To feel uneasy about spending 30k on a wedding

[Kab13]

Posted before about a NYE wedding.
The venue has doubled in price. £5,500 for use of a mill, from 12 noon until 1am.
This would to be expected if they were hiring staff etc, but it's JUST for the venue.
The catering comes in a £2,546 for 80 guests. It's not that bad at all really. (IMO)
However from the start we've decided it's fairer to put our guests up at a local hotel ( premier inn) if we choose NYE, i don't think it's fair to expect people to pay either very expensive taxi fairs home (a lot of people are traveling) or to pay for a hotel and taxi fairs to a hotel.
We found a huge cottage, we wanted to hire this for 38 of our close family members and that's come in very pricey too as we have to hire it for 3 days over NYE. but that part, spending a couple of days with my loved ones was so important.
But, totalled it all up and it's about 22k BEFORE photography, linen, cutlery and crockery hire, flowers, invitations AND honeymoon.
I can see this costing 30k, and that is something that makes me feel guilty for.
A huge amount of that money is being spent on accommodation for our guests (6k and 80 guests inc children) but is feel unreasonable expecting others to cough up for it.
It's so much money but dp is set on NYE now.
Let the flamings begin.

I would re-think everything - how set are you on that location - that day - can you afford to really pay hotel bill for your guests ( we did this - for one couple as IL had told them they could stay with us without checking - it wasn't worth a thank you - it was a posh hotel and they still complained about the room and food) - those caterers are there cheaper options. Could you have the reception in you own house/garden in summer with a marquee ?

Seriously - you would be better off paying the small mortgage off - then no-one can take the house from you what ever happens.

Life throws curved balls - we bought our first house - went from 40 + grand in bank to two years and a lot of expensive stuff latter - having no income as DH was made redundant and my contact hadn't been renewed and very little in savings.

It's one day verses having a financial cushion for the future.

If you want to do it - good luck - but I would re-think - perhaps set lower budget and see what compromises that would bring and think would it really matter to you on the day -and in the following years.

Our wedding cost just under 20k. We got totally sucked into all that shit about providing our friends and family with an amazing day. Honestly, people will still feel the same with or without a free bar, hotels, transport that you lay on. Our wedding day was a huge waste of money actually, and given we hadn't bought a house at that point i really wish we'd been more sensible and spent the money on the house. The wedding 'industry' in the UK is OBSCENE.

A wedding day is just that - ONE day, a big party. The lasting important thing is our marriage and honestly, once the wedding is over you sort of 'get that' into perspective a bit more. We could have had the same amazing result of being married for a lot less money if we hadn't bought into the 'industry' and guilt of beibg great 'hosts'.

That's 2 years wages for a person on minimum wage

We ended up with a very small wedding - as I refused to lose the deposit for the house I'd spent years savings - we paid for the wedding ourselves.

We still ended up going over our small budget - for crap in the end everyone forgot about. People hear wedding and they do tag on x amount more.

Have you really discounted a wedding aboard - and big party for everyone later ( when wedding isn't mentioned so don't get x amount added on? ) It wasn't for us -but it' a common way of doing it round here.

If money - including guest accommodation! - were no object NYE isn't an ideal date for a wedding for guests - childcare, weather risks, peak time for illnesses, people will need to take time off work (NYE not a bank holiday), eats into time when a lot of people visit family or friends. Even with the best laid plans sometimes wedding days aren't that enjoyable for the couple, and spending such a lot could pile on pressure.

The mill sounds like bad value for money.

£30k could be invested in the place you live, pay your DD's way through uni or help her get a property, or help with your living costs when older. It doesn't sound like you can afford to spend that much. Also agree with others that DP should contribute a much higher proportion of the wedding costs.

I assume you can afford it, so its really a question of whether you want it.

Will you really enjoy a £30k day, or will you be left feeling slightly grubby and ridiculous and that it was all OTT?

If the former, then fine. If the latter, time to change plans. You don't want to look back at your wedding and think god that was ridiculous and feel embarrassed or annoyed at the amount you spent.

Your call really!

Hope you have a lovely day whatever you decide.

I think you're mad to go for NYE.

