To wonder what people's weddings were like

[meantosay]

One of the current wedding threads just got me wondering? There's a lot of talk about people having weddings they can't afford etc and was just wondering how many of you had small simple affairs.

I had a small church wedding and buffet lunch at our new house for about 40 people.

We were very lucky. Our wedding guests includud a DJ, florist, photographer, hairdresser, cake maker, stationer and someone who knew a guy who could get us a horse and cart.

I made all invites myself, along with menus and thank you cards.

Dress was from Oxfam. Make up was almost non existant. Jewellery was my wedding gift from DH.

The only real expense was food and drink. Open bar all night.

The service was something we clobbered together ourselves and did not involve God in any way.

LilRed I don't think you are accounting for the fact that many people want to have their reception at a venue, rather than a restaurant. This is a massive expense for many people. We used a stately home lived in by people I know, and asked guests to bring a dish, but the costs still really added up. Just for the venue part, for instance:

Venue £500
Additional food - £500
Alcohol - £1K
Hire of tables, chairs, crockery, cutlery, wash up - £2K
Ceilidh band - £500
PA system etc. - £100

Not to mention clothes, church, everything else. It really does add up, and we did a properly DIY wedding. ~(I made everything, DH made the silent disco, dress from Oxfam).

timefora we were similar

Sept met at work but separate building- he did seem to do more than his fair share of post runs though LOL

Dec started going out as my relationship broke up

Jan decided to chance living together as I needed to elave home shared with said ex

Feb Engaged

March pregnat with DS1

next March married

Married in 2000; have had another three chidlren and a rough few yeras including his severe ill ehalth and 2 disability diagnoses but still love him to bits (usually)

Ceremony in Westminster Cathedral in London (NOT Westminster Abbey, though you'd be surprised at the number of guests who decided to turn up at the latter before heading up sharpish up Whitehall!).

Reception at a riverside venue at London Bridge. Our wedding car got stuck on the way to the reception venue (too many people at Borough market) so we decided to get out and walk the rest of the way. Had lots of little old ladies handing us bread, olives and assorted pastries whilst the cynical Londoners kept looking round for the "hidden" camera crew. Turned up at our reception with armfuls of food and had everyone wondering why we had stopped off to buy groceries!

Had a total of about 200 guests in the course of the day, plus American/Spanish/Portuguese/"insert relevant nationality" tourists who decided to gatecrash the church ceremony. I had a bit of a shock wondering which side of the family the loud men in Hawaiian shirts were from!

All in all, a lovely day The marriage, OTOH, is currently a different story altogether ...

Ours was 12K all in including honeymoon and spending money.
We had a cruise for our honeymoon ( as week) adn whilst it aasn't hugely costly in that we got it on offer it was a decision we amde directly after ds1's birth, as I had been almost killed by eclampsia and needed a break.
My dress was IMO lovely- dark grey column with navy embroidery and matching coat- cost under £200 and saw me through a few work events though now way too big LOL
DH hired a suit

big cost was venue; we looked at a few, I would have chosen Church (am Christoian) but DH didn;t want that so we went for a nice hotel. Most of my family complained about the 20 mile trip and a few refused to come unless we paid for a taxi (we said no chance), but a friend came from Scotland, Aunt from Hemel.

It was lovely; there were a few mishaps- DH's wedding ring not turning up being the main one though a friendly lcaol jeweller lent him one two hours before the wedding- on the whole though i remember the day with smiles, and more so as time goes on and more of my loved ones are no longer here- Nan died the next year, we were quite close.

Equally though my sister's registry- bring a plate buffet- karaoke do was lovely and warm: it just ahs to reflect the people being married and what they an afford (DH had an endowment meant to buy hm a sports car but instead bought the wedding and a house deposit; MIL had offered to pay for wedding but spent money on a breast enlargement instead LOL- which would be fine except it was dh's baptism and 29 years of birthday money saved up)

I love weddings; my only girly streak apart from shoes.

Nice thread.

Our wedding was perfect! About 30 people at the Royal Albion hotel in Brighton (the one by the pier).

My DD was 17m and was carried by mum, and said "daddy!" halfway through the ceremony which was adorable!

My DSDs were my bridesmaids, they were 10. One did a reading, my mum did the other - both poems that I wrote when I first met DH.

