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

@Calvinsmam that place does look interesting! I will
Give them a call thanks :)

Paid 10k for 45 guests, so not too big but I do regret it.

I have a very small family so most of my guests were friends, half of which I lost touch with over time. Despite researching online and only going by recommendations so much went wrong too. Had a nightmare with my dress and a wedding dress shop that ripped me off and injured me during a fitting. Hairdresser sent by my salon was a novice who made my hair look like a scraggy rat's tail, photographer was a shy woman who was too scared to instruct people, so half my photos are people looking in different directions or eyes closed. Food was different to what we had agreed with the venue and DJ ignored my musical requests, playing some odd tunes. It also rained anyway.

Tbh despite the cock ups, due to a work bonus I received, we could afford it but in terms of event planning it made me realise how much could go wrong.

If I could do it again, I would do registry followed by meal in restaurant with close family and friends.

Small.

You would be crazy to spend that amount of money in this economic climate.

You could have an unbelievably amazing day with no expenses spared for 40 people.

Did the big thing but we had the money to do it without wiping our life savings or to disadvantage us hugely in other ways. We had a lot of friends from all over the world though and having all my friends in the one place at the one time was so wonderful. If we’d done the small wedding we probably wouldn’t have invited them. Im sure it would have been just as lovely though and I’d be on here telling you we went small and I have no regrets :)

It sounds in your posts that what you really want is a big wedding. So do it. Yes, the money could be used for more sensible things, but if they aren't what you want, then forget about them.

Make a plan for how you are going to build you savings up again afterwards and make that a priority after the day.

Wedding service
Lovely Meal at good place with music and dancing afterwards
Reportage photography

London friends had the most amazing wedding in a museum, service in one of the rooms, then a sort of grazing mezze in the gardens with champagne. The food was unbelievable and generous as was the alcohol.

Then we had a sit down feast of roasted meats that were done on this huge open fire. Served with roasted veg, salads, flat breads all
On these big sharing platters. We were on long tables. It was so fun!

The deserts which were tiers of mini desserts. all day/eve with free flowing wine. There was a bar if you wanted something else.

Then at about 10pm they brought out free cocktails and the dj started.

It wAs the best wedding I have ever been too and about 50 people. Cost a lot but not £20k

I had the big wedding in 1989, give me the choice again, I would choose a small wedding where you get to talk to all guests, you can choose a higher priced venue, financially you would be better off especially if you want to start a family after the wedding - you would still have savings to fall back on.

I went small partly because we did it on a shoestring budget (under £2k including car, flowers and photographer, but no evening do and only a handful of guests; dress was

Spent 40k on ours including the dress, suit, planner fees etc etc. Three years later I do wish we had saved some of that but as we were married in London it was very hard to scale it down. We have the most amazing pics and memories but I'm sure I would go for small, in hindsight, as it would have been just as good.

We had a big wedding (last year) and have no regrets at all, the opposite in fact, we would do it all again tomorrow if we could. We have incredibly happy memories from the day and regularly talk about it (just DH and I, we don't bore other people with it )

However, we had our own house and were in a good place financially, we didn't get into debt to pay for it. I wouldn't recommend going down that road, only have the expensive wedding if you can afford it.

Wow 40k!!

I can see how it could easily mount up though and people have different budgets.

I think you have to really strict with yourself if you have a budget and actually half it. We went way over what we thought we were going to spend.
We hired a really lovely cheap venue, then decided to triple the guests and had to pay 4K for a marquee.
Having it in the centre of town means you can have lots of evening guests for the party because people can just drop in.
We had 120 for the day, then it was literally anyone who wants to come to the evening can, we had 200 at the party and people stayed right to the end (in fact a large group of people who I would never have put together in a million years went clubbing after and stayed out until 5am 😂)

We had cheese instead of a cake so when everyone was drunk they could have cheese and crackers, and we had a bbq in the evening which was lovely but I think it was only £6 a head.
We hired a props company to dress our tables and didn’t have flowers but we did pay for a photographer and she was amazing, I’m so glad I have lovely photos of the day.

I'm intrigued, so Can someone (like OP) break down how the costs work?

So I'm thinking
Church: £200
Flowers: £300
Vicar: £100
Dress: £800
Suits & others to dress: £3000
Band: £500
Photographer: £500
Booze: £1000
Pre-meal snacks: £1k
Hotel for OP afterwards: £500
Favours & shoes & whatever: £1k
Vehicle hire: £1k
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.