I'm in the wedding industry and I can tell you from experience that neither your suppliers or your guests are going to be delighted by that choice of date. Although some suppliers will massively inflate their prices, it is a nightmare for them to get staff (or to get taxis for their staff to get there / home). And many guests will want to be spending the time with their friends and family, not yours (except for your very closest family of course who may well be very happy)

It's a wonderful fantasy to imagine that on the point of midnight all your family and friends will all be there with you cheering and toasting your health, your happiness and your new marriage. But some of them may have had difficult things during the year, bereavements or illness or relationship breakdown, and they may have wanted to spend the time more quietly reflect on the year that has gone, or making their own personal resolutions for the new year.

Start again. Write down the elements that you really really want your wedding to have (only the crucial ones, not the 'oh but it would be nice' ones), and get your fiance to do the same. Then take it from there.

Oh, and in the nicest possible way, ignore what other people tell you you must do, even your mothers. Don't feel that the whole thing has to be free to guests-it's completely normal to have to pay for drinks, travel and accommodation to attend a wedding. People expect it and as long as the price isn't exorbitant, they don't mind. If you subsidise it a little, your guests will think you have been very generous.

Remember, some people will complain whatever you do. You can't please everyone, don't try and it will drive you both mad.

Haven't read the whole thread op, but you are clearly in 2 minds about this so please don't do it. Not everyone pays for guest accommodation but even so you are still talking about 24 which is a lot.

Weddings on MN are like the famous chicken of 1000 dinners. Everyone did theirs for 10p.

I think the NYE thing is a bad idea. Weddings are expensive enough without having them on the most expensive day of the year. Spring would be cheaper.

Also is your dad's inheritance paying for the whole thing? Is your Dd also your dh's dd? I would feel really guilty spending that kind of money on a day when you could be helping out dd.

I think in your heart of hearts you know it's too much money. Good luck with your decision

Cherry pick what you want. If NYE is important (and I think it's a great day for a wedding) then do that but don't pay for the guests' accommodation. If it's more important to you that you do pay for them, then do so but don't have it on NYE.

Work out what matters to you and what doesn't.

It's not the spending of the money that makes me think yabu. It's the fact you yourself are uneasy about this.

Seriously, even if you have the best time ever and never need that £30k back, that unease will stay with you for a long long time.

A couple of thoughts that may or may not help:

• the Mill is ripping you off, seriously. Have you checked other venues? If so, I would show interest in two venues and try to barter them down against each other
• a cottage for 38 people is fine to hire, if you want that snug family feeling, But rooms for everyone else - really, really, don't bother. You should be able to negotiate a group discount anyway at any hotel, which will help guests. Or could you organise coach drop-off to make it easy transport-wise? Everyone knows and expects that they have to pay accommodation or taxi fare when they go to a wedding or NyE party. Consider this - if they went to a NyE party they wouldn't,t expect anyone to pay for their taxi for them!
• stinge on flowers (just get Christmas foliage, nothing exotic or hothouse), invites (email is fine) etc, but don't stinge on a photographer. Negotiate a deal where they cover the wedding but get to leave early before the food/dancing, they should charge less. Amateur photos of raucous dancing is fine, but you can't substitute for professional shots for the actual ceremony itself.

Could I suggest a New Year's Day wedding or 2nd Jan?

At the risk of outing myself we got married on New Year's Day. It saved us a fortune. Venues are empty because everyone has been out on New Year's eve and they are therefore cheap, venues are also still decorated after Christmas with lots of fairy lights and candles everywhere so you save on that too. Plus next year New year's day is a Friday and so people don't have to go to work on the saturday.

If you pay for accommodation you're crazy.

£30k is a crazy amount to spend. Even if you're both very high earners its a lot of money.

I would avoid midweek because that ends up costing people in having to take annual leave.

Wow 30k, your wedding will be amazing

I think we could do the same wedding, with out the accomodation, midweek (Thursday) for 10k.
Still a lot I know.
It's mainly family so think they'd be fine about taking 1 day annual leave.

OP - we spent in total, including honeymoon, £20k 7 years ago. I don't regret it at all, however, we didn't have any DC at that point and easily afforded it (those were the days!).

In that, we only paid for the hotel rooms for ourselves, the best man and bridesmaid. Everyone else sorted themselves out or went home. I have been to a wedding or two where accomodation was paid for, but not in a hotel (more they hired a stately home with rooms and we got one) and that's 2 out of the 40+ weddings I've been to, including 4 in other countries.

You are being over generous offering to pay for all the rooms. But if you want to do that, then I think you need to change the date and venue so the costs are more reasonable.

