How much did your wedding cost, and what was the day like?

[Unsexypyjamas]

How much did you spend on your wedding?Was it big or small? What decade was it? What sort of a day did you have, and did you have a nice time? Did you have a honeymoon, and was this part of the budget?

I am not even engaged, just nosy.

Just under £20k. Was never bothered about having a big wedding but DH parents insisted as I was the only partner of any of their kids they liked. Me and sis went crazy planning it. Tastings, couture dresses, posh hotel with open bar, etc. Then 5k honeymoon we paid for together in the Caribbean.

Married 18 years. If DC wanted to get married today I doubt we could afford to get them a band.

Church wedding, early 80s,cost about £350 all in. My sister had got married earlier in the year so I borrowed her wedding dress and veil, and 2 bridesmaid dresses, my friend lent me 4 more identical ones , she also lent me her silk flower bouquet and the bridesmaids carried a single red rose.
My mum paid for the reception at at local restaurant, for 60 people and it was £250, with wine. We had one car, my husband worked in a bakery and they made the cake as a wedding present.My uncle was an amateur photographer so he did the photos . We had a fantastic day, but no honeymoon as we couldn't afford it.

£500 in 2015

Registry office in one of their basic smaller rooms on offer about 11am. No wedding car. Relative got me a wedding bouquet and a small wedding cake, this was our only treat, none of our families have money/are on benefits/bankrupt.

Dh and I paid for lunch at local italian for 10 of us in total on their lunchtime deal, we were walk ins which in hindsight was a bit cringe but I think if we booked ahead theyd have charged us a wedding package which we couldnt afford. I remember it cost us £140 for the lunch and that was our biggest cost. Clothes for us from M&S and NEXT, not proper wedding clothes just formal wear. Relative took basic photos with digital camera.

Cheap wedding bands from Argos, think they were about £25 each.

Went to hospital afterwards to see DC and nurse arranged for hospital photographer to come take our photos, think she was friends and said itd be nice for them too as they normally photgraph grizzly sights with patients.

These were only professional photos and I looked ghastly in them as I was so tired in that chapter of life.

Went home after hospital visit, home about 3pm I'm sure. Changed, walked dog, had dinner at home and then back to hospital for usual evening visit. Home by 10pm and into bed exhausted as usual.

No honeymoon. We did peadiatric first aid the week after in preparation for DC coming home from hospital.

We clubbed together some money for 1 year anniversary for overnight at a nice Edinburgh hotel and unfortunately there was drunk man banging on doors and shouting in corridor in middle of night on two occassions and we struggled to get back to sleep so just returned home exhausted in the morning rather than do the usual touristy things.

Not fun or special!

£27 in 2014 - do I win?

17,000 GBP excluding my wedding dress, 7 years ago.
150 guests, village church then marquee on the lawn, live band after dinner (mates rates). Biggest expense was catering at 7000 and marquee and portaloo at 3700.

Cake was homemade. Booze was from Majestic so we returned the unopened bottles after.
We did a mini-moon hiking in England (not included in the above budget) and never got round to doing a proper honeymoon.

Got married in the last decade, in a beautiful registry office ceremony in a listed building with walled garden, then a village hall party. We did everything ourselves including the food and cake. Whole thing including hen/stag dos and a two week honeymoon was £9k

20 years ago, spent about £15k, small wedding - about 40 guests

Got married on a beach in Australia (dh and I had moved here from the UK)

Rented a huge house with tropical gardens and pool. All immediate family and relatives stayed in the house for the week.

Reception was in a marquee in the garden. Canapes and drinks before a banquet style dinner, followed by a disco.

No honeymoon, as we already had dc and were spending the week after with family at the house.

It was beautiful, but relaxed and informal at the same time.

2020’s, £7,000, 25 people, wedding and reception in the same venue. We didn’t pre-order food, so people could order whatever they wanted on the day, whenever they wanted it.

Married in 2018. Four guests and a sit down afternoon tea. We spent less than £500 including my dress and DH’s suit. Our honeymoon was paid for by my parents but even that came to less than £500 for a week in a cottage in Scotland.

Just register office on the day so just the fee, but had a blesding innthe sane register office and party with dress etc in village hall the year after for about £740 (2006/7). 35 guests. Perfect.

Around £35k including honeymoon, ten years ago, literally dream day.

Hired a single wedding venue with accommodation so it was expensive but cut the price down by going out if season and having the wedding on a Sunday with a 'wedding eve' party the night before.

Cost was around 12k 10 years ago
Didn't spend loads on the dress/ outfits

It was a lovely day. If i had my time over I'd have paid extra and had it on the Saturday but it was still lovely.

