To ask if you regretted Wedding spend?

[FeelingFlat]

I'm getting married this year (date quite set can't do another time or year)

I'm completely stuck on type of wedding.

I have two options-

Small immediate family, lunch after that may or may not spread into drinks into the evening.

Big white traditional wedding with most extended family and friends invited at a cost of approx £20k (more likely to tip over than under 20k)

Whilst we can afford the big wedding it would literally leave us on zero savings.

Heart says big wedding, head says small.

Has anyone ever had regrets after a small or big wedding?! Wished you had done the opposite afterwards?

To not drip feed and to make this easier please understand that there's no inbetween wedding or budget we would be happy with despite looking at many options.

Help me decide

We had a big wedding X2, as I’m not from here. I don’t regret it. I suppose if it’s within you’re means then ok.

Loved my wedding day. If I was making the decision now I'd spend it on the house. But would never have made that decision at that time so no regrets really.

There is a view that only small weddings is the 'right' way to do it if you are focussed on your marriage, and not the day.

But you want a big wedding. You can afford a big wedding without getting in debt.

A way to look at it, if I won the lottery a week after my wedding, I honestly won't have regretted the choices on the day I made and wish I'd delayed so I could afford a different day. Most of those saying they loved their small weddings will feel the same, because to them it was their dream wedding day already.

But a small wedding wouldn't be your dream. You wouldn't feel that way.

Don't compromise if you don't have to just because you think you should. If you and your DP want the big day, and can fund it, then go for it.

My wedding cost £25 k 10 years ago and I have no regrets
I have a big family and wanted everyone there. It was a hotel wedding at a lovely gorgeous venue and every time we go back I'm so happy we chose it.
Only thing I would have changed is the photographer, he wasn't awful though.
The venue was the biggest expense as it's a luxury type place. My dress was £800 and rings £50 each, cake £70, etc so not everything was mega expensive. It was a combination of our savings, in laws and parents chipping in and we all felt it was worth it. We did have other savings though

Have you thought about having a very small wedding followed by a big party. Then you don't need to worry too much about the venue being that close to the church?

You could ask the vicar where people have their receptions - I imagine that an East London church will have weddings at all different price points so they might have some good suggestions. Does the church have a hall you could hire?

Look on the tag venues website - you can filter by number of guests and hire price - they have some interesting venues in East London as well as further afield and they tell you which ones allow external caterers.

With our honeymoon we spent between £25-£30k. That was getting married on a week day too!

Years later we don’t regret a thing. The funny thing is that I am extremely frugal in daily life. Yellow sticker shelf, turn the heating off, loyalty cards etc you name it.

We had exactly what we wanted at our wedding and it was perfect for us. Our dream venue, our dream food and our dream honeymoon.

We worked really hard to afford it like overtime and earning money from online surveys, matched betting, sold a ton of things on eBay etc.

No regrets

In your shoes, I'd be very wary of spending all your savings on a wedding. This could leave you in financial difficulty in future.

Does the church have a hall that you could decorate? Ask friends to bring contributions towards a birthday meal? Or do a simple afternoon tea? Or just drinks and snacks

Yes. Ours was around £30k. A huge waste of money if I’m honest. I absolutely loved our wedding and am still happily married 5 years later. However, our wedding would have been brilliant no matter what we did because it’s the day we got married. I’d go for something more intimate, it would be just as special.

Also - we had over 100 people. I didn’t get to speak to half of them and no one for more than about 10 minutes.

I'll have a go at reducing these:

Church: £200 - this'll be a fixed cost I imagine if a day and church already set
Flowers: £300 - chose simpler flowers and not so many. Or, do you have space to plant and grow flowers? I've heard of green-fingered people doing this for budget weddings, and its' been lovely. Tie them with ribbon.

Vicar: £100 - again, assume fixed cost

Dress: £800 - start shopping for bargains and consider second hand

Suits & others to dress: £3000 - don't have matchy matchy bridesmaids, maybe even just choose a colour and let them choose their own dresses. Refund them to a set amount.

Band: £500 - don't scrimp on this, they'll make the party

Photographer: £500 - hire them for only a very short collection of shots. Ask friends and family to share their pics instead. Ask close friends to make a bit of an effort to do this in case people forget.

Booze: £1000 - choose a venue where you can bring your own, go for a quick trip to France before we leave the EU and buy loads of nice booze! (I know a couple who did this)

Pre-meal snacks: £1k - You can definitely save on this. Get snacks from M&S or waitrose, don't pay caterers to do it.

Hotel for OP afterwards: £500 - this sounds like a lot! Surely this can come down.

Favours & shoes & whatever: £1k. Don't have favours. Waste of money. Do get a small gift to thank bridesmaids and ushers though

Vehicle hire: £1k - you can halve this or less, if you hire through Turo (like AirBnB for cars).

