To think weddings have become a money making racket?

[malificent7]

I can't wait to get married to my fiance next year but I am astounded with some of the quotes we have recieved:
£2,000 to hire a tythe barn for one evening with nothing else included only licenced till 11)...no.
£25,000 for a glamping wedding venue.

( forget it).
£30 per bottle of prosecco at our chosen wedding venue....it is a beautiful venue and better value than many but i did balk at this....why can't i bring my own? Although we chose it as the surroundings are magical and the food is included and excellent.
Plus all the extravagant hen and stag dos that i will not be having.
We have already paid the deposit for our venue and plan to spread the còst but I am tempted to run away and wed dp and spend the £ on a honeymoon.

Aibu to think that many people are cashing in on weddings and a couple does not need to start their married life in such an expensive way? Plus i have heard that the average price of a wedding is £30,000!

It is almost expected that the couple should have an extravagent do.

Less than 50% of people in the UK have a will. Some think that regardless of the fact they havent formally written anything down somehow the world will know that they want xxx to be left to xxx.

And I dont necessarily mean in money terms. There is no such thing as a common law husband/wife

Get married in church and look for a reception venue by not mentioning the W word. Eg ask hotels about their rates for a function room for a day with a three course menu. It will be far less!

Try not to to mention wedding for flowers, catering etc. as they add on £££££. It is obscene and I know exactly what you mean, eyewatering thousands of pounds I've been quoted for a rather small and low key affair!

@gogohm i think the elephant in the room is numbers. If you have 35-50 guests, it would be hard to exceed £10k even if you have it in a hotel, as long as you don't go crazy with the dress and all the extras. It is easier for some people to have an intimate wedding; if my family was as small as my DH's, I probably wouldn't have more than 35 people. But my mum has 6 siblings and the family is really close; they meet up every 2 weeks! That alone is 45 people. If both sides of the family are this big and both bride and groom are extroverts with lots of friends, we are talking at least 150 people. Even if you were just taking 150 people to dinner on an ordinary day, it would be at least £25 per person at a semi decent restaurant (I am being conservative) and that excludes the booze. That in itself is £3750 and you need booze at a british wedding.

You're not kidding. We went to one last week and it was £5k just to hire the venue, and entertainment, food and drink all had to be paid for on top. Enjoyable as it was, I felt the most enjoyment came from dancing, chatting and drinking with the people there, and it would've been just as enjoyable if they'd hired the local village hall!

I didn't vote, because I think some of them are a money making racket, but no-one HAS to do spend £30K on their wedding.

There are certain venues where they do everything for you for £4K to £7K. EVERYTHING. Including the photographer, the flowers, the venue (obvs,) a wedding planner, and the wedding breakfast' for up to 50 people.

All you have to provide is the wedding dress and groom's outfit, and the best man's and bridesmaids outfits (and the wedding rings.) Everything else is provided for the money, and everything is done for you.

Our local registry office charge:
£65 booking fee
£70 legal notice fee
£270 hall hire (this is for the smallest room, others are around £400

So yes its far cheaper, but its not £50

Oh and those prices are on a Monday to Wednesday. A Friday or Saturday will cost more like £400 for the smallest room and £800 for the larger

Alternatively you can pay £68 for a wedding in an office with no guests, no music and no photos allowed.

Oh plus £40 for the consultation to discuss ceremony details.

The nicest weddings I've been to have been the most informal ones. At one, the couple had gone through the Registry Office earlier in the day but had their own ceremony with guests afterwards in a woodland setting with a cold buffet for catering. Guests were asked to contribute to the cost of the Reception instead of sending presents. It was just a lovely, relaxing day and the cost was minimal.

I think the expectations of a wedding have changed so much.

I got married in 1996 and we spent about 5k in total. In that same year friends had spent 15k.

We had a church wedding and hired a local community centre hall and paid outside caterers to come in and do a three course roast dinner and an evening buffet. We hired a mobile DJ for the evening.

We put £800 behind the bar and no guests had to pay for a single drink.

It was a great wedding and everyone enjoyed it.

Friends who spent £15k hired a golf club for their reception and only the welcome drink and the wine on the table was free to guests. It was lovely and very fancy but I couldn't have spent that much money.

Our three bed semi that we bought when we got married was £60k so the thought of spending £15k just on a wedding was madness to us.

Our friends came from richer families and had higher paid jobs so it wasn't a surprise that they had a fancier wedding but now it seems that type of wedding is seen as the basic level.

@MurmuratingStarling these places must be really faraway from London? I think that would be very inconvenient for my guests...To be fair, there are cheap options in central london too.

You can get married at the Knights Templar in Chancery Lane for £4500 and that includes a 3 course meal for 100 guests, wine, flowers and a DJ. Even though its wetherspoons, I think it is a lovely building and it has sentimental value as my DH and I often had dates there during our student days (after studying at maughan library!). My DH thinks its very tacky and its not workable for us due to our kosher guests but it probably does work for some.

www.entertainmentdaily.co.uk/news/get-married-wetherspoons-pub-london-bargain-all-inclusive-price/

I am getting married at the moment and I agree OP.

There's lots of little things that get added on or try to add on. For example I bought my dress, it was over 1k. Then the shop is like, do you want a bag? Do you want want hanger? Do you want it steamed? Does the dress not come with a bag? If I buy shoes they come in a box, a £200 handbag comes with a dustbag so why does it not come with protection for a 1k dress?! Why is it creased?! Bloody make sure the product is decent before you sell it to me?

Table numbers. Why does the venue not provide table numbers? I need the numbers so people know where to sit to get the meal they've chosen but I really don't give a shit how the table numbers look

For me honestly the thing that really gets me is the idea that I must be a bridzilla, I must want everything absolutely perfect, exactly how I've been dreaming of since I was a baby. I must want this that or the the other miniscule detail. Even on this thread it's the assumption that women want a wedding for the gram, or to show off, or that they are silly because they spent money on their wedding. In reality I want to provide good food for my 60 odd friends and family, alcohol, music. I want flowers and a pretty dress. But I don't have dome detailed plan of every exact detail? It's not about showing off and I doubt I'll put anty pictures on social media!

It's like questions like do you want to use our cake knife? Yes! Why would I have any cake knife preferences?

I think as well its all very well to say a DIY event but that actually takes time and effort to organise. I hope we have gone for a good balance of throwing a good event, without too much stress but avoiding all the silly little details everyone seems to expect you to want to add on, like matching hen do pjs.

Tbf the majority of my costs are actually the honeymoon. But I can see how easily it can spiral because you get sold things from every bloody angle.

And once you've Googled something, then every Internet page is filled with various wedding adds, my social media is filled with wedding stuff, my Instagram explore page is just all videos of people telling what I need for the wedding and it's very intense. No one is immune to marketing and its easy to get carried away or end up buying things you don't need.

YANBU.
Plenty of derisive comments r.e Instagram, glitzy wedding, etc but the word ‘wedding’ is a license to charge more for the exact same product!
Reason being… brides expect ‘perfection’.
Meaning they can screw other things up?

Well exactly @LegMeChicken I don't want a half arsed birthday cake if I'm paying for it?

@Carrotten

Well exactly *@LegMeChicken* I don't want a half arsed birthday cake if I'm paying