Clothes were not traditional - I wore a turquoise satin ballgown, which my mum embroidered, and I wore a headdress with flowers as DH had always said he'd imagined me wearing one. My DSDs chose their own clothes, one being a tomboy chose trousers and waistcoat! They looked beautiful :)

My DSS was 16 so he was one of our witnesses.

A couple of funny things happened - DH suddenly kissed me while the registrar was talking (ie before being told to kiss the bride) and she slapped his hand and told him to be patient!

Also it was quite scary at the time but our wedding planner found out that the licensing had changed. So the room we were marrying in may not have been legal! But we couldn't be sure. So when everyone else was in the bar me, DH and our witnesses went into a definitely-licensed room and we did our vows again with the registrar. It was lovely :)

After the ceremony we had drinks in the bar overlooking the beach, and then a lovely dinner at one big table.

We stayed on a couple of extra nights as our mini honeymoon. DS conceived not long after :o

Only cost a couple of grand

It's really nice to read this thread and remember that there are still lots and lots of people for whom weddings aren't all about big splashy show off events, and the napkins matching the bridesmaid's dresses, and the guests forking out money gifts to 'pay their way', and people being left out of the meal because the B&G would prefer to spend their money on fancy chair covers and fireworks.

I had a biggish wedding, with 100 guests for a sit down meal and then more in the evening. It does sound alot but as dh as a split family, he has 8 siblings (full, half and step), so it was family and a couple of close friends for the meal. We invited all the guests to the church if they wished to come. I had 5 bridesmaids, a baby bridesmaid and a pageboy. Dh had a best man and 6 ushers. Each set of parents helped out with a donation towards the cost but we paid for the majority and only had what we could afford and had no debt after the day, except for the small balance we refused to pay to the hotel after a catalogue of cock ups on the lead up to and on the day of the wedding.

One of the things I forgot to put was we were actually married by a women in church. We were married in 1991 but women couldn't be ordained until 1992 so I am not sure how we managed that.

Marking. I'm planning my wedding for next year at the moment (budget somewhere between the most and least expensive mentioned here so far) and loving hearing about everyone's special day.

Beach wedding for us. Just the two of us with random hotel guests as witnesses. No family, no friends, just us :)

Cost £150 on top of the holiday. I made my own dress - cost £90 in fabric and hours of my time.

Big informal evening party when we got back for friends, then a buffet lunch for his mother's family and friends (complicated family stuff was going on at the time so this was by far the best way)

If we had our time again we would do it exactly the same way except he would most definitely not provide a party for his family a second time

Ours was quite big but cheap. Ceremony was 58 people at the reception office, then we had 80 total at the reception at a village hall.

Our major expenses were food £800ish we got some catering in, but I and my rellies made most of it the day before, alcohol £500ish and the venues £400ish almost everything else was reused stuff we already had or given to us as gifts.

If there had been less people so we needed less food/booze it would have cost much much less. But having everyone there was the most important thing so worth it.

Our registry office was lovely btw, pretty inside and out the photos look great!

80 guests in our local church & stately home (now up for sale if anyone's interested), amazing food at the wedding breakfast (surprised us too!) and bacon butties, cheese pastries & wedding cake in the evening & dancing the night away to a ceilidh band on the stone floor.

People thought we'd spent a fortune, but wedding, including honeymoon in the US with upgraded seats for plane-hating dh, was certainly under 10k & it was very stress-free to do. Dh has only subsequently realised how marvellous I was in this respect!

LilRed - sorry catching up from last night... I totally get what you mean about people having pretty church weddings without going to the church at any other time. We got married in our (not particularly attractive) local catholic church, and if you know anything about the catholic church you can't get married there without actually going to mass regularly. We also had to attend pre marriage counselling with the priest and an away day thingy with loads of other couples, to talk about what a catholic marriage meant to us.

I think the church of England is much more relaxed about letting people who aren't church goers get married. I've been to lots of weddings in very pretty churches and I know the people getting married aren't church goers. It's odd because there are lots of other pretty places to get married without having to go to a church.

I sort of agree HF but think the CofE / CofW Church has deliberately adopted a centre of the community role with regards to celebrations, roof funds, WI... (am I showing my small town mentality here any chance? ) and there's a payback for that: hosting weddings is probably that.

Besides the cynical side of me says ah well they're the oones who started the whole marriage-morality thing so......... ('they' as in religions generally I know).

