To not want to spend £30+ on wedding? How much did you spend and where?

[orangeclock]

My partner and I have 2 children and are approaching 10 years together. We haven't married yet because we just haven't got around to it. We feel married already but think it would be wise to make things legal. We'd like to get married next year with about 150-200 guests, and we want to do something fairly lovely in a beautiful venue with a sit down meal.

Can I ask where you got married, how many guests, and how much did you spend?

I have looked at a couple of lovely venues but they cost out at £30,000 plus with the catering! We just don't want to spend such a huge chunk of money.

£20,000 would probably be our limit and I still think that's a small fortune.

We can't escape the sit down meal - older family would expect it. I also would like a really lovely venue and a good photographer.

We're happy to skimp on cake, cars, honeymoon, simple decorations, getting married off season and maybe mid week. Also starting later in the day so it's not an all day celebration.

I would really appreciate hearing your wedding experiences and any tips for not spending an absolute fortune! Thank you.

orangeclock -

Whether you spend £300 or £30,000, everyone gets the same deal - a day with family and you end up married. :)

My wedding cost £3.5k for 50 people for a civil ceremony next to the sea, including my dress & other expenses. Are you sure you really want to spend that much on one day?

A breakdown:

Food and venue hire costs £2400 (including canapés, 3 course sit down meal and buffet). Weekday last minute (within 6 months) booking - saved us a huge amount of money.

DJ's - provided by the venue

£90 - wedding dress I bought on Ebay imported from China. Absolutely stunning and out did anything I saw in the wedding shops! TKMaxx also had some stunning dresses for reasonable prices. Honestly you should see them, absolutely beautiful - you would not be able to guess the price of them!

£15 wedding shoes - TKMaxx in their sale

£250 Registrar cost - married on a weekday to save on fees

Wedding Cake - stand was provided by the wedding venue, my parents made the cake and my mum did the flowers for me.

Car - I have a nice car so I was happy to use my own.

Overnight stay - we were given a complimentary bridal suite for the night by the venue. All other table decorations, seat covers etc were all provided by the venue.

Photographer - £300, probably would recommend spending a little more than that!

£100 on bridesmaid dresses

£200 on kilt hire.

Definitely shop around on venues, look for mid week and last minute deals. Spending more doesn't necessarily mean nicer or better. Think of all the amazing things you could do with £20k...

If you're considering a destination wedding as a possibility, can I suggest the Scottish Highlands? Advantages are:

--Short haul flight or a few hours on the train.

--Laws that give you more flexibility about where/when how you get married. We managed to effectively have the civil ceremony we wanted without all the "you can't have any religious references, however remote" crap you get south of the border.
--Stunning scenery, great choice of venues

IMO the thing that is bumping up your cost is the size of the guest list. Are these 200 people friends or family? We had an immediate-family-only wedding, then threw a party at restaurant later in the year for friends (and didn't mention the W word to the owner when booking). Everyone had a fab time, and it didn't break the bank.

£7k two years ago.

Made all my invites, favours and decorations. Local lady who does flower arranging as a hobby did flowers (4 bouquets, 4 big arrangements, 4 little and 30 button holes in seasonal tulips £300). Dress from Monsoon (£300), BM dresses from eBay (3x £50), suits hired. Family friend drove me in posh BMW. Two cakes (1 became the desert, other from M&S). Private hire of venue, 60 sit down, hog roast for 100 in evening. Day was amazing, warm and sunny in March! only disappointment was the dj was terrible.

When we got married we had a marquee in the neighbours field, had a sit down for 50 and then a lovely cheesy disco with chilli or curry in bowls und the trees. Everyone said it was the most relaxed wedding they'd ever been to. My cousin did the flowers, mine and the bridesmaids dresses came from monsoon, dh's jacket cost more than all of them (4bridesmaids......) because he went to a tailor but that still wasnt the cost of hiring a full morning suit...

If we got married again we would go here
the-barnyard.com/
We love going there for days out and I just think it would a really fun wedding, in the country, you can go and see the pigs and reindeers in your dress, there are loads of things for the kids to do, the food is brilliant and I get the impression you would be really well looked after.
I have no idea what it costs it they may be worth having a look at??

Oh I should have said that our evening reception was for £200 and we spend £5k in total

I got married 8 years ago - cost £8K including honeymoon and apparently the cost of a written off car (according to DH, only he never deducted the insurance payout. Humph!)

It's cheaper to marry in a church than a hired room in the hotel/stately home etc. it's even cheaper to marry in a registry office. We baked the favours (cookies), made the invites and then went to wedding shows and bartered prices down.

We also got married on a Friday 13th. The date made it even cheaper - stately home dropped its price by 50% because they couldn't get rid of the date as neither could suppliers like cars etc. I also had my dress made as I had a bolt of silk and it cost £300 to make stead of £2K. The car got written off whilst driving to a fitting hence DH being an arse about adding it to the budget.

My BIL got married abroad - v nice, v hungover but ill or elderly members off the family like FIL and both grannies couldn't make it and were missed.

Were abouts are you? My friend hires her lawn out to people getting married so you can put a marquee up and sort the catering and drinks yourself- that way you're not tied to hotel prices.
Our Saturday church wedding was at 3pm, had a marquee at my parents. Canapés were served while guests drank pimms and the main course and dessert were sit down. My mum made our cake, a family friend sorted flowers, a friend of my sisters did the photography and a friend of the family did the cars. Our wedding did cost about £20k but the drinks bill came to around £6k (and we'd got hardy's wine on offer from tescos at £3 a bottle!). On the plus side guests didn't have to pay for a single drink!

