have it in my display cabinet.

@crumblingschools wasn't able to find a venue like that. Wedding has to be in a specific town and I hunted for somewhere suitable. It was not a throwing caution to the wind kind of situation

So the hotel and brunch is well below 10k, the flowers are 2K, music 1300 and cake 400?

Erm...where the fuck are you getting 30k from that? And you're not wearing a wedding dress?

theolddrbellsbaths.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/WINTER-WEDDING-PACKAGE_2024-25.pdf

Been to two weddings above. £59 per head for everything not just the food.

Not sure I'm representative but I had a very low key wedding, 2 guests, dress £24 from Amazon, new shoes £14, meal after £130. wedding fees £400, then honeymoon was £3k, so under £3600 in total.

Yours doesn't sound low key!! 🤣

@Roryhon some of the guests - in fact most - are coming from far away. After their own cost and effort, it seemed decent that we picked up the cost of the rooms

@TakeOnFlea great name - I loves A-Ha…

well, I’m not wearing a big, white poofy thing, but a new dress, yes.

i suppose I have made up the low key bit in my head then. Fuck knows how much a full on affair would have cost!

Can't see how £30k is low key. We got married 6 years ago, it was £45k with 120 guests and not at all low key. We got married in a country house and had exclusive use including 25+ rooms for 2 nights. You're either not having low key or you're being ripped off.

I think a lot of the surprise on this thread is down to most people replying getting married before the col crisis,

Food and eating out is a lot more expensive than it was 5 years ago. I guess if you're feeding 65 people and taking care of some of the rooms, then that is going to get pricy these days.

@wevegotthepower that looks awesome

£20K but that was 23 years ago..I'd expect a similar wedding would cost £30K plus now.

I would say that £25-30k seems about standard for a traditional wedding with around 80 guests. Prices have shot up in the last 5 years. Most venues will charge at least £80 a head for catering…closer to £120/150 in London.
then you have a dress from a bridal boutique which starts at £1000, another £300 for alterations, flowers, cake, fee for actually getting married, bridesmaid and groomsmen suit hire…it all adds up.

We are probably looking to spend £35k for a traditional wedding in a church then reception in a marquee for 120 guests. We’re not going budget by any means but haven’t splashed out either, except on an open bar. And we don’t have venue hire costs (altho marquees are far more expensive).

happy to talk through in more detail.

@duckduckgo13 interesting, thank you

I used a historical money calculator as it was 25 years ago this year

In todays money it would be 6k.

Registry office and buffet in a village hall with 100 guests plus all champagne and wine bought in France. Disco and sandwiches in the evening.

Major savings
No wedding cars
Made my own cake
Photographer friend charged £100 so basically just for his film and travel
Made own invites

Dress was £100, shoes were £25
Bridesmaids dress x2 made by a friend who is a talented dressmaker and she paid for material as her gift
I made headdresses for bridesmaids
Borrowed an antique tiara from the 1940’s and a pearl necklace
DH hired a suit

Rest was flowers, rings

I have been to over 30 weddings and have done the flowers for a few, I didn’t do my own as didn’t want the pressure. Everything from a very simple 20 person do up to a three day shebang that probably cost 25k per day. The wedding is never any indicator as to the success of the marriage.

My friend that married last year had 30 people and married in a hotel with sit down 3 course dinner plus champagne on arrival and for the toast, rest was pay bar. I did her bouquet as a gift. She had no bridesmaids and DH did her photos. Hers cost 2k and it was a lovely wedding. The groom is in a band so they played for free.

If you're not having bridesmaids and cars etc, what's costing so much? Is it the hotel rooms? How much are the rooms, how much is brunch?