Although as a Christian who married an agnostic chap i didn;t feel any less amrried having done so in a hotel becuase I spent a lot of time praying and considering what God would want of me, and personally I don;t think 'my' god would ahve any problem with the building when the faith is intact- and doesn;t care much about some stones all round.

That's just me though: I am odd.

I suppose Peachy they're thinking "get them in for a wedding and they might stay". Seems pretty logical to me.

I'm now curious though, out of the big expensive more showy weddings, V the smaller more relaxed & informal 1s, how much our age played a part???....

Ours (as above) was the latter, but getting hitched for the first time at 41, bar the expense & choosing not to go there, I just really wasn't interested in all pomp & ceremony that would of gone with a big Wedding, I much preferred the idea of it being about Me & DH, & a nice relaxed celebration with friends, in a way I was lucky, as my Mum wasn't involved, which meant I could do my own thing without a battle, so our wedding was very much about US, not family & I wonder if that has anything to do with our age at the time of Marriage

When I look at the bigger weddings I've been too, the Brides have all been 30 or under, & their Mums have had a BIG hand in the proceedings, usually making it more about family, showing wealth etc, that about the actual couple concerned?

I think there's a LOT of snobbery on this thread about the seeming vulgarity of bigger, more expensive weddings.

Surely the point of a wedding is that it should be what is right for the couple. Some couples like big do's, others don't. How people choose to spend their money is up to them.

Oooh, my first post! Loved reading these posts.

I am a budget freak and tried my best to get the best possible deals for our wedding. Even so, to get what we wanted cost a fair whack. As soon as you say 'wedding' it seems a cash register goes off. A church wedding followed by an evening buffet for 60 odd. I was shocked by how much the church fees added up to. In total I think we probably spent 6K all in and the largest part of that was catering and venue and two nights in local hotel.

We did save money in the following ways

Mum made my dress and that of my one bridesmaid and one flowergirl.
PiL provided champagne and wine and paid corkage too.
Venue was through relative'work and they did us a good deal on a hot buffet of two different types of roasts and all the trimmings and choice of two puds. And later we had bacon butties and coffee and cake. Was also glad that some of the money went to the Charity from whom we'd hired the venue.
MiL made the cake
Friend did the photography
Friend did the MCing
Husband made my engagement and wedding rings and all the gifts for ushers and bridesmaids (he silversmiths as a hobby )
Disco was local man and total cheese - but that's what we wanted...
I made all the favours and bought glass vases for table flowers from trade store.
Great Uncle provided the Jag and drove me to the Church.
Flowers for venue were provided at cost price and a donation to Charity by Mum's friend.
And our Honeymoon was three weeks interailing around Europe. Started off in Copenhagen, then onto Berlin, Budapest, Paris, Barcelona, Bilbao, Fuente De and then San Sebastien and home. We only had accommodation booked for first two and last three nights. Was 'interesting' on occasion!!!

My sister, on the other hand, had a really small wedding with about 20 of us. A civil service followed by church blessing. To get to the church we had to take a tiny open boat ferry. And it rained. Hair do was wrecked... But made a great talking point.

I was raised Catholic but lapsed several years before I got married, and my H is atheist. I still got married in a Catholic Church (see post above) without being a regular mass-goer, nor did I live in that parish. I didn't care whether I got married in a church or not, but my family did. As I personally figured that my wedding day was t be about both H and I AND our family and respective friends, I didn't mind making that concession for them.

Then again, venue-wise, I could have done a lot worse

sorry rockin, I was 35 when I got married. My big wedding was partly because we've got a big family, and partly because my mum and dad were saving from when I was tiny (mega organised or what?) and they had a big bugdget. I was the one occasionally uncomfortable spending the money but my mum was all "hey you can't take it with you!" kind of thing. Funnily enough, the things I found hardest to spend money on were for myself, dress, shoes, hair etc... But I had no problems going for decent wine, cake, food and champers :o

I had a traditional Scottish wedding - men all in kilts and followed a piper up the aisle of the local chapel.

Arrived in an open-top beaufort, had a beautiful dress, 2 bridesmaids and sit down meal in a small, but beautiful hotel.

150 day guests and another 100 evening guests (but my family is HUUUGE)

Lots of flowers, 3 tier cake, and band in the evening.

Not really sure what it cost (probably around £15K) but it was the day I dreamed of and wouldnt change a thing.

The chapel was across the road from the local primary school which was finishing at the same time as our wedding. About 200 children waited in the church grounds for the scramble