Have a look and see if you can find anywhere that just hires out space for you to do what you want with!

8 years ago my dd's wedding cost less than £10000 that was a beautiful country church wedding with a reception in a marquee in a field. The caterers were excellent and the hired portaloos were so luxurious that my small dgd was asking everyone if they had seen the posh toilets!
£10000 covered flowers and dresses as well as the wedding. The music at the reception was by friends as were the photographs. It can be done-there were 120 guests and the meal was a Mediterranean buffet with 'lazy susan' serving things on each table + extras on a long table.

From reading your post carefully OP you say you want to get married because you have two children and want to make things legal. Well, why can't you do just that - local registry office, two witnesses, legal marriage. Job done. Then a few days/weeks later you hold a huge party to celebrate your 10 years together and your life so far in a beautiful venue - possibly on a Sunday afternoon into the evening. That should shave about £15k off the bill I think.

Personally, I think there is massive confusion nowadays between wanting a marriage and wanting a wedding with the real reason for the wedding lost in the commercial dream.

I was also going to suggest Oxbridge colleges fathereboola. But they're not generally licenced to do the ceremony unless you have a connection (not them being stroppy, they don't tend to have civil licences and they need to apply to the Archbishop of Canterbury for a special licence to use the chapel).

I know this because we did it. £8k all in, 120 people straight through. Service, drinks and patisserie on the garden by the river, sit down meal. Pay bar afterwards. I got my dress second hand for about a third of the price. No cars and no favours. Bridesmaids in off the peg dresses.

Basically we got an amazing venue for nothing (husband's former college, but v cheap even if not) and spent mostly on food and drink. The champagne was cheaper than retail!

This thread is practically annoying wedding bingo - so far you've mentioned midweek wedding, having the wedding in a random UK location and having it abroad (we're just missing child free, annoying poem asking for money instead of gifts and compulsory colour scheme). All of these things make it cheaper for the Bride and Groom but make things way more expensive and difficult for the guests. The wedding will be more expensive in total because all of your guests will have to spend a small fortune to go. The only thing guests care about when it comes to venue is how easy it is to get to. If you do any of these things then a lot of people won't go - it will easily halve your guestlist for you.

We got maried 12 years ago, reg office and had about 25 people then in laws had a party for us at their house with about 40 people, think we spend about £1000 max and I would do it again in a second. Infact we plan to renew our vows at Gretna Green at some point.

Eek, sorry for the spelling, 2 yr old DS sitting on me.

We got married 22 years ago and it cost us £3.5k - I know this because I've been clearing out drawers and found all the bumph! We were married in church and then got cars to the local posh hotel that had beautiful gardens for the photos - sit down meal for 75 followed by disco & buffet for 150. Mum & Dad paid for photos as a wedding prezzie and FIL paid the bar bill ditto.

My BIL got married here a few years ago and I don't think it was too expensive. Beautiful place and a lovely day.

You make a good point, Queen. I think it's easy to make a wedding seem more inexpensive when it's actually not, what you've done is just ask other people to shoulder the burden and the cost/time/energy for you. For example, my sister did my flowers which kept our wedding 'cost' down, but the sacrifice on her part was huge - researching all the flowers, driving to all the wholesale places, making bouquets etc.

I don't think it's a bad idea at all to ask people to help, I think by and large people want to, but it's probably worth remembering that if you're not paying then someone else might be!

Check out venues that are owned and run by the local authority.

For example our local councils own the elegant Hylands House and the rather special Poplars Hall among many others. They aren't dirt cheap to hire, but they may well be licensed for ceremonies (or have the ceremony at the register office first) and because they don't include the hire of any services you can shop around for your caterers to get the best deal for your money on food and wine etc. I had some friends who hired a hall like this and asked the local indian restaurant to cater the food - which was amazing.

I got married where I live in Spain, we had about 90 guests and it cost 18k with me doing loads myself like making invites etc.

Lots of places have cheaper deals for weekday weddings, one of the hotel groups (sorry I can't remember which but someone else might) were doing a 3k wedding deal, possibly Britannia hotels? A couple of years ago, worth seeing if they still do similar.

I got married 17 years ago for 5k. I had 40 guests for service and sit down meal with wine and another 35 for buffet and party in the evening. I wished I had been able to provide a free bar but had only just graduated 2 months before and brought first house 5 weeks before so no extra money. Still we had a lovely day.

£750 20+ years ago, 26 people. Posh restaurant, simple and quick photos (I never look at them).

Our wedding cost us the price if the church cannot remember how much that was, but would not be a lot . Wore a dress I had , DH had a suit , we walked to church. Went to the local for a pint and a meal, everyone bought their own .

Our wedding cost 25,000.. we were gifted the wedding car, cake and dress alterations. It is nuts. We had 200 people for five course meal and half a bottle of wine each.
A good way to cut down though is to not offer a choice for the meal (of course need veggie option but not two or three meat options).
Was at a wedding where the cake was the dessert. I think spend your money on a good photographer though and band is important.

Look hard at your guest list. Dont invite 'duty' guests, you will be doing yourselves and them a favour!

Remember there is no such thing as a free wedding cake (see MN threads passim).

I would disagree about not offering choice for food unless you are happy that you know what your guests will want to eat on that particular day.

We offered our guests nowt other than a pew. They were quite happy , or too scared to say otherwise