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Original poster

To ask how you paid for your wedding?

223 replies

Picklemuncher123 · 22/05/2019 19:40

Fiance proposed to me last August and the aim is to save as much as possible to afford a decent wedding. But it's proving difficult at the moment as other financial emergencies seem to be cropping up.

Did you fund your wedding your selves ? Get a loan ? Parents or family help? How much did it cost in total and can I still have a lovely( by no means big ) wedding on a budget ? Thanks :)

OP posts:
QueenofmyPrinces · 22/05/2019 22:09

My DH proposed in October and we were married the following March.

It cost about £20k and my dad paid about £2.5k towards it.

Me and DH paid the remaining £17.5k ourselves and it came from a mixture of savings, paying for things with our normal monthly income and putting some things on the credit card.

catinboots99 · 22/05/2019 22:21

Bank of mum and dad. Topped up by me and STBEXH.

Oh what a wonderful way to spend the best part of 30k

Chocolate35 · 22/05/2019 22:52

@greenkit damn zeros 😂 It was £30,000

Cherrysherbet · 22/05/2019 22:58

7k my parents paid. That was 24yrs ago!

CherryPavlova · 22/05/2019 23:06

We’re paying for our daughters.

We paid for our own completely. Not a penny in financial help,from anyone but lots of actual help with things like catering, waiting, transport etc. We tried to do it as cheaply as possible (hired morning suits, I did the catering, we didn’t have a photographer etc) but with a decent bun fight after the church. We saved hard, did lots ourselves and had a lovely day but I think it probably added up to around £10 -£12k overall nearly thirty years ago. We didn’t pay it all out at once though.

flowery · 22/05/2019 23:13

The wedding we had would have been much more expensive a few years later. It was when it had only recently become legal to marry at venues other than churches or registry offices and there were 3 venues in the whole county that did weddings. Hotels hadn’t really cottoned on to how much they could get away with charging for stuff.

We paid around £22 a head at a very nice hotel for a 3 course meal, £150 for room hire, which actually included virtually all the downstairs of the hotel and the outside area for photos, plus the honeymoon suite for the night, use of a master of ceremonies, flowers on the table, and various other helpful things. Would have been completely unaffordable for us at today’s prices as DH had just finished being a student and I was working in retail management on £10k a year.

goose1964 · 22/05/2019 23:15

We all paid a third each. Ours came from the deposit for a house I'd saved because DH already owned one.

scaredandconfused2019 · 22/05/2019 23:26

My parents paid for the reception (3K), for my dress and the wedding car. My in-laws paid for the photographer (1.5K) we paid the rest (probably about another 10K) by working 6 days a week, taking overtime when we could and saving for about 3 years. We didn't have any debt and about 3K of our budget was spent on our honeymoon.

TheFlis12345 · 22/05/2019 23:29

Wedding cost about £20k excluding honeymoon. My parents paid the bulk of it and would have gladly paid the whole lot, and for a lot fancier wedding than we had in mind! DH parents insisted on contributing so generously paid for the music (band and DJ) and all the booze (free bar throughout). DH and I only paid for rings. We were exceptionally lucky that our parents were in a position to fund it all and very happy to do so.

Myfoolishboatisleaning · 22/05/2019 23:31

Eloped. My wedding was the cheapest and the most fun day ever! No one came but they remember mine more than all the identikit weddings. I wanted babies and financial security more than a fancy day.

Serendipitybojangle · 22/05/2019 23:33

DH and I paid for it ourselves. Saved up for about a year, I was the higher earner then with very little out goings, so saved up quite quickly.

Confuzzlediddled · 22/05/2019 23:35

We did it all for about 1500, tiny wedding with 20 guests, registry office, taxis not fancy cars, did as much as possible myself (cake, flowers, hair etc) dress bought online, dh and kids outfits from ebay. We got a tiny restaurant and had the whole place for the evening, inbetween we sat in a beer garden!

We couldn't ask my parents to contribute as they did for my first wedding, and dhs parents hated me so much they didn't even come (so that saved us money too!)

SmarmyMrMime · 22/05/2019 23:36

We had savings and gradually paid out over 2 years of engagement/ planning. It was a big wedding done quite economically on half the average budget of the time. We shopped around for suppliers going for smaller businesses rather than the glossy end at wedding fairs. I DIYed anything crafty including making jewellery and tiaras.

