AIBU.. To ask how much your wedding cost?

[LouBlue1507]

From what I've read, the average cost of a wedding is now £20,000-30,000! This can't be true surely? 😫

How much did your wedding cost? Any tips?

Thanks!

Was £8000 two years ago - that included venue for 75 people in Surrey, catering for the day, entertainment for the evening, etc

It was more than I'd hoped to spend but it was a good day in all, a memorable one. :)

May last year. Local family run hotel for venue (£7k for 3 course meal + eve buffet )with separate church ceremony (£500) 75 in day, an extra 50 at night - though got fined an extra £500 afterwards for guests sneaking in their own booze . 1 x wedding car (£600) photographer (£1k), flowers (£500) cake (£300) 2x young bridesmaids (£300), 6x hired formal ascot style suits (£700), my dress was £2k (inc £500 fitting cost), rings cost £900 each.

1st wedding: no idea, my parents paid. Full day do @ local hotel, ceremony, wedding breakfast, short rest period, evening disco & buffet. Probably 60 guests at the day and 100 at the evening. 19 years ago. I and exH were living abroad, my mum organised everything for us other than the initial registry office appointment and booking the hotel which we did before we went abroad. Dress was $750 Au, but then mum ended up having to pay duty on it when taking it back to UK. Honeymoon flights & hotel costs covered by our annual return flights package from work.

2nd wedding: last year. Actual wedding v v little - Registry office notices & fee for registry office room. Round of drinks and some nibbles in a pub across the road,

12k all in ten years ago. If I had my time again we'd have a few more people to the day & meal, different photographer and spend less on the honeymoon than we did (3k).

Cost of the registry...

Than dinner out with our 4 witnesses
£250.

It was fab!

We got married in December. It was about 10k I think. We could have done it cheaper but we got lots of extras etc, don't regret anything! :)

£30k wedding £6k honeymoon
Wanted to spend 20k.. ours wasn't extravagant but was in central London so the venue was expensive and the extras all added up!

About £10k, we did it in Vegas with 6 guests. That cost includes the 2 week holiday also.

About £3500 - £200 for ring and ceremony and lunch in China Town, £300 for a party for friends and £3000 on a 3 week honeymoon. The only photo we have is one taken by a friendly passerby on our camera.

£240 - yesterday!

Congratulations @Forkrightorf

Rather a lot. We stopped counting once it got to about £70k. I don't think it got much higher though. (I think the honeymoon was about another £9k). I am trying to remember how the cost escalated as it did. The venue was expensive and its hire was £18k, and that's before you even paid for any food or drink (and didn't include accommodation). We had 160 guests at the day and another 60 at the supper and dancing part, so I guess scale has something to do with it.

We had an open bar for 12 hours (although we provided all of the fizz ourselves and paid no corkage which saved a lot), an expensive caterer (our choice of suppliers in general was limited because of remote island location, and we had to spend a lot to make it worthwhile the caterers to come in from the city) and we also had to charter ferries to get guests to the location, which all added to expense. A lack of accommodation on the island itself meant we had to put on a booze cruise back to the mainland at the end of the night. At the time I worked in the music industry, and was a bit over-invested in getting the music right, and so a lot of the budget (about 10k) went on the music. We also paid for the accommodation of immediate family (for two nights). It just all mounted.
Not everything was OTT. My outfit was less than £1k and I did my own make up and we didn't have cars.
The marriage lasted two years. Oh the benefit of hindsight.

(this was 12 years ago btw.)

Aww, congratulations, Forkrightorf!!

Thanks for the congrats! We loved it and would repeat it in a heartbeat although these v expensive weddings do sound amazing - maybe in another life!

50 day guests

150 evening guests

Hotel package including room dressing, ceremony, wedding breakfast, then Dj and buffet at night.

Package itself was £6000 plus £1000 extras we added on like fancy lighting and decorative stuff.

Another £4k was spent on my dress and shoes, husbands suit and shoes, plus outfits for all of the wedding party (8 people), cost of the actual ceremony, favours, gifts for wedding party etc.