If you want winter wedding, go for the end of January, it'll be a lot cheaper and you won't be clashing with guests already having plans. (But avoid February as prices go back up for Valentines day).

If you are going to put people up, give up on the Mill, and look for hotels, there are a lot of stately home hotel types that will let you do exclusive use, that means you will get the rooms at a massively discounted price - and effectively not pay venue hire as you are paying for B&B for everyone.

Alternatively again, go for a hotel type venue, book just hotel rooms for you and your main wedding party, then they will normally give a discount code for other people chosing to stay over - let your guests sort that out for themselves.

In my experience, those lovely Mill type venues and up being the most expensive weddings, hotels are set up with catering on site, hotel rooms on site and you are effectively getting a discount for booking several elements together from the same supplier (the hotel), even if the 'package' cost looks very high compared to just the venue hire for places like Mills/large houses/barns/museums. As you've started to realise, the extras like linen and corkage, bar staff etc add up. That's 'all in' for most hotel deals, or at least can be haggled to be included compared to having ot get that externally.

Back to the drawing board. If you say were you are in the country and rough numbers, I bet we could find you venues to give you a real "wow!" day for well under a £15k budget for end of Jan 2016.

oh X post, are you sure it would only be 1 day's leave? I've been to a few Thursday weddings, you need to take the Friday off as well if you are staying over (and having a few drinks!) - it also changes the tone as a lot of people who haven't booked the Friday off leave early (so 10:30ish) rather than stay dancing until Midnight.

Look at other dates and haggle hard.

We have looked at some hotels, I always find the rooms are amazing, accommodation is really good but the room you get married in is a bit makeshift. I'm not anti it but think id rather go to a reg office then have the ceremony at any of the hotels here.
I live in Dorset.
We looked at The Lord Bute in Christchurch, the rooms were lovely but they sort of crammed a space for a ceremony at the back of the reception room.
We have 80 guests (15 are children)

True, the mill is £2795 for a Saturday wedding in jan.
I found an absolutely beautiful venue in bath. The assembly rooms. Was the same price as the mill and truly breathtaking. They insist on specific caterers, cheapest package was £57pp + vat.
Always seems to be the way with the "cheaper" venues

TBF, the assembly rooms in Bath are rather famous, so can afford to bump you up on other costs - Jane Austin fans will pay it!

(I have been to a wedding at the assembly rooms, they didn't get much change from about £40k and that was about 5 years ago)

I don't know Dorset very well, I'd suggest you google 'hotels dorset wedding' or 'stately home hotels dorset' and see what venues you get, looking at the rooms, remember if you are going ot be paying more like £6-7k all in for room hire, linen, food and your hotel room, you could spend a little more on flowers and decoration to make the ceremony rooms look more 'wow'. (and once they are full of flower displays, chairs with white covers etc, often the plainest rooms can look far more impressive).

I'm not getting why you would have to do it midweek? Why not on a weekend? It's much more convenient and inevitably a midweek wedding requires more than one day of annual leave.

I'm with all those who say that to spend 30K on a wedding is nuts. Also, paying for guests accommodation is unnecessary. If your family is anywhere as awkward as mine (although lovely at the same time), I'd be worried you'd end up dropping 30K and then catching them moaning about how it wasn't what they expected.

Weekday weddings are cheaper. That's all.
I'm not surprised they managed to spend 40k, I can see how it'd be easy.
The catering would cost us 7k and 3k for hire of the rooms. Not sure what other charges there are as I didn't look into it further after realising the catering cost !

Mary - that was where SIL's DB got married I think summer before last at Assembly Rooms... it was very sad as the bride's father was dying of cancer so I think cost was no expense spared for him.

I am still gulping at the prices though. its a gorgeous venue but only a venue...

My wedding cost around 13k. It was lovely and we had the money, but looking back I wish we'd spent less and done other things with some of that money. I also wanted a Christmas wedding, but went for a date in January instead as it was a lot cheaper.

I think NYE is a bad idea TBH. You'll cut your costs a lot just by changing the date.

OP - if you want another nice venue what about Kilver Court Somerset (near Wells and Mulberry area)?

My SIL and DB got married there, stunning. Plenty of hotels, barns etc for guest to stay at.

the Dove Cote is a wedding venue there (but tiny) - they got married instead inside (as pouring with rain).

If you can afford it comfortably, DO IT
enjoy having the time with your family
take lots of informal pictures
have a laugh