Reception Venue with buffet meal???
This one suggests £1500 minimum for 100 ppl, but let's call it £4.5k instead for OP's specific dates.

This is key. Ideally, find a pretty community venue and caterers who won't cost the earth.

Here are some cars you could have, from Turo.

They wouldn't come with a driver, so you'd need to arrange for a friend to drive you. (But surely lots of people would be up for having a go in a posh car?!)

Classic wedding car - RR Silver Shadow - £395 per day

Or how about having a bit of fun - Jaguar E Type (family would have to get a cab though!) £595

Or - just forget the cars. Why bother? Get a cab! Or get a friend to drive you.

We got a cab, it was fine.

Explain to your bridesmaids (are you having adult briesmaids?) that you don't want a hen night and all that guff.

You're trying to have this wedding without it costing a bomb.

So, instead of a hen night, banish your other half and invite your friends over to have a drink and hang out, and do things you need to do to make the wedding happen. eh you could make the decorations and favours together. (Lots of ideas for decorations and favours you can make if you google it).

Or, instead of wedding gifts, as people if they can help out. eg someone to put out the snacks, someone to drive you, official photographer, etc

If you really want all your friends to be there and want a party over a wedding there are lots of ways you can do it for nowhere near £20k.

If you have your heart set on a wedding like the industry wants to sell you, it'll be tougher.

Ours cost £16k. We paid probably half and parents contributed the rest. I don't regret it, we had a great wedding (I do regret ny awful pictures) but we already had our house and I got a big pay rise not long after so was able to get savings back up before going on mat leave. If I didn't own a house no way would I spend as much as I did on a wedding. So depends on your priorities I guess.

I also think it’s totally fair enough to not pay for the ushers suits/bridesmaids dresses as long as you let them wear whatever they like.

I had a small wedding - immediate family only, registry office do, then a nice cream tea in a hotel nearby. It was perfect. Completely perfect. Chilled out, relaxed, loads of fun. I wouldn't change a thing about it.

Im going for small but with a party.then a nice honeymoon. I want savings but we are all different!

I always thought I wanted a small wedding for exactly the reasons you described, but DH is the youngest of 6 and we already have 16 nieces and nephews who we didn’t want to exclude, so we went with the “you only do it once, don’t get hung up on the money and just enjoy the day” thing instead, and I’m so glad we did, it was lovely having all the people we cared about most in the same place to share the day with us!

LOADS of opportunities to cut costs

Church: £200 - fixed cost
Flowers: £300 - buy from supermarket £60
Vicar: £100 - fixed cost
Dress: £800 - a bridesmaid dress, made in white / ivory £200
Suits & others to dress: £3000 - men can wear their own dark suits & you buy matching ties £80. Bridesmaids can wear 'normal' dresses, but matching makes them look smarter £300
Band: £500 - fixed
Photographer: £500 - ask friends with good cameras to take photos
Booze: £1000 - hold reception in church hall & buy wine from supermarket
Pre-meal snacks: £1k - ask friends to bring plates of canapes, get a couple of students to serve them
Hotel for OP afterwards: £500 - go home
Favours & shoes & whatever: £1k
Vehicle hire: £1k - take a normal taxi
Reception Venue with buffet meal???

You can spend as much or as little as you wish but if you want a big wedding there are ways to keep cost down

For the Church of England, the current church cost is £533, I've just looked it up. This would include paying the vicar, banns etc, but not organist, bellringers and other fees. Others churches may charge different fees.

Ours cost £42k inc HM in 2005. Loved every minute of it and would do it again tomorrow. Our photos were featured in 3 national wedding magazines as we used some very upmarket photographers. We hired an exclusive venue and only had day guests, 120 total who the stayed till well into the early hours. Was amazing!!

I'm currently looking into church wedding, then hiring a restaurant to feed immediate family (32 of us) and then keeping the restaurant and putting on a light buffet and guests can pay for drinks into the evening too (we will then get up to 100 guests). This should satisfy the minimum spend of the restaurant and comes much under the 20k day!

I think that's fine if you invite 70 guests to come to evening reception only. But I don't think you can expect them to watch you get married, then make themselves scarce until the evening

@allthgoodusernamesaretaken oh no I wouldn't do that! Family for for church and meal, and buffet party for all friends and extended family in the evening

Big wedding, in a castle 110 guests. Loved it. We were strict on the budget and were able to get some good deals. Budget was £10k. Spent £10,200.

Though if your dates are super strict this may limit you.

Mine was £12k and I don’t regret it, didn’t get into debt and haggled on pretty much everything!

Everyone enjoyed it and I think that’s the thing, once it comes around, if you and your guests have a good time (and you don’t get into loads of debt!) you won’t regret it regardless of the cost.

And keep looking for a venue, we had given up finding anywhere in our budget and then this hotel no one had heard of popped up online one day and that was that.

Have you tried the Prince regent if you’re on the London/Essex border? Think that was one of the more reasonable ones.