....in thinking the cost of weddings is becoming beyond todays young people

[concernedrose]

DS is planning on getting married next year. He and fiance both have good jobs but are paying off student loans, and pay £850 a month in rent for a tiny one bedroomed flat. They also are trying to save for a mortgage. So imagine their (and our) horror at the price of weddings. It seems that to be able to do everything for under £10,000 is virtually impossible in the area we live in. And they have accepted they wont be able to have a honeymoon immediatly after the wedding. This seems a vast sum of money to me, but even calling in favours from friends and relatives, (ie cake making, invitation making, flower arranging) it looks like this is what it is going to cost. Oh well, anyone for beans on toast!!!

[oldandcrabby]

My friend's daughter got married this summer. Ok it was her second one but it was done on a shoe string: Registry office, hog roast and home made salads and puddings in parents's garden, even the elderflower champagne was home made, the real champagne with the cake, which was decorated by MIL. The dress and DD's bridesmaid's dress was from ebay and her flowers were jasmine and old man's beard buds from my garden. There were as many children as adults and they really enjoyed themselves so did the two families, even the millionairess aunt. Cost £500? The honeymoon was camping in Cornwall. The couple had just moved into a new house, wanted to celebrate with their familes and friends but had their priorities clear. It was a wedding I shall remember more than posh ones in glittering venues.

[TheBrideofMucky]

I don't understand why an expensive wedding is automatically a boring one. I had been to lots of inexpensive weddings and lots of expensive ones. Most were boring as weddings tend to be. But some had good food and nice views.

Surely the more money at your disposal, the more options you have. You can make something personal and original whatever your budget. Saying expensive weddings are boring doesn't make sense and just sounds a bit bitter. Be happy with your choices, whatever they are, there is no need to run down anyone else's.

[atthewelles]

But the reason a lot of wedding receptions are expensive is because the couple are following some format and trying to have everything the same as the weddings they've been to over the years. Fine, if that's what they want and they can afford it. But personally I prefer weddings that have some spark of creativity or originality to them and, in my experience, that is more likely to happen when people aren't spending a lot of money and have to rely on their imagination to make the day special.

[QueenStromba]

What I have in mind for my wedding (if it ever happens) should come to about a grand. I'm thinking less than £100 for a proper wedding dress from ebay, about the same for silver rings (I hate gold), print invites ourselves on nice stationary and post for about £50 (most of that is the stamps!), supermarket cake, £200 for a late afternoon slot at our lovely local registry office, reception in one of our local pubs (no hire charge) with £3-400 of bar snacks put on and a couple of hundred on fizz. DP needs a new suit anyway so I'm not including that in the costs. We'd probably chuck an extra grand behind the bar though which would double the cost of the wedding :)

We could spend £10k on an identikit wedding in a hotel but it really wouldn't be us and seems like a massive waste of money that could go towards a house.

[Scheherezade]

Hog roasts are actually very expensive, we looked at having one and it was far too pricey, not that much difference from having professional caterers.

[squoosh]

Oh yeah, hog roasts certainly aren't a cheap option.

I think they're so overrated anyway.

[marriedinwhite]

I seem to recall that alongside love there were three significant reasons for getting married:

The avoidance of sin
The procreation of children
Mutual comfort.

We switched avoidance of sin and mutual comfort.

Love and permanence is what the marriage is about. It costs very little.

The party is another matter and not entirely necessary - or not in the form recommended by wedding planners.

Just thought it needed saying.

The best bit of our wedding were the promises before God and their irrevocable nature as well as the blessing of the rings, covered with the priest's stole. That's why my doesn't come off - it might break the magic.

as you were

[QueenStromba]

You've forgotten the not insignificant legal and financial benefits marriedinwhite, which are my reasons for wanting to marry my DP. At the moment my estranged family could turn up if I was dead or incapacitated and completely exclude DP, they could even legally remove all of my personal possessions from our flat after my death leaving him without a single tangible item to remember me by. It's very important to me that DP is my legal next of kin because half of my family are so bloody crazy that they might just do this.

The financial reasons to get married are things like spouses being entitled to half of the other's pension in the event of their death - I hate to think of either of us going through the grief of losing the other and having to deal with a massively reduced income at the same time. There's also the issue of inheritance tax. If you own a house together and each will your half to the other then you could end up with a massive inheritance tax bill.

[Scheherezade]

That's very odd you say that married because I recall you saying you would strike a couple off your Christmas card list and never speak to them again if the party at a wedding wasn't acceptable to you.....

