To think £100 pp for a wedding is ridiculous

[Kab13]

Found a great venue for our wedding, you can stay all weekend with 34 of your guests in these beautiful houses for a reasonable price.
Got a quote for the lot yesterday and it amounts to £100 pp for breakfast dinner, canapés and a couple of drinks per guest.
Someone please tell me that it's just way too much? Because I love the venue but I can not bring myself to pay £14 for "six bites" of canapés pp and £50 PLUS VAT for ICE?!
Really annoyed that such a lovely venue has ruined itself for us by insisting you use this ridiculous caterer.
And yes, that is the "cheapest" package they offer!

We have 80 people for the wedding breakfast...we could do much more sensible things with that kind of money.

Here we go again with the mumsnet sad sacks tellig everyone that a big wedding is because you have a bad relationship.

FYI £3k 25 years ago is around £8k in today's money so for a start most were nt abstemious as they think they were. And secondly, WHAT is wrong with spending money on gathering your loved ones around you to make a commitment? (Which is what a wedding essentially is?) why is it less desirable than buying a big house? Research is increasingly showing that buying experiences has a much bigger positive impact on happiness than buying possessions - so why is a wedding such a bad thing to buy?

rant over

Thanks for everyone's input :)
It's great people have managed to have a great wedding day regardless of budget!
Interesting comment about how the cost of weddings determine how long your marriage lasts. My mum married my step father in a reg office on their own and they had a miserable marriage that lasted 6 months, my grandmother however married my grandfather for pennies and they were married for 60 years before she died.
I highly doubt there is any relevance there but again, thanks for the input :)

Five figures on one day is ridiculous.

Our wedding and honeymoon was £5000 and we did not scrimp nor did we have stupid unnecessary extras.

I read about a couple who married very soon after meeting and had a very small wedding. Still married decades later. Her daughter had everything. Marriage lasted 2 years.

Just as some people split once married after years of living together, and others after having band aid babies, if the relationship is wrong and the reasons for the marriage and babies are wrong, it won't last.

Just to clarify, I'm not spending £21,000 on one day.
I'm spending £8,00 on THREE days.
If I were to spend £18,000 on a car, on finance obviously because that's what everyone does will my marriage fall to sh*t?
I'm really concerned now z

Yes, it's way too much IMO. There are lots of other places you can have a stunning wedding without spending £20k. Keep looking.

We got various wedding brochures from hotels etc and it was amazing the range of prices. Half of them went straight in the bin because they were too expensive, but in the remainder there were some beautiful venues.

Its a rip off.

I think the logic is that couples who spend a fortune on the wedding and getting every aspect of it perfect are focussed on the wedding not the marriage. Couples who would rather put the money towards buying a house, long term savings or reducing debts are planning for the long term and therefore more committed to making it work.

Obviously if you can afford to spend more than many people earn in a year just on one event without it impacting on your future finances then you are living a very different life to most people.

I think the bit that is different here is that you are paying for everyone's accommodation which makes it more expensive. Most people getting married won't pay for accommodation for half of their guests let alone for 3 nights. The second solution sounds very good value as opposed to the first solution being ott expensive. Dorset can be very expensive, think London prices where £100 a head is pretty normal.

As someone who did a lot of silver service waitress work for weddings while at school a taxi home at 12/1am from some far flung venue is fairly standard stuff (well it was 20 years ago!). I think the caterers who quoted for that were being a bit too honest.

I would definitely consider a booze cruise to France to pick up your wine. We did this combined with a mini break and saved a fortune.

Good luck op. Venue 2 sounds absolutely lovely. Have a wonderful wedding!

Sorry op, just checked this.we got married at www.colehayes.co.uk/

OP we are paying 18k for exclusive use of a country house with a choice of 6 canapés, a high end (think lobster/beef) three course meal, champagne reception/toast, decent wine for the tables and silver service. This is for 100 guests.

We've also got accommodation for the closest family and friends for the weekend surrounding the wedding included in that price. Also included is the civil ceremony, wedding car and table arrangements as well as a wedding planner (as opposed to coordinator). I feel that we've got a reasonable deal as the food and wine we are having is outstanding (which I think makes it worth the money). IMO our food and drinks are easily "worth" £100 a head which means that the rooms/planner/cars etc. are £8k which I think is reasonable.

It does seem like crazy money IMO and we are lucky enough to have been funded by a very generous relative.

Ah posted too soon.

What I'm trying to say is that you're probably the best judge of whether it's a good deal or not e.g. Is the quality of the venue/food worth that price?

I think it it's a little overpriced, we had loads of children coming and I didn't really want a big fancy meal. I'm all up for good food and plenty of it etc but I would rather have spent the extra money on a decent band or something like that.
I think the good would be incredible but I have found someone who can do it's far cheaper.
I think it's the kind of venue that would have lots of extra charges you wouldn't expect and don't want a nasty surprise leading up to the wedding.
That £21,000 was just for the food, accommodation and venue. (Tables, chairs, drinks, cutlery, linnen etc inuded) but that's without the cKe, the dress, the suits, the bridesmaids etc it would be so pricey after all that.
She also said she had quoted us for a June wedding, we told her November so should imagine it's cheaper for November (she told us it would be).
So goodness knows, maybe I'll have a chat with her but I know the other venue I have in mind is better value for money!