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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

How much did your wedding cost?

322 replies

WomanEmpire · 13/03/2018 11:08

Average wedding is around the £27k mark in the U.K. I can't think of a wedding I've attended or known of that could of cost this much? no judgement if people do pay this amount, but it seems pretty crazy! I can't believe that it is the average, unless most are paying £5k and the £1,000,000 do's are throwing off the averages?!

How much did your weddings cost?

OP posts:
fusushumi · 13/03/2018 11:45

$7000 (Singapore dollars) in 1988 - maybe £2500?

Fluffy40 · 13/03/2018 11:45
  1. Many years ago, dress was 120, Car was about the same !
Yogagirl123 · 13/03/2018 11:47

Around 3k including the honeymoon, 24 years ago.

yoyo1234 · 13/03/2018 11:47

I think £8500 for wedding and rings etc. Probably another £1500 for the honeymoon. A lot for 1 day.

crunchymint · 13/03/2018 11:48

£460 last year. Married with only witnesses. Rest on buying drinks in the evening at a local pub - asked some friends to join us, and getting my hair cut.

BadTasteFlump · 13/03/2018 11:48

About £2500, but that was nearly 20 years ago. And it included the honeymoon as we got married during a fortnight's holiday. It was low key, stress free wedding and was perfect :)

Buggeritimgettingup · 13/03/2018 11:49

5 years ago £900 all in but not had our honeymoon yet brilliant day and massive knees up in the evening loved it all.

BadTasteFlump · 13/03/2018 11:49

Ooh that doesn't include rings though - are you supposed to include that? It would double the cost of mine!

yoyo1234 · 13/03/2018 11:49

I think the surveys will be biased ( eg those reading bridal magazines etc so potentially very invested in the day ).

Raven88 · 13/03/2018 11:50

3000 including honeymoon

FranticallyPeaceful · 13/03/2018 11:51

We’re quite fortunate with money and I honestly couldn’t warrant spending so much on a wedding. 27k would buy one of my children a car when they hit 18, it could buy a long safari holiday in Africa, it could be a speedy world trip.

Gives me anxiety thinking about it! Major reason I don’t want to get married

kaytee87 · 13/03/2018 11:51

I don't think I ever added the total up. Maybe £15k with the honeymoon being maybe another £5k on top. It could have been more, I can't remember. 2015.
I didn't scrimp on anything particularly. We're in Scotland so I expect things are a lot cheaper here than they would be in the SE.

FailingMotherhood · 13/03/2018 11:52

About £12k in 2008, which my mom kindly paid for. We had exclusive use of a venue, DJ, brilliant photographer. Amazed the costs have spiralled so much!

maddiemookins16mum · 13/03/2018 11:52

£6,486.55 - I still have the spreadsheet with everything entered (even the £3.99 cream tights for our little flower girl).
Married at 3pm, 40 guests, cream tea at 4.15pm and evening bbq at 7.30pm. No evening guests.
Pay your own drinks (after the 60 bottles of wine/Fizz we'd purchased (from Lidl) had gone). Free soft drinks/tea/coffee all day.
It was brilliant but my budget was 6K and I'm still annoyed we went over.

midnightmisssuki · 13/03/2018 11:52

upwards of 60k - we had two weddings because we are from different countries.

wildduckhunt · 13/03/2018 11:53

no-one wants to say "we did it really cheaply"

I want to say that Grin I got my dress and DD's dress for less than £30 on eBay - both old season Monsoon and brand new with tags.

MadisonAvenue · 13/03/2018 11:54

Approximately £30.
We were on holiday in New York and decided to get married whilst there.

TheRebel · 13/03/2018 11:54

£5,000 in 2016, registry office ceremony followed by a reception for 50 day guests, dress was in a sale so was £350, I didn’t have any bridesmaids as my friends are all male so had my best friend as my “best man” so I paid for his suit and we paid for DHs bestman’s suit. We had the photographer for 2 hours instead of the whole day.

Beamur · 13/03/2018 11:55

About £3k, including 2 week holiday in Greece for us and DD.
We paid for all the food, alcohol, venue hire, ceileigh, new clothes etc, had about 80 people attend, plus kids.
One wedding gift was a lot of champagne which was a fantastic present which we shared with everyone. Didn't buy a posh dress, no wedding rings. Low key but really nice day. Registry office for a handful of people followed by (buy your own) brunch at local pub, then a 'do' later on. All done by 11pm, went home to bed.

kaytee87 · 13/03/2018 11:55

That's not including rings, I don't see that as part of the cost for some reason. Maybe another £3k for rings.

Metalhead · 13/03/2018 11:56

£12k in 2009, and around £2k for our honeymoon. Biggest cost was definitely the venue.

travelmad · 13/03/2018 11:56

About £10k in 2011 - of which about half of that was the honeymoon (a week's cruise around the Med). We were lucky that DH's uncle is a photographer and he did the photos as his wedding present. My step-mum is a whizz with cakes so she made the cake as her gift. Between the two of those we saved a lot of money.

KNain · 13/03/2018 11:56

I think probably about £25k and then about £10-£15k on the honeymoon.

I can easily believe the £20k mark to be honest, I reckon most of the weddings I've been to were around this.

Venue was the main cost - we had a lot of family travelling so we needed somewhere they could stay for the whole weekend. So think the venue was about £10-£15k. Then there was the dress, bridesmaid's dress, suits, rings, photographer, registrar fees, costs that all added up.

Most people I know got married in similar venues (nice hotels or stately homes).

nonevernotever · 13/03/2018 11:57

£1800 for everything including my ring (made by a friend - £350), my dress (designed and made by a local dressmaker - £400), travel ( we got married on a small Scottish island and had to hire a car to get there) accommodation and food for a week. However the only guests were our two mothers (who stayed with us for the week) and DHs Gran and great aunt who lived on the island.

TheJoyOfSox · 13/03/2018 11:58

We married in 2014 and spent around £9 or £10k it was £7k for the venue where we were married, had the wedding breakfast ( 3 course dinner for 40) and the evening reception for 150. It was a hotel , so we spent the night there as did a lot of our guests. We only paid for 4 other rooms (for our grown up children) hire of a mini bus to fetch same grown up children, wedding cars, flowers, dress, suit hire x 6 BM dresses x 4 flower girl dresses x 3 and a singer was hired for an hour at the start of the evening do for £500. was were the remainder was spent. We did have a free bar but nobody abused that and the bill was £300 (it was only a free bar for family members not for everyone)

Our budget was set at what we could afford, hence adult bridesmaids dresses were £30 each, but the flower girl dress were £70 each. Had my budget been three times as much, I would have spent it all. We had a great day.
Had our budget been £3000 we could have had the same hotel venue but a smaller room, less guests and we would have still been happy.

I have attended a wedding where their budget was “unlimited “ and they spent £60k, it was wonderful and I could tell it had had a lot of money spent. Attended another of similar budget (a millionaires child marrying) that was tacky and had money thrown at it rather than the tasteful affair of previous.