It was bloody fantastic and memories and photos still make me smile years later. No regrets Smile

WalkAwaySugarbear · 22/05/2019 23:36

We were saving towards our wedding when my parents insisted on paying which we weren't expecting at all. However even though it was abroad it wasn't overly expensive, only close family came. The wedding itself was $800.

Bouledeneige · 22/05/2019 23:38

We split it in thirds between us, my parents and his parents.

JaceLancs · 22/05/2019 23:40

£1000 but it was 30 years ago!
I paid out of settlement money from a previous relationship exDH paid from his savings
DM bought my dress
Ex MIL paid for flowers
Ex FIL paid for cars
We had a fab day - shame exDH didn’t take his marriage vows as seriously as I did (he left for OW 8 years later )

SandyY2K · 22/05/2019 23:44

We saved £1k a month for about a year....but didn't spend it all...the rest went towards our house deposit.

My parents funded the wedding breakfast and all drinks, which is the single biggest cost.

We paid for photographer, videographer, wedding cars, cake, bridal party dresses/suit hire, wedding favours... I was so organised I still have my wedding folder 2 decades later. Smile

Paying as we went along a d shopping around helped.

AlphaBites · 22/05/2019 23:46

Paid for it ourselves, no help from parents.
When we started planning and saw the stupid amounts some places wanted it helped us plan out what we wanted.
No effing way were we getting into debt for it. We married abroad (I'm not from UK) as my family were all there, those that came stayed at the hotel and the hotel staff did everything. My dress was secondhand and bridesmaids all chose a nice dress they liked from a high street store.
All cost less than £4000 including flights to home country.

Ragwort · 22/05/2019 23:56

Paid for it ourselves, but it was clearly a tiny budget compared to some of the amounts on this thread Shock. I would be horrified if my adult DS chose to have an expensive wedding, not much I could do about but I really wouldn’t want to contribute to just ‘one day’ when the money could be used towards something much more substantial.

NCforthis2019 · 22/05/2019 23:56

We paid about 70k - two weddings, one here and one abroad - paid for it ourselves.

PickAChew · 22/05/2019 23:59

We had a cheap wedding (2k, including honeymoon). Preferred to spend money on other stuff. No less married 15 years on.

Pipandmum · 23/05/2019 00:01

I’m the only one of three daughters to get married, but I did it at 40. We had it in London for 120, wedding, reception dancing all in one place all same guests all paid for (I mean no cash bar we paid for it). My dad gave me £10,000 towards it but the rest paid for by my husband. He paid for the honeymoon too. Don’t know final figures but it must have been about £35k for the wedding alone. My husband was (he died a few years later) a very generous man. He worked very hard and long hours and had a good City salary.

Christmassaussage · 23/05/2019 00:02

8k for everything 14 years ago. I bought all the bridesmaid dresses and shoes from monsoon in the sale for about £20 each. The dresses and shoes luckily all fit with only one minor alteration needed!! We crafted our own save the date cards, wedding invitations and seating plan... we had 68 guests sit down meal (roast) with Prosecco and wine for the table but once that was finished ppl had to buy their own drinks. I didn't want ppl to go mad this was a good way of cutting cost and keeping everyone sober for longer. We didn't have a special car, just a nice taxi service. We also used silk flowers so I knew that bit couldn't go wrong. Cake was a plain cake from M&S tiered and decorated with flowers. We didn't get a videographer and photographs were thankfully taken by a close friend of my MIL who did it for free. We also got a DJ recommendation via MIL. The most expensive thing was my dress which I nearly didn't buy as it was totally out of my budget. My bridesmaid convinced me to get it and ended up paying half as a gift (But i paid her back the majority as soon as I could!)

My PIL contributed 1000 for the catering and my parents contributed 7k to help with the rest. I didn't intend of spending it all on the wedding but keeping to such a small budget was hard even then!

Big congrats. Definitely don't get a loan out for a party. You'd be better off eloping!

PickAChew · 23/05/2019 00:05

And I certainly wouldn't spend £70k on showy weddings if I couldn't afford enough fridge space for some buttercream. Priorities, innit.

WaitingForEgg · 23/05/2019 00:11

We paid for it all (about £20k) ourselves by saving. It does make me feel a little sick ten years later to think how much we spent