Is a wedding day worth it?

[CallieCat19]

Hi,
Posting on here for traffic

Just wondering what people thoughts on their wedding day was really, is it worth the money?

Like most girls I’ve been imagining what my wedding would be like since I was little but now I’m older I’m wondering if it’s worth all the money? I’d feel so guilty spending thousands of pounds on a day when there’s so much more important things the money could go on. But then if I didn’t have a wedding day I think I would feel a bit sad because it’s what I always imagined.
Any thoughts?

I had a big wedding back in 1993. We are still together now, 26 years later.

I certainly enjoyed our day, and our guests still remember it and discuss it now, so in that sense I am glad we did it and don't regret it.

However, would I spend as much again if I were doing it now? No. I would prefer to keep the money and either invest it or go on some fabulous holidays.

Mine cost just over 20k but that was a holiday abroad in a fabulous hotel for two weeks.

It was AI and we paid for my parents and we have three kids. The bulk of that £20k was the holiday.

For me, it was absolutely worth it as it was two weeks of celebrations and spending time with my family and extended family.

It was stress free.

I loved our wedding, we were skint so did it on a shoestring. It was such a happy day though. I do sometimes daydream about what it would have been like to have a big church wedding (not possible due to DH's divorce) but I don't regret our lovely day.

I spent more on his funeral than our wedding, and that saddens me.

We spent a lot of money - we paid for it ourselves - and including honeymoon it came to about 15k.

But it was an amazing day and one that everyone smiles about still. We saved up for years and yes we probably could have spent the money on something else. But we didn’t - we had a beautiful venue, wonderful food and have stunning photos from it. I don’t regret a thing.

Of course we could have done it cheap - but we didn’t. Whatever suits you - we wanted this day and we got what we wanted.

I’ve never dreamed of the big day and always thought it was a waste of money.

We had a small ish (50 guests) wedding in a brilliant location, plenty food and drink etc but no cars/videographer/expensive cake/ gimmicks. We spent about £15k in total and honestly I loved it, I’d love to do it again.

Mine cost around 12k/13k and I do regret spending that. It was a very nice, traditional day but I think we felt that because so many of dh side were flying in to attend, we had to deliver this big event and actually it wasn’t very us. I would have done it super low key possibly even abroad somewhere if could go back. We were saving for a house deposit too.. it makes me cringe thinking we would have been about 6 months closer to our house (and for me wouldn’t have felt trapped in a high paying but miserable job) otherwise!!!
If it hurts, don’t do it as my granny used to say..

That is so weird! I've just had an invoice emailed to me for the final bill of my venue hire and I've sat here in silence for the past 5 mins thinking wtf am I doing spending this amount of money on 24 hours!!! It's like I popped out of my body and looked at myself from above and just shook my head at myself.... and then I clicked on here to take my mind off it and see this post 🙈
It's society I think it's just what you do and I've gone along with it. I especially get carried away when I go on social media and see all on 'social media friends' my getting married and how wow and amazing their day looks, it's just like it's the norm. I'm 100% about getting married and who I am marrying just not about the amount I'm spending and it's all too late now!

I really think it isn't worth it.

I'm getting married tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the party and I'm glad we spent most of our budget on things for guests to enjoy - food, booze and music.

We have spent very little on decorating, haven't put out favours, sent out email invitations instead of paper ones. I did splash out on the dress and make up artist because it's important to me to look nice.

I think it's worth it to spend the money on things that are important to you but not on things that are "expected."

Our wedding cost about £2,000, very small (immediate family only)
My FiL still says it was the best wedding he has been to. Very relaxed and everyone able to choose their own food, so no stressing over who might like what, food allergies etc..

we spent around 5k on our wedding and it was quite small, even now i would love to have had a bigger budget and done things bit less shoe string, but it is what it is.

I married to be with my dh not for the day, so it was still special.

I have been married twice. The first one was all the bells and whistles and cost an absolute fortune. I hated it, there were too many people, my dress wasn't really me, was overruled on the food and other things I wanted.

