To cancel my wedding and elope

[Worrywart21]

In May next year. I don’t want it. We’d lose about £5000. Would it be unreasonable to just go somewhere and get married?

Spending pretty much the average uk salary (before tax) on a wedding is extravagant and absolutely nuts if you hate the idea. Run away!

Our ceremony in Vegas lasted 7 minutes! It was perfect.

It sounds awful. Who 'designed' that package of hell?

It may not actually be £5000 now I’m looking at it.

£2500 on venue
£150 photographer
£50 cake
£1270 dress
£50 make up
£100 cars
£100 Favours
£100 officiant

That’s all in deposits.

it isn't a basic wedding. tbh I don't get the point of people with children having a big wedding but each to their own.

if it is money you dont need half of the stuff on the list and non of it at the price listed.

Is the money an issue, or is it the actual event just not being 'you'?

If it's money, then there's loads in your list you could cut or scale back without compromising the wedding.

If its the event, either cancel and suck up the £5k as a mistake, OR scale it back. Get rid of the ceremony part, speak with the venue and reorganise the day so it's just a party and a meal. Get rid of bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girls etc, no need for band or videographer

If you do cancel, put dress on eBay/facebook marketplace or Stillwhite to get at least some of that money back.

the venue might give you £2500 credit for something else- so to stay for a week?

you could keep the dress and pay the rest, wear it and then sell it?

I am all for big weddings (mine wasn't cheap to say the least) but yours qualify as extravagant!

It's up to you and your DH - do what makes your own family happy.

It sounds like you got caught and are spending money on completely unnecessary things.

You wouldn't find a piper at a basic wedding, or a videographer . Just because you could have spent more it doesn't mean you've chosen the basic options.

Straight off I can see about 3k you can claw back there: cars, videographer, piper, half the wedding party, and favours could all go. £350 is way more than you need to spend on invitations. You don’t need a makeup artist. And it might be too late to change the venue, but £10k is not “basic”.

Ah. You designed it yourselves? Oh well.

You can have a much cheaper wedding, not much below is compulsory. We had a wedding for 40 people

Venue is £10,000 - ours was a meadow that was free with the 10 holiday cottages we rented We did a massive bbq and went to cost co for loads of booze. Probably no more than £500
Photographer £800 - we just appointed DH young teen cousin to take lots of photos and everyone else took lots too
Cake £300 - I made this myself. We had cupcakes on a fancy stand probably £40 all in
Band £1500 - DH made a playlist on cds and we had a music system
Flowers £600 - £100 for bouquet, 3 flower girls headdresses and about 12 button holes. My mum paid for these
Dress £2000 - mine was £150 from coast bridal wear
Groom wear & grooms men £600 - probably about £150 for DH outfit and everyone else just wore other suits they had
Bridesmaid dresses £1100 - bridesmaids wore whatever they wanted
Invites £350 - about £20 off a print your own site
Rings £1000 - £200
Shoes £50 - about £30 I think
Hair £250 - SIL did mine
Make up £360 - ditto
Cars £700 - didn’t have any
Favours £300 - about 50 in total I think, did party bags for everyone
Licence £70 - probably about the same
Officiant £500 - was about £250 I think
Videographer £800 - didn’t have one
Flower girls £300 - included in bridesmaids figure above
Piper £200 - didn’t have one

I feel absolute dread when I think of being the centre of attention, small talk with people I don’t see or speak to. I feel dread every time I eat a bit of cake and feel like I don’t want to look fat on my wedding day. I spend weekends going to appointments for cars, venues, invites then spend evenings planning guest lists and I can imagine it’s only going to increase as it gets closer. I genuinely don’t feel anything other than dread.

I would try and negotiate with the venue. If you cancel now they stand a chance of reselling. If you cancel later they will possibly not get another booking.

We did! No regrets whatsoever. Could always have the party as planned. I found I enjoyed the party much more once the stress of the day wasn’t there.

BrieAndChilli

Sounds lovely- where was it?

DD is talking about getting married- possibly wants the garden but I am toying with booking somewhere for everyone to go away.

It doesn't sound like the money is the issue.

OP if your fiance is on board just cancel, it's meant to be an amazing day, I really feel the tone of the wedding is set by the bride and groom. If they look stressed or miserable then it's awful. Why waste your time and money and everyone else's?

£24k on one day is a huge waste of money!! I am truly baffled at the amount some people spend, I just don't get it! There are better ways to spend your money, especially if you have kids.

I just did this. The idea of a wedding gave me nightmares! We got married in the stunning city hall in San Francisco. Just us, our two DC's and our photographer as our witness. It was all done and dusted in minutes. I can honestly say it was the best decision ever. We had a fab day as a family and got to spend the next two weeks on holiday travelling around California.

All in including holiday, wedding attire etc etc, it cost about €10,000.

If that's what you want then go for it. You won't regret it!

£2000 on a dress you'll wear once and it's a non-compromise? I'm from an era where you got married before having kids and only had a big wedding for the first one and the stag and hen do's were just one night so considering a £24k wedding as 'basic' sounds bonkers to me. I think I'd scale that back a lot.

I get married in May next year too. Ours sounds very similar to yours, but ours will cost about £10k, I think. I'd still have much rather eloped... But it was important to me that DP was happy and we've planned something we do both think we'll enjoy.

What does your partner think? Is this the wedding he wants, or have you both got carried away?

I'd cut out the band and get a friend to do the play list.

Can you change the timing of the wedding to a late ceremony so you only have one set of catering costs? So a 4/5pm ceremony, drinks reception & photos followed by dinner and disco from 7pm onwards.

I asked my friend to drive me to my wedding in her lexus so saved money on hiring wedding cars. Can you do this?

I also asked to share the costs of the flowers at the venue with the couple who got married before us. Can you do similar or go to a flower wholesaler and ask friends to make up simple floral arrangements.

Cut out the favours & save £300.

I'd be loath to lose £5k tbh because that's still a lot of money but I would look to swap to cheaper alternatives or cut out things like favours. Spend the money on food and catering but cut the budget on unnecessary frills.

You could easily have a smallee cheaper wedding and not lose your 5000 deposit (which is a lot of money to lose) why not just make it smaller and simpler eg why do you need a videograoher at a cost of £800 and a piper costing 200. You can also save on flowers and bridesmaid dresses. You don't need expensive cars either, just ask friends to take you. Make up and hair costs are also way over the top. As are the invitations you could just design your own and get them printed at a fraction of the cost.
But if you are happy to leave the 5000 and want to elope just do that.

If it's not the cost of the wedding but how you feel about having a big day about you then don't do it. You'd lose £4,300 but be saving much more.

Why do something that fills you with dread and makes you so anxious and unhappy? Don't do it!