[marriedinwhite]

Not quite the reason sheherezade. But I forgive you for not remembering the precise facts. It wasn't the party that wasn't acceptable it was their entire lack of courtesy and the lack of focus on the parts of the day that were important. I seem to recall we were invited to an evening party; told we were excluded from the wedding breakfast but it would be great if we went to the church to which we were not formally invited and then expected to spend from 3pm until 8pm killing time.

I think they wanted to give the impression of a grand wedding with lots of guests but couldn't be bothered to look after them for the rest of the day.

They are off my Xmas card list; they did not look after my MIL (they expected us to do that when we weren't invited to the wedding) and they excluded us from part of their day. Not what a wedding is about in my opinon.

[Thumbwitch]

TheBride - I don't know if you were aiming your comments at me, but I certainly don't assume that expensive wedding = boring. It's just my experience of weddings that that has been the case so far.

[hzsouthwell]

We had a beautiful wedding with a three course sit down meal for under £10k for 108 people.... You just can't do it in a hotel... Or buy a £3k wedding dress!!! (however this did include a bit band splurge!!!)

[Apirateslifeforme]

Registry office
Decent pub restaurant, ask what they take in food& drinks over a night. Offer to pay that, divide it by guests and see what the pub restaurant can offer for the guests on that budget. We ended up with a few choices for guests of simple but good pub grub all from locally sourced places. We had s very small intimate gathering. Canapes at £15pp, main meal which cost £35 each, £35 set aside for drinks for each person then had mini sliders and mini fish and chip buffet for late evening.
Wedding cake was a gift from a friend
DH hired his suit,
Our flowers cost £300
Our colours went with the venue, venue cost £0 because we just covered their expected revenue for the night and singer cost £250

It was nice, we didnt skimp on anything, most people said it was the best wedding they'd been to. I think we spent about 6k if that.

[Apirateslifeforme]

Oh and we rented all of the rooms in the little hotel too included in that.

[GulliBelle]

Zombie thread. OP's son will be married by now, and possibly divorced and on his second marriage.

[Zaphodsotherhead]

I think you need to work out the difference between 'want' and 'need'. You only need to do the bare minimum to make sure the marriage is legal, registry office, couple of witnesses.

EVERYTHING else is a 'want'.

[Warsawa31]

We just got married in reg office (couple of hundred quid) had a pagan blessing (free) went to a pub and brought dinner for close family and best man/maid of honour (500 quid) hiref my suit (90) wedding dress shoes etc (400) rings (400). Everyone came and enjoyed a few drinks with us. Stayed at a local hotel for the night. Still waiting on a honeymoon 9 years later but we have a wonderful marriage - which after all is the whole point of having a wedding no? Whole thing was couple of thousand. You really don’t have to spend all that money - my advice would be to give them the money and tell them to put it towards a home of their own. Way more important than one day.

[Bearlyawake]

Weddings only need be as expensive as you make them. We avoided venues that are only geared up for weddings (e.g. fancy barns) and looked at places that have another primary function and offer weddings on the side, much cheaper. Had our reception in a brewery. It was so different to other weddings we'd been to and everyone had a great time.

[tinnitusqueen]

I'm curious. This seven year old thread was revived by somebody who's message was deleted. How intriguing!

Anyway regarding weddings, even though nobody asked, imagine taking 150 friends out for a meal to pizza hut. You'd still be looking at £3000. Add 75 bottles of plonk for the tables and that'll be another £750.
Cheapest option would be the traditional buffet.
But again, nobody asked

[YeahWhatevver]

Only costs what you want it to cost.

I issue is more that an increasing number of today's young people want more than they can afford/ they should reasonably expect at the beginning of their lives:

Big house
Nice car(s)
Several holidays
Big wedding

[HillAreas]

Ours was about £10k all in.

That was with my dad dolling up a classic car he’s been rebuilding for the last 20 years, my mum doing the flowers, DH and I designed and printed our own invitations, didn’t go for the fanciest package at the venue, only 60 guests during the day, my dress was a bridesmaid dress for about £150, we skipped ridiculous favours and got charity pins instead, DHs photographer mate did mates rates, didn’t go on honeymoon at all, decorations were from amazon, make up artist was a wedding gift, cake was cut price by a woman DHs cousin knows...

Absolutely baffled at how we arrived at £10k to be honest. I could have done without it all, my favourite part of the day was our humanist ceremony and saying the vows we had written ourselves. It was just me and DH in the whole world and none of the rest of it mattered a damn.