I was aiming for no more than 10k all in, so we didn't go massively over budget, but it really doesn't have to be as expensive as some people make out.

About £200 - Vegas wedding, Inc Elvis, 12 photos and a video. We were on holiday for almost 3 weeks though (Chicago, San Francisco, Vegas, Yosemite) so spent maybe £4000 all told.

About £500 (Registry office in Scotland followed by Steak for all guests and short stay in a hotel).

We married in 2011, the whole day cost around £2000, my dress (which I HATED) was the most expensive item at £300.

We married at the town hall and had a 'do' at the local cricket club with about 100 guests, had caterers and did our own decorations (well I did them...)

It was a lovely day, the only thing I wish was different is that I wish I'd not bothered with the dress but my mum paid and she insisted I wear a proper wedding dress... So I couldn't really say no.

Weddings don't have to cost mega bucks (obviously if you can afford it then spend as much as you want, not judging at all). It's all about the act of getting married to the love of your life, whether that be in your local registry office followed by a fish supper or in a castle followed by a banquet - just do what ever makes you happy

A lot!! Best day ever. I still think about it almost every day. My wedding looked like something out of a bridal magazine.

I always used to judge people who spent extortionate amounts on their wedding but once you try to get married on a reasonable budget yourself, you realise all the little costs add up. Unless you're willing to give up a lot of the usual traditions it is not easy to do it on a budget.

A fairly modest barn venue in my area quoted us £6k for the reception and food just for 50 guests - not even a massive wedding! We found somewhere more affordable in the end.

The problem with this question is that people will include different things in their amount. I'm not sure if everyone is including the cost of wedding rings count as part of the wedding cost, and what about engagement rings? Did your wedding party pay for their own dresses and suit hire and is this included in the amounts people are giving? All this stuff adds up and makes a it difference so someone's £3k wedding might have cost double that amount if they forgo to include all these other costs.

Church wedding itself: about £250
Reception venue and food for 50 people: about £3k
Dress, suits etc for bride, groom, bridesmaids etc: over £2k total
Flowers: £100
Photographer £300
Cake: £50
Jazz band: £1k
Wedding rings: £1200

I can't remember all the other details but I'm sure if you added it all up it would come to at least £10k. As you can see we splurged on some things (dress, jazz band, rings) and went cheap on others (photographer, cake, flowers). If we hadn't got friends to do the cake and photography, and if we'd spent more decorating the venue, that's already another £2k or so added to the cost! To be honest I can easily see how it ends up adding up to £20k or more for some people.

I find some people really naive about costs though - I've got friends who claim they'll have a cheap simple wedding with a marquee in a field or back garden and a BBQ or hog roast. They don't realise that approach can easily end up costing thousands and you have to hire bloody everything from the marquee to the cutlery to the chairs and god knows what else!

😑 12k for the legal wedding, 100k for the celebration after (abroad- paid for guests travel).

However, after his latest infidelity it looks like the divorce will cost him more though 🙃

HarryTheHippo

No idea what my girls will do as we certainly won't have more than that kind of money to help them

Why not they pay for it themselves? I have been nc with my parents since I was sixteen and DH is also nc with his parents, we paid for it ourselves out of savings (excepting what my ex DP paid for as a present for me). We already had a house and it made DH extremely happy to have a big fairytale wedding, he still loves looking through the photos and reminiscing now quite a few years down the line

including the cost of wedding rings count as part of the wedding cost I included them in mine. We paid £400 for them and paid them over a year.

what about engagement rings? We don't have them.

Did your wedding party pay for their own dresses and suit hire? Ours was a very informal wedding and I didn't have any bridesmaids. Dh had a best man and his and dh's suit were hired together at a cost of about £200.

I did forget to include flowers but my mum and her friend went to a local flower arrangement wholesaler and bought them really cheaply. My mum's friend made the bouquet and the buttonholes. We didn't have any table flowers or other decorations.

We paid ourselves but it was only a grand!

They certainly will be paying themselves but can't imagine they'd afford more th a n we would. Their generation will have huge student debts, ridiculous house prices. Not sure a 20 grand wedding will happen!