That gets to £17k. Are costs realistic, Which costs are easiest to reduce?

I wouldn't dip massively into savings just for a wedding. We had £50k saved but it was earmarked for a deposit on a house. We had a small £5k wedding and whilst I would have loved a big wedding & wipe out the savings, it would've meant we'd probably never get on the housing ladder. A lifetime of renting for the sake of about 12 hours for a wedding. No brainer for me.

We married just us two. The money we saved went towards a house deposit.personally we just couldn't come to terms with spending a house deposit's worth of money on a one day event.

We had the big wedding - about 14k 5 years ago. If I had my time again, I'd fly to Florida and get married just me and DH.

I would much rather have had that money to enable me to spend more time off work with DD who is now 6 months old and I go back to work in 3 months. If children are in your immediate plans, keep the savings.

Go small. I had a big white wedding and it was ruined by bickering and my sisters arsehole of a boyfriend.

18 months of saving and worrying and it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

I do love my DH though and the photos from the day.

I wouldn't wipe out your savings on a wedding.

I did have a big wedding 100 people. If I was to do it again I'd reduce that number. Cut the friends who I rarely see, stop parents inviting their friends or say evening invite only.
There were people who were at my wedding I'd not seen before or since, 10 years married and it still bugs me. "but we were at their kids wedding so really should be invited"

@lljkk the venue also has a service charge at 1200 and we were looking st coaches from church to venue for a few hundred too - I think I'd allowed a bit more on food to cover canapés and late night food for a few more evening guests too and that took us to about 20k

@lljkk also if I were to go supply the standard 1-2 glasses of prosecco on arrival, allow half a bottle of wine pp at dinner and a glass to toast - that's about £20 per head for 100 adults. So your costings are about right, also the venue has a band license until 10pm then we'd supply a dj until close - so approx 1500 for music rather than your 500. It soon creeps up!

Lljkk We spent roughly
£500 church
£250 dress
£250 suit
£200 bridesmaids and flower girls
£50 hair
£500 diy flowers
£300 bus
£1500 drinks
£750 people to serve drink, bar and fridges
£3500 venue
£3000 food
£500 cheese cake
£500 band
£300 photographer

No way would I spend 20k and still have my guests paying for drinks. But free bars are the done thing in my group so most people go diy

Spent £8k on our wedding and have regretted it ever since. Wish we'd stuck to immediate family and 3 friends each instead. At a big wedding you don't get any time with DH, guests, to do anything other than rush from one thing to the next and then it's all over and you're a house deposit down in cash

Can you not have a traditional wedding without spending £20k?

But those costs are for that venue, there are ways to be cheaper.

You don't actually need a band for example. You can find a different venue with different food offer etc. It really done a lot need to be either/or.

*does not

I would have thought in London public transport would be good enough for people to make their own way from one venue to another? I'm in Yorkshire though so maybe I'm delusional! I wouldn't expect transport if I was a guest.

We are getting married in September and it's coming in at around 7k.

The biggest expense is feeding people, but this is the bit people remember most so it's very important for me. I read the 'worst weddings' thread the other day and the most complained about thing was lack of food/too long a wait until being fed. We have also paid a lot for our photographer as this is a priority for us too.

We were going to do have a register office ceremony but it doesn't hold enough people, so it's now a bigger cost than we wanted as it's £500 for our ceremony venue hire and almost another £500 for the registrar to come out.

Reception is in the local social club at an eye watering £60 per night hire. Do you have any social clubs or DIY hall type places near by? The bar is very cheap and they will get anything in for us that we want. Also £3 corkage on anything we bring in ourselves.

Post ceremony food is a buffet from a local artisan bakery then we are having a wood fired pizza van for the evening food. Brownies and wedding cake for pudding.

We have cut costs by doing our own music (just hiring speaker system and lights). We have been to a few weddings where it was a Spotify playlist for the party and they were great. I'm not having bridesmaids or anything. There is a best man but he's wearing whatever he wants to wear, so no expensive matching suits etc. Doing my own hair and makeup and I'm making my own dress (!!!!) BUT I understand this isn't an option for most people and I would highly recommend looking at ASOS bridal dresses or places like Needle and Thread. We aren't having favours (waste of money) or speeches/first dance etc. It's just a ceremony then a big party afterwards.

Maybe a late ceremony would suit then you'll only need to feed people once?