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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:
Adversecamber22 · 23/05/2019 08:22

It was £3000 20 years ago which having just checked a historical money calculator is £5,200 today. We paid £2000 and PIL chipped in £1000. We also spent £1,500 on our honeymoon which was a half price bargain on teletext for anyone old enough to remember that!

We had 100 guests to a registry office, a very pretty one that’s an old school chapel, a buffet in a village hall in the middle of the New Forest, very pretty surroundings. A professional photographer friend did the photos for free, I decorated the cake, we made invitations, a friend made the bridesmaids dresses. My dress was reduced from £750 to £100 and was a one off made by a little independent bridal boutique. We had a friend with a jag so that was the wedding car. I have done flowers for weddings before but decided it was too much work and stress. I did make pearl covered Alice bands for the bridesmaids with some silk rosebuds on.

VanessaG123 · 23/05/2019 08:23

For me, I believe 50/50 should be the modern way. And this goes for everything, not just a wedding.

Haisuli · 23/05/2019 08:26

Our parents paid - his specifically for the night do, mine for everything else. They gave us a sum and we stuck to that - think it was £10k. It was ten years ago.
I know not the question, but I work next to the registry office now, and I love seeing people come in on all days of the week, and have relaxed weddings. That's how I'd do it if I had my time again. No fuss. Wedding, nice lunch with family, straight to honeymoon

Babdoc · 23/05/2019 08:30

It’s the marriage that’s important, not the wedding!
Ours cost £13 (the price of the licence in 1981). It was us, 2 witnesses and a registrar - done and dusted in 20 minutes.
If you can afford (and want) a lot of fuss, fill your boots, but don’t feel that you can’t get married for years due to the cost, or run up massive debts that will burden your marriage for years and be a source of resentment. Far better to put your savings towards a mortgage deposit.

PurpleFlower1983 · 23/05/2019 08:31

We paid for ours from savings although my parents bought my dress and my great aunt gave us £8000 to pay for the honeymoon.

PurpleFlower1983 · 23/05/2019 08:34

It was around £20k in 2017 but that included about £3k on hotel rooms. I would never have imagined spending that much on a wedding but have no regrets, it was amazing.

thecatsthecats · 23/05/2019 08:55

13k for Thurs night-Mon morning of venue, free bar, and all food catered for 70 guests (who were there Fri-Sun).

My parents - 5k (gave us 10k total but we put 5k aside for building work).
His parents - 3k.

We saved the rest, plus saved another 6k for the honeymoon (received 2k in gifts for the honeymoon, FWIW).

NotTheMrMenAgain · 23/05/2019 09:06

In cash - got married in Las Vegas during a long road trip which was a last big holiday for a while before our DD was born. Few hundred dollars for the licence and same again for the ceremony - so my DH was the best bargain of my life!

Pregnant in Vegas . . . . . classy! It was only the hormones that made me do it, but 12 years later we're still daft and loved up Smile

Desmondo2016 · 23/05/2019 09:08

We did it ourselves and managed to have the best day in the world for about 8000. We used a few grand savings, a few grand we paid out of income as we went along and we sold an inherited non sentimental stamp collection for a couple grand too

ClashCityRocker · 23/05/2019 09:09

We paid for ourselves - about 7k all in, over a two year period.

Tunnocks34 · 23/05/2019 09:16

Paid for it mostly in cash, a small wedding costing around £5000 but we did put £1800 for the venue on a credit card which I regret!

dreamyflower · 23/05/2019 09:18

We got a loan with a well known supermarket as did three of our friends. Paid £250 back each month and it is now finished. No different imo to saving that each month.

thehappyegg · 23/05/2019 09:20

Self funded, mostly using DH's bonus. No loans and nothing on credit card. Wedding cost 10k, had 55 guests.

birdonawire1 · 23/05/2019 09:22

Didn't waste any money on it. Quiet reg office affair. Put the money we saved as a deposit on a house. Wedding v Home?

