If you could go back in time, would you spend more or less on your wedding?

[IDKNABYBIF22]

Starting to plan our wedding and torn between potentially regretting not spending more on it in the future, or spending too much on it 🙈.

YABU = more
YANBU = less

I regret inviting so many "friends" who I barely spoke to, and vanished as soon as I had children.

So much less. I don’t think I’d have a wedding at all, just go off quietly with DH and get married.

Much, much less! We had one of those £20K bonanza's that were popular about 10 years ago. I'd have something much smaller and more stylish now.

I would of spent more and have a videographer I think, as no one videoed our first dance or much of the day (I’m hoping that’s because they were having too much fun !)
We didn’t spend a ridiculous amount on our wedding.
We got married in my mil’s garden, my dads cousin made our cake which was absolutely stunning, I did all the decor/stationary bits myself, sample sale dress.
Biggest cost was the marquee as I wanted cream carpet, which I would still choose.
It was the best day of my life (other than the birth of my children).

Neither. We got the day spot on.

Maybe I have a unique perspective.

We had our wedding all sorted and then had to cancel due to covid. We thought we were being really good but it got so expensive around 17k!
We're going to do it but change of venue and cut out the pointless things to keep it well within 10k
Things I wouldn't bother wasting money on
Extra flowers
Silly wedding decor which just looks dated and naff
Favours
DJ (no need for a band)

We spent quite a lot and had a wonderful day so I don't regret it, but then again I think what we could have otherwise spent the money on.... So I'm split.
I actually wish we had paid more for our guitarist (who played whilst I walked down the aisle, and during the drinks reception) so that he could have played whilst we had our dinner. He was absolutely fabulous and my biggest regret is not hearing more from him!

MotherForker I was going to say the same - I wouldn’t marry him!

But if I did, I’d spend less, in particular by inviting fewer people.

I think less.

Things I wouldn’t have spent so much on:

1. The cake. I spent £500 on a traditional white iced wedding cake and it just didn’t taste very nice to be honest, and it didn’t get eaten.
2. An evening meal. Everyone was too stuffed from the wedding breakfast to eat anything so lots of cheese and ham etc went to waste.
3. Professional make-up artist - I think I could have done a better job, the stuff she put on really dried out my skin.
4. Expensive high heels. My feet were killing me after an hour. I wish I’d had a pair of flats to change into at least.

We only spent £6k and the vast majority of that was on food and drinks for our guests. But I do wish we'd had a really good photographer. I do regret not having really good photos.

I loved my wedding and it was expensive by a lot of standards here (over £20k all in). But there are certainly things I would spend less on if I had my time over. I doubt it would have made a huge dent in the overall budget but things that spring to mind are

• upgraded wine (no one cares)
• the experts since dj (a cheaper one would have been fine).
• fancy underwear etc

Ours was really cheap apart from my wedding dress. Would do it all exactly the same again. We wanted the marriage, not a wedding. Can't imagine spending many thousands on a single day when that could be spent on holidays, the DC or buying our house.

I'm not sure how much our wedding was, as it was at a point in my life when my dad and stepmum paid. It was a typical big early 90s bash - church wedding (which was the most important bit of it for us) followed by sit down meal for 100 and then evening ceilidh with 60 extra guests and buffet with cake. We had cars, and flowers, and photos., which were terribly formal and something I would change.

If we were doing it now (both 50 instead of 24) it would be a small family meal and then the evening ceilidh, I'd skip the traditional meal for the hordes and change the photos. There are things we spent money on which I don't regret, like getting my makeup professionally done, it lasted all day and I had to remove it after midnight when it had been on since 10am. Though now I'd get my dd2 to do it!

So I'd do things differently and probably save some money, but I don't regret our wedding one bit, and it's lasted 26 years to date, so good value I think!

Best wedding I've ever been to so I would do it all exactly the same.

Ours was under £500, registry office then pub for a meal, 12 of us altogether. Only thing I'd change is my dress as I lost weight and it didn't fit properly so a lot of the photos taken by family are bordering on indecent

I spent what i needed to to have the wedding we wanted so neither.

I'd spend less I'd invite less, the only thing I would not scrimp on is the photos , at the time I hated taking all the photos but we've lost so many family members that I wouldn't have photos of otherwise

Neither!
I would spend more on my dress - i had a lovely dress but looking back I wish I had gone to town on it a bit more.
Less on having certain people there.

Oh and yes I wish I’d spent more on the e photographer - I chose him towards the end when budget was getting tighter and regretted it.

The truth is that once it’s over - it’s the photos that you’ll cherish I think.

We spent a ridiculous amount and didn't have much to show. All my fault. If I could do over I'd have a few close friends and family to a registry office then have more to a reception party.
Whilst I loved my wedding photos the photographer took up too much of our time and we barely got to mingle with guests at the reception cos he kept pulling us away to get arty shots. I loved our video though.
Flowers and decorations were expensive too. I'd probably not bother with favours either. When I was planning it, it was from pov that it was our one special day, so why not go all out. Now looking back I wish I'd not scaled it back and spent the money on house improvements that would benefit us a lot longer!

Less, less, less! But I would have spent some money understanding the legal implications and getting a pre nup

we spent about 5 k all up. My dress was about £400 k. DH wore the same morning suit he wore for his first wedding. We had 60 people at a nice restaurant. We (DH) massively over ordered on booze by budgeting 4 bottles per person. For our 10th anniversary we had another bash and drank the rest!

my dress WAS NOT 400k. £400.

@ApplePearsAndCrumble

we spent about 5 k all up. My dress was about £400 k. DH wore the same morning suit he wore for his first wedding. We had 60 people at a nice restaurant. We (DH) massively over ordered on booze by budgeting 4 bottles per person. For our 10th anniversary we had another bash and drank the rest!

Am more shocked at managing to hold on to the booze so long than the £400k dress