Second time was 2k in total and we did almost everything ourselves. I had the best day. It was exactly what I imagined, laid back and with about 40 guests. I used foam flowers and did them all myself, wedding dress from ebay, no bridesmaids, no wedding cars, my husband took most of the photos and we had a professional just do family photos. Loved every second of it.

Have the day you want, but I advise spending on the things that will last, rings, photos etc. It is just one day, but an important one.

I felt this way too but in the end we have a massive family and lots of friends. DH wanted a proper celebration of the day with all his special people - it was important to him and I couldn't deny him that.

We had a village hall wedding. We splurged on the things that were important to us and saved on all the things we could do ourselves. As a result, our day was really personal and our personalities shone through. I don't regret a second of it, it was one of the best days of my life.

I must admit I never really ‘dreamt’ of a certain type of day.
I dreamt about getting married loads as a girl but what the day looked like always changed (country, venue, style...etc).

DH and I ended up in a very traditional stately home affair (After trying to elope abroad 😂) and spent about 15k of our own money (some help from parents too).

Probably came to about 25k including a very nice honeymoon- but we didn’t get into any debt at all!

My honest advice would be IF the day is what’s most important to you it WONT be worth it!

I would have married DH in a cave 😂 I really would! Had it not been for sudden Ill health of a parent we’d have gone abroad! But in reality this mindset meant we were chilled out about planning/creating the day and really enjoyed the whole experience.

There were no nerves, no ‘everything has to be right’ and no pressure - in the end we had the MOST amazing day! We enjoyed our wedding day as though we were guests at it! 😂 and ofc it was beautiful as we’d spent money on great providers who did an amazing job!

I’ve had friends who spent 25-30k and got SOO intense/stressed that by the time it came they hated their own wedding! You only enjoy it if you have the right mindset!

And trust me the next day when you’re watching it all get ripped down (flowers/decor/chairs piled high) if you haven’t thoroughly enjoyed it then you will wonder what you wasted your money on!

For us it was probably the last ‘family event’ grandparents/several elderly relatives will make it to! We just loved every minute of it and wouldn’t change a £ we spent!

I say this looking on only as a bystander, as I’m not married, but it can depend on what you’re placing the emphasis on really from what I’ve seen- as in whether you enjoy the planning/prep as much (well maybe not as much, but you do take enjoyment in it) as the day itself. Because the day passes so quickly and it can be a hell of a lot of money to spend if you feel stressed out by it more than you enjoy it.

My sister spent maybe £6-7k I believe, it was relatively low key (in that it wasn’t masses and masses of people), at a very lovely venue with lovely food. Her now husband and her spent a lot of time together, that they enjoyed, making things for the wedding instead of buying them etc. I made her wedding cake which was good fun as we (usually at my mums, including my siblings in this) had many tasting sessions, and ‘play’ sessions with icing, whilst we got the design right.
The whole affair, including planning and prep, was just fun and relaxed. They both said, they actually enjoyed the build up (the planning etc) almost as much as they did the wedding, because the spent a lot of time together having fun getting everything sorted.

My brothers wedding so far, seems to have caused them nothing but stress. I don’t know how much they are spending, I’m lead to believe it’s over the £40k mark, and every time his fiancé talks about sorting different things there’s two focuses to the conversation; the stress it’s caused, and/or the cost/appearance of what’s been planned (#instawedding!). And I worry that they’ll walk away after and not think it was worth it.

Personally I think some people spend stupid amounts on a wedding.

It's simply one day in your life and perfectly possible to have an amazing day without spending a ridiculous amount of money.

DH and I spent more on our honeymoon than the wedding and had a magical 2 week luxury holiday somewhere really special.

But each to their own.....though I have to say that most friends who did splash out now regret it.

Some sadly because the marriage failed, but others who look back and think that whilst the day was lovely, in hindsight the money could have been put to better use, especially having been to "low cost" weddings like mine and DH's and realising those days were "perfect" too.