Personal choice though

EggAndButter · 23/05/2019 09:24

We didn’t do a lavish wedding!
My parents bought the dress for me (less than £1k. That was 10 years ago).
SIL did the wedding cake
PIL got us the village hall for free.
PIL organised an ‘exchange’ of good will for the car with someone they knew
We paid for the food, rental of the cutlery, and evening meal/place.
MIl found the photographer, that we paid. It was someone local that she knew well. Not overpriced and the photos were good (a friend of mine got married about 6 months later. She paid about 5 time s’more than we did. The photos were rubbish.... Knowing people makes a difference I think)

Basically, we did something simple, with people that were really close to us rather than a lavish wedding with 200 people.

largecoffeeplease · 23/05/2019 09:24

30k and paid all by ourselves except the dress which my mum paid for.

In my experience, when other people pay for things they feel like they have a right to make decisions and voice opinion.

MsSquiz · 23/05/2019 09:36

We paid a third, DH's parents paid a third and my mum offered to pay the other third, but died 3 months before the wedding. DH covered the cost and I repaid him from my inheritance when her fins aces had been settled

Blondequeenie · 23/05/2019 09:41

My husband and I paid for most our own wedding ourselves and my parents also contributed a good bit. In all we spent around 30k on our wedding and originally had a budget half of that.

We actually just booked the venue as soon as we got engaged, like a month later and we paid everything monthly, I got a part time weekend job which helped. We decided to pay for and book the bigger things first like venue, cars, photographer, decoration and cake etc and then book the other things later.

if you can find a venue that gives you a total package including most things including decoration then it may work out better for you.

The first thing you need to do is identify how many people you need to invite because thats what makes weddings expensive. If you only have 50 people then its much cheaper than a wedding of 150.

Spidey66 · 23/05/2019 09:45

My parents paid for the reception and we paid for everything else by saving the money. Worked out roughly 50% each.

Napqueen1234 · 23/05/2019 09:45

We had a long 2 year engagement (although did have DD during that time).
My parents contributed 10K
Grandparents 5K
MIL 5K
We saved 8K (total 28K)
I know I will probably get flamed for being completely OTT, selfish, extravagant but it was the BEST day of our lives from start to finish, we could afford to save (with a lot of tightening) and we only accepted the family money as we knew they could easily afford it.
Having said that I've been to beautiful weddings which have been far 'cheaper' (cost not appearance youd never know) so money isn't everything. We were careful not to spend beyond our means

PBobs · 23/05/2019 09:48

We saved over about a year and paid for it all ourselves. Didn't take a penny from anyone. We also didn't want money from our parents - our choice to have the wedding we did and didn't feel others should foot the bill. My parents were struggling financially anyway so couldn't help. I actually ended up lending them some money. My MIL went mental when we wouldn't let her contribute. To this day she still thinks my parents contributed and I wouldn't let her. Doesn't matter what we tell her. It was the beginning of the end of our relationship. Well, it was near the beginning of the end. There had already been a few other bits beforehand.

Jamesonwhite · 23/05/2019 10:19

My dad is paying for all of it. We planned it assuming we would pay for it all ourselves (relatively big wedding) and now he has offered. We know how lucky we are.

thornyhousewife · 23/05/2019 10:30

My parents paid, it cost around £1000.

We're working class millennials. 10 year anniversary soon Smile

AnchorDownDeepBreath · 23/05/2019 10:32

I feel a bit bad reading this - newly engaged but orphaned, so my parents won't be putting anything towards our wedding, and I wouldn't dream of asking his too.

We'll save, and have the type of day we can afford. I hope I can help our children get married though, if they want to.

SunStruck · 23/05/2019 10:57

I paid 10k, husband 10k and PIL 10k. My mother is alone so couldn't help that much but did buy my shoes which were 1300GBP.

Me and husband ended up a bit over budget so in the end we chipped in 3k more between us.

We are very thankful to the help we got for sure (we did not expect it, it was offered to us). It was an amazing day 😄

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