I know I am bu, engaged and now upset

[sailorcherries]

So yesterday OH proposed and I said yes, it was a lovely start to a lovely day.

We started talking about a wedding and agreed on summer 2019, winter 2019 or summer 2020. I teach which really narrows down available dates, if I want a few days off before and after the wedding, and unfortunately puts any potential wedding right in peak times.

We quickly realised that we probably can't afford to get married in the way we want. Having tallied up guests there is close to 100 adults and 10 children, all of who are close and not the equivalent of a great aunt twice removed. In our dates we're looking at over £7000 for a reception alone. Evening guests put that up to almost £7500 and then there are still all the other costs. We're looking at almost £12,000 for ceremony fees, dress, flowers; kilt hire; photographer etc as a base line. In our area the average wedding is almost double and there are no nice country pubs etc. We'd have to travel quite a bit and are concious of our guests traveling. I looked at almost all venues in a 25 mile radius.
We earn a good wage but cannot justify spending that when we have two kids and bills.

We then came to an impasse.
I suggested a small wedding abroad but OH doesn't want to ask his parents to pay.
OH suggested a small wedding here then bigger reception, I thought that was cheeky as almost half our guests would need an overnight and we couldn't ask that of them for an evening only invite.
We both suggested a small wedding here but then realised both families would want and expect those 100 odd adults to come and we're back to square one.
I suggested eloping but he, understandably, wants his family there.
We looked at mid week weddings but don't want to inconvenience our guests.
He then suggested waiting 3-4 years before planning but, imo, you get engaged to get married you don't get engaged to sit around.

We're not looking for an extravagant wedding, we are just in the unfortunate position whereby we are mid earners, limited dates and high outgoings. We also want to do right by our guests and that makes things trickier.

It seems as if we'll never agree, one of us will not get what we want and it very quickly put a dampner on a happy moment.

I know iabu, please tell me to put my big girl pants on and/or make money saving suggestions?

We both suggested a small wedding here but then realised both families would want and expect those 100 odd adults to come and we're back to square one.
Yep, as already said, that's tough that's it. Who are those 100 odd adults? Unless you both have 10 siblings, and so do your parents, then these 100 people can't possibly be all very close family members.

In the end, you have two choices, an expensive wedding that will mean you have to wait much longer than you want, with many sacrifices and/or potentially putting you in debts, or you stop feeling guilty for the fact that not everyone who would want to be there can do so.

How much research have you really done? I was very surprise when I planned my wedding to see how it was possible to have very similar wedding at very different costs. I called different places, and the one we picked was half the price to one very similar hotel, but wasn't a popular wedding venue. Yet the meals were amazing, they went beyond accommodating us, everything was perfect and most people commented how they'd been so surprise by how good the venue was. It was half the price. I then made savings in many other ways, my dress (which genuinely looked like the beautiful ones you get in the local shop) cost me £100 ordered from China, no-one saw the difference, the cake was made by myself and again guest assumed I had it made in a shop, the bouquet was two finest bouquet from Tesco with some flowers from the garden etc...

It's amazing how much you can really cut costs if you plan well, so don't get disheartened, do your research, ask around and then invite only up to what you can afford, end of.

I know it seems quick but we have spoken about it before, it's not just spur of the moment.
I possibly should have opened with that.

The 100 odd are literally our family, aunts and uncles plus cousins. Not second cousins, great aunts sister etc. There is no one there through obligation which makes it harder to cut.

All the venues I looked at stipulated that days of and before/after bank holidays will be charged at full rates.
We also have no local town halls/village halls and the two I have looked at have a £2k+ price tag for wedding hire alone. It's ridiculous!

We live in Scotland and I wanted to elope to the highlands with a celebrant and our immediate family (we could get married anywhere). OH knows his family won't go for that or a wedding abroad.

We've not even begun and the bloody expectations are already putting a downer on it (OHs family spoke about a big family wedding yesterday, which didn't help).

Yabu to get engaged one day and spend Christmas Day planning a wedding 2 years away. Lots of time and room for negotiating deals and downsizing your expectations to meet a budget, rather than the other way round. Why are you expecting his family to fund it?

Seriously, you can have a nice wedding for under £3k. A lot of the things you feel you “must” have really are not essential! No need for fancy car, silly favours etc. Find a friend with a decent camera. Shop around for a wedding dress in a sale etc. It’s crazy to spend more than a few thousand unless you are stinking rich.

Agree with Moan also there are lots of things in life we all would like but can’t afford you just have to cut your cloth and if you can’t afford a big wedding then you can’t have one, sounds brutal but that’s the truth. It’s the marriage that’s important not the fancy wedding.

I’m a teacher. Got married on a Wednesday in the Easter holidays. It wasn’t inconvenient for anyone. They wanted to come so booked a couple of days off work. If people don’t want to come they won’t. No big deal.
Our centre pieces were homemade mini wedding cakes on nice stands so that halved the table decorations & wedding cake costs. Made our invitations & menus. Bought some long stemmed lillies & made the bouquet. No bridesmaids. Got married in a hotel so spent 2 nights with family & friends. It was lovely. Cost about £6000 which is still a huge amount for one day but a bit less than £20000!!
There’s lots of ways to do it cheaper. Take your time & look in to all the possibilities. Congratulations.

Why can't you cut out the cousins then - is that more affordable? If not, you'll have to axe the aunts and uncles. It's so easy to get swept up into wedding planning thinking people will be offended by this and that, but it will be fine.