Ours was tiny in the scheme of things, under £1000 all in but I'd never been the type to dream about weddings as a young girl so I didn't have a template in my head, and we were pretty skint at the time so didn't have it to spend anyway! Dress was off the peg from a department store, cake was a wedding gift from a talented friend who did it as a hobby, discounted venue as DH had worked there in the past, register office ceremony, fewer than a dozen guests and no evening do. For us it was a perfect, relaxed day and I have no regrets.

I personally don't think it's worth it but that's easy for me to say as a) a big white wedding has never been important to me and b) I've always scraped by at best financially so can't imagine having even £10k to blow on one day, never mind more. I do think though that you can have a perfectly lovely wedding day without spending a fortune, with a bit of creativity and by deciding what are the absolute essentials to you. I think too many brides get hung up on details, stuff like matching the chair back swags exactly to the bridesmaids' hand-dyed shoes, but on the day the bride doesn't have time to care and the 99.9% of the guests won't even notice.

We had a fairly expensive wedding. We had people travel a long way to attend, so made it worth their while and put them all up overnight. A formal dinner so the geographically dispersed families could all catch up, a party with plenty of entertainment in the evening. It was great! It was pretty stress free aswell tbh.

Spending a bit more also helped with both DH and I having divorced parents, they can't even make eye contact, let alone interact. So if we'd had something a bit less formal without seating plans and lots of entertainment to keep them busy, it could have been awful!

Coming from a place like you OP where I always imagined my wedding day like a fairytale experience, I'm now a newlywed and do have some thoughts on this subject!

First of all - I had a great day, it was fun. It's astounding to be in a room full of the people you love the most. I felt so good on the day. It was a once in a lifetime event and I will be forever grateful to the kindness and love my family and friends demonstrated on the day.

However, knowing when I embarked on the wedding planning journey what I know, I would have done things differently. It was stressful, for reasons I never could have planned for and it tore me apart in ways I could just about cope with. When you have a wedding, a big one, you are allowing those around you in on your happiness. To do that you need to have some idea whether everyone else being involved will make you happy and assess the risks that may come with it. In my case, it's where the stress came from. Everyone has a different support network, so no 2 experiences are the same. Booking a venue/dj etc is simple!
A wedding can lose sight of the purpose you are there for, which is to get married. It's a party, or as I called it too often, a circus.

Hope you have a fabulous day tomorrow, Shay!

DD got married this year. It was an expensive day but a really lovely one, and I think we'll all remember it fondly for years to come.

We had a ours in our local church then in the viallge hall, all decorated by ourselves using second hand and eBay purchases, all in our wedding came to just under £3,000 and it was the best day

We had a big wedding with about 150 guests, so although it did cost a fair bit to feed them all we were thrifty with a number of things - my dress was from a previous season so was beautiful but cheap, my godparents got us our wedding car as a gift, aunt and uncle paid for the entertainment, we got a plain cake from M&S and whacked some fresh flowers on it, booked our reception at a wedding fayre so got lots of freebies thrown in etc.
It was the best day of my life, it was amazing having everyone I loved in the same room and everyone had a ball so I don't regret the cost at all. 15 years down the line too many loved ones are not here anymore, so I'm very, very glad of the memories and photos from the day.

AndNoneForGretchenWieners

We did ours for about £3k, our local village church, walking distance to the pub for BBQ type food. About 30 guests and then a few more friends/ people from the village came in the evening to have a drink with us. It was exactly how I would've wanted it regardless of budget, very casual and easy going, weather was brilliant so we were outside the whole time.
Brother and SIL got married year before us, took out a loan of £15k to pay for it all. Yes the wedding was nice, a big flash country house and 8 bridesmaids, three course dinner etc but they had to pay for it over 4 years! No way I would take out a loan for a wedding but each to their own I guess

Ours had to be a little unconventional to reconcile our large guest list and limited budget. It was worth every penny and one of the best days of my life so far.