2010’s just over 8k for everything.
Beautiful reception venue with exclusive use that if we had wanted a summer wedding we would never have been able to afford (hooray for heat intolerance lol)
Around 80 people, 3 course sit down meal, hot evening buffet, I made the cakes
Absolutely perfect evening “disco” DJ’d by a friend so all the music was stuff we grew up with and loved
Biggest single expense after the venue itself was the photographer who was absolutely amazing and worth every penny!

Cost approx £10k (not including honeymoon) for 136 guests in 2003. Dress, sit down meal, band etc. My MIL made the cake. Venue was a conference centre (but a nice attractive one). I absolutely loved the day and wouldn't change a thing.

1998 and we were on holiday in New York. I’d already looked into if it was possible to get married while we were there as we’d joked about it so we decided to go for it when we got there. We paid $55 for the licence and ceremony.
Our witnesses were a couple who were married before us.
No special clothes were bought, we used a dress ring of mine as the wedding ring (bought a real one from a wholesale jeweller the next day) and we had pizza in Little Italy afterwards. We called our parents to tell them what we’d done from the observation floor in the WTC.

£8k for our wedding in 2015.

100 guests for the whole thing to happen in a city centre hotel including ceremony, sit down meal and then disco and evening hot food.

Most of our budget went on that so we spent relatively little on the other stuff. My wedding dress was £200.

We spent a further £2k on our honeymoon which was a trip to New York and we got £1500 between both sets of parents which contributed to that holiday too.

We had the absolute best day. We still say it was one of our favourite days ever!

1983
Registry Office
£100
I wore a hand knitted pale grey skirt and cardigan
Husband used an existing suit

😄

£2,100 in 1998. We had a church wedding then had the evening do in a room at the local higher education college. Everything was done as cheaply as possible, my wedding ring cost more than my dress! Friends made the cake and a friend’s dad drove me to the church in his car - apparently he spent all morning cleaning and polishing it! The photographer was the biggest cost at £700 then the next biggest cost was the food for the two buffets as we had one at the church after the service and one in the evening at the college.

Wedding itself cost $800. Just over 20yrs ago, we got married in Hawaii on a beach at sunset. Very small wedding with just our families. It was super relaxed with stunning views. My dress was a £30 summer dress.

We had a reception when we got home, I didn't want one but my parents insisted on it, I wish we hadn't. A cheesy disco at a rugby club was not the vibe I was going for following a tropical wedding. We were so jet lagged even a week after landing home.

2005
25k
100 + 30 in the evening
divorced now but it was vax a brilliant day

Not that much (£6000 or so - but there was a bit of vintage transport involved to get people to and from the venue). 2011, 100 guests. Registry office and then hired out a local restaurant that had a garden for photos and wandering and the kids. Disco after a buffet dinner.

Fairly inexpensive rings, dress was in the sale - department store.

I wish we'd not had a photographer - never looked at the photos apart from once or twice. And put more money behind the bar.

People say they enjoyed it (well they would wouldn't they) and said it was refreshingly 'unweddingy'....

My first wedding, his second with many of the same guests.

Early 80's. Cost of wedding was £1250. We had a church wedding, reception with sit down meal for 60 in the church hall. About 25 evening guests ( mostly work mates). Fantastic buffet, including hot dishes in the evening.
We were lucky that we knew a lot of people who offered to contribute at very good prices - all the flowers, foe example, were supplied by my mum's friend who was a florist and only charged us cost prices. Entire bill for flowers was less than the quote I'd had from elsewhere for my bouquet alone! A work colleague operated a mobile bar , a friend made bridesmaid dresses, my dad had been childhood friends with someone who owned a chain of bakeries and they made our cake again, at cost. We were so lucky to have so many people who were kind enough to help us. We had the most amazing day and have so many happy memories of our family and friends enjoying themselves. Most of the older family members are long gone now, but DH and I love reminiscing about our day.

Or wedding was big in terms of guests (more than I really wanted if I'm honest...) but it was relatively cheap.

We got married in the registry office and then had free hire of a events space our mate owns so that was free.

Had a buffet from a local caterer and we paid for the bar which was by far the biggest expense (!).

62k for 220 people all day (no separate evening guests) in Central London in 2004. It was a fabulous, fabulous day.

Obviously a LOT of money but was worth it for us.

I have been to plenty of different types of wedding though and the enjoyment factor as a guest is very rarely related to how much has been spent!

1999, hotel with registrar and buffet 70 people, all family - a daytime do, no dancing. Cost us £1200. Remember very little about it other than it being nice to see everyone, and being really nice to just leave after the meal/cake.