So we wanted a nice wedding but on a small budget. We achieved it by halving the time...instead of 12 hours, we made the choice we either do, wedding, then long lunch. Or, wedding, dinner, drinks/dancing. In the end we did 11.30am wedding then short reception and drinks in a restaurant in London as day time was more old-people friendly. Halves the cost!! Just a thought.

Go to Vegas!!

Why on earth would you consider saving for three or four years for a wedding?

Stop making it about other people's expectations - you're just lining up a whole heap of trouble down the line. We didn't involve our families in any decision making - just told them what we'd booked - it's no-one else's decision but yours (the 2 of you). If you're going to roll over and let your families dictate then you've only got yourselves to blame for the aggravation that lies ahead.

You can't possibly have 100 guests that absolutely have to be there. Cut the cousins.

Lizs I'm not expecting his family to fund it he wouldn't want to invite his family abroad as they'd need to pay more money to attend than they would here.

I want(ed) Dubrovnik, Malta or a highland elopement. He wants to make hia family happy.

I'm a teacher and I got married during a school term. My Headteacher gave me the Friday before and the Monday after off school. We then went on honeymoon during the next school holiday. It was really lovely as I got to build up excitement with my class (some of whom came and waited outside the venue to see me go in in my finery!) including coming back in the following week with my 'new' name. On the Thursday after school all my colleagues came into my classroom and popped some champagne and toasted the upcoming wedding with me! Look into that as an option to cut down on 'peak' date costs!

If I were you I would decide what was important: xxx number of guests or a really nice fancy sit down meal.

If the former, hire a village hall or similar, self cater, ask people to bring a dish (say what - I absolutely would not mind this, esp if it was stated "instead of a gift") and a bottle.

If the latter, limit numbers to parents and siblings and have a do at a restaurant for 25 people.

Dress does not need to cost £££ whatever you might think from watching to shows. Lovely frocks on sale for a few hundred, or buy a glam non wedding dress for even less. Photographer - not essential, get friends to take pix. Flowers etc can be cheap or expensive. No need for car hire or favours or stationery at all.

Congratulations by the way

Just elope, or get married in secret abroad. If people don't like it then tough.

Where are you in Scotland? There are lots of good local wedding groups that would be helpful in keeping your costs down. I'm in the most expensive part of Scotland in terms of average wedding spend but even though there are options for every budget.

I would cut cousins and children from your guest list initially and see what that number looks like

Weddings out of season in January to March often cost less. Venue bargains can be found if you're happy to wait, get a cancellation date and then plan quickly

Prioritise spending - don't scrimp on a photographer but do you need to feed everyone a three course meal and buffet? Not at all. Think outside the box a little and you can make it work

Unless your families are paying they have no say in the matter. Explain to them you will be in X amount of debt if you do things the way they want.

I got married in a castle in Italy. Had an Italian wedding planner, paid for both parents, siblings and our 2 children to go out for a long weekend. We then travelled round Italy for a week on our own. It cost us £10,000. That wasn't on a budget and could have been done a lot cheaper. There are lots of different options.

It's your wedding, forget for a minute what everyone else wants and think what you both want from it

Ps don’t go for a wedding venue, if you book a restaurant, pub or bar you just say ‘we will fill it on this date’ and there’s no booking charge.

Congratulations!

When I got married, I lived inn ge with west in a premium area. You can get discount - don’t go off the prices on the website. Things can be negotiated.

We got married on Friday the 13th. Friday made it slightly easier for guests and with superstition, we got major discount. Try the wedding fairs to find various suppliers to barter with. Don’t forget dress sales plus sometimes, if you can source he material, it’s cheaper to pay a seemstress to make your dress etc. The average for weddings in our area was £25k. We did it for less than half of that by shopping around.

It seems like you have two big assumptions that are costing you money. One around the catering being done for you and being a sit down meal, and another around the sort of venue being one especially for weddings and coming mostly decorated/ready for you to use. If you don't, then how else do you spend 7k on a reception for a 100 people? (Full disclosure, we spent 12k on our wedding, for 100 people, including everything, and it was "low cost fancy", and we were happy with that. At the time we were both earning approx the average graduate wage with no kids)

You could hire out a hall and decorate it, and have a hog roast or a buffet for people, or you could hire out a pub with a big room for all of your guests, both of these would be cheaper.

You could also look further afield, 25 mile radius is nothing if your not in an urban area.

You can have 2 of the following 3: the fancy ish wedding you want, the number of guests you want, the time you want it in.

Also I got some helpful advice when engaged; it was ‘you can’t get married without annoying some people’ it helped me a lot! There is lots of expectations around weddings and they send people abot loopy. But if you do want you want, everyone gets over it after!

Our entire wedding and honeymoon (week in New York the week before Christmas) cost £8,000 so £12 grand seems a bit much.

It's often cheaper to do it separately. Get married in a Registry office them hire a hall for for the evening. We used the local guild hall which was £350 from 4pm until 1am and included the bar hire.

We had 30 day guest and 150 evening guests.

The most expensive thing was my wedding dress!

As with everything, it's as expensive as you want to make it.

Have a quiet register office ceremony in the afternoon with immediate family ie parents/siblings. Then book a party at a nice hotel close by for the evening, don't tell the venue it's a wedding say it's a family celebration and the price will be much less. It's about celebrating all together, not spending a fortune.

Get married late in the day and throw a party with buffet

If having 100 guests is important then the party will be priority over a sit down meal

As long as guests know that they aren't having a huge lunch they'll be fine and can decide when invited