To ask how much your wedding cost??

[Anxiousanne01]

Was it a big or small affair and did you have any/much financial support from parents/ family?

nannyafrica that sounds amazing.

Around £30k in 2007, 5* Hotel for 60 guests. Paid for by parents.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if there was a correlation between the amount of money spent on a wedding and divorce rate,

I can't get my head round the huge prices. If I was to get married again I would want a proper wedding and love the idea of going abroad to do it but my cousin paid 40k 26 years ago for a local church and fancy hall and accessories and it was all a bit meh. It was nice but not worth the cost.
Different strokes for different folks I guess.

There's not a correlation, IMO, between how good a wedding is and the cost of it. I've been to brilliant weddings that were v cheap, and brilliant weddings that cost tens of thousands.

It's the people and the atmosphere that make it - I can't remember the seat covers, wedding favours, flowers, or even what we ate in most cases. But I remember if people were having fun, and who I spent the day with.

The two worst weddings I've ever been to included one small do at a register office followed by a Chinese restaurant (racist best man, rude guests, fraught atmosphere, all done by 8pm as nobody was having fun) and a £50k+ flash do in the Home Counties (hideously long hanging about, rude bride, awful food, drinks ran out by 5pm, ended literally in tears. The bride's tears).

I think what *maidofstars" was saying is that she thinks there is more chance of staying together if you have an expensive wedding. ie doing weddings cheaply more often result in divorce.

About £200. Had lived together for 10 years and as there was issues with certain family members at the time, we decided to just sneak off and do it quietly followed by a couple of nights in a gorgeous little hotel in Scotland. Still together and happy 18 years on. I've been to some amazing (expensive) weddings of friends and would never judge people on how much they choose to spend - everyone is different.

Actually there is a correlation between £££ spent on a wedding and likelihood of divorce - there have been lots of studies on this - loads of them online but this is one (link to The Independent). I had to write a thesis on the subject years ago.

Common sense tells me you're not more likely to divorce just because you spent a lot on your wedding - but I suppose the people out there who were more focused on 'the big day' and didn't give enough thought to actually being married afterwards, are more likely to have gone mad with the spending than those who just knew wanted to be married...

We didn't spend much on ours (approx £2k) and looking back, we probably didn't put as much thought or planning into the day as we could have. But we had a blast, it was stress-free, and honestly, lots of our friends still talk about it being the best wedding they've ever been to

I can't get my head around the huge budgets either, or how many people had significant parental contributions. (Mine cost £300 three years ago.) But actually it illuminates all the Bridezilla/wedding stress/interfering family threads on here - if (unless you are wealthy) so many people are prepared to spend £20 or £30 k on a wedding as a matter of course, then it suggests you do, absolutely, subscribe to the Most Important Day of Your Lives idea, thus explaining the stress, planning, guest list dilemmas, schedules, dieting, childfree or child-friendly etc. Whereas I never thought getting married was at all important, it was a practical step.

It also explains something about the (to me) bizarre levels of annoyance expressed on that 'getting married in jeans' thread, which I was baffled by at the time.

Can I ask about planning and the sheer amount of work that goes into organising these weddings? Did you do it all, and if so, how much regular time did you put into it? Or does £20 k buy a planner who does it all?

I wouldn't feel comfortable spending so much on a wedding. The same way as I wouldn't want a Jeremy Clarkson type car.
It seems so wasteful.

fourtothedozen

Perhaps you didn't read on. Or you don't understand what I mean by correlation.

So less of the please. I've not once denied that there might be a correlation (although I don't know which way it might swing - I have my own thoughts and predictions). I objected to your implication that the correlation would be expensive wedding = higher divorce rate (and please don't bother denying that's what you were trying to imply).

Any actual answer to some of the points I raised? Without looking it up (I assume the data exists), what do you think?

TBH I also struggle to get my head around the amounts spent.

I think lots of people think 'wedding' and that it has to mean ceremony followed by drinks, followed by sit down meal for 100s, followed by evening do in a venue with more food for 100s. That's without the cost of the big dress, bridesmaid dresses, etc.

What is a shame is that you can tick all those boxes, spend ££££ and end up with a perfectly 'nice' boring wedding that is exactly the same as any other wedding you've been to.

I would like to see the whole 'wedding industry' shaken up a bit and for people to do things a bit differently. Maybe I should start a business

to your implication that the correlation would be expensive wedding = higher divorce rate (and please don't bother denying that's what you were trying to imply).

I will deny - because I said nothing of the kind.

It is you who are suggesting that spending more on a wedding leads to a more successful marriage.

I think what maidofstars was saying is that she thinks there is more chance of staying together if you have an expensive wedding. ie doing weddings cheaply more often result in divorce

Eh? I wasn't saying anything of the kind. Do you know the difference between "cause" and "correlation"?

I was speculating as to possible reasons for a primary correlation between socioeconomic status and divorce rate, and for a primary correlation between socioeconomic status and cost of wedding. Thus, there may be a secondary correlation between cost of wedding and divorce rate.

If you read my post, you'd see I could come up with two (plausible) reasons why expensive weddings might correlate with lower divorce rates and why cheaper weddings might correlate with lower divorce rates.

As I don't know how the divorce rates divide among socioeconomic status, I can't possibly reach a conclusion that "couples have more chance of staying together if they have an expensive wedding", which would, in any case, be a false conclusion because it's mistaking cause for correlation.

It is you who are suggesting that spending more on a wedding leads to a more successful marriage

No I didn't. Please tell me where I said that.

Ours was £11000 including a few nights away in London afterwards, we had 24 people to the ceremony and sit down meal, then a big party at the night with a band, money behind the bar and invited an additional 150 people.

fishwives I can't speak for anyone else but for me (details upthread but basically £20k "big" wedding) dh proposed at the start of august, we were married by mid-November. very little stress, met with the lady from the venue a couple of times to talk about food and booze, everything else was one appointment each - flowers, dress, etc. just emailed the photographer and dj.

maybe the short time frame we gave ourselves helped in that we couldn't get caught up in the detail? certainly the venue was surprised when I called them and said I wanted to get married within a few months, when I first spoke to them, they assumed I was talking about the following year.

+1 to the statistic that the more you spend the more likely you are to divorce.

I get married in 4 weeks!

The day is coming in at around 18k in total, my parents insisted they pay so we've let them go as wild as they want to. I am their only daughter and they want to do this.

It's an exclusive use barn (very posh) with 90 day guests, 150 for the evening, 3 bridesmaids, one flower girl and 2 page boys. I even have a harpist.

Me and DP have paid for the registrar, the rings and the suits, them everything else.

I'm rather excited.

I think the short time frame influenced the spending on my wedding too.
We decided and married within a month.

That said I don't think it contributed to him getting someone else pregnant while married to me.

I even went to work in the morning of my wedding, married in the afternoon, back to work the next day.

5,000 including honeymoon and accommodation for all the family for the week around the wedding. We had it in Cornwall and it was perfect. Pretty simple, no silly extras like favours or ushers but we did have fireworks on the beach and they were fab.

Four, I'll raise you. I went to work in the morning, took the tube to the registry office for a noon/ 12.30 wedding, had tapas and champagne with our witnesses, and I went back to work about 6. Admittedly, I was researching in the BL, not a neurosurgeon or operating machinery, and I probably just ordered some books in a slightly drunken way and went home after an hour...

Great fishwives.

I was only with my husband for 6 months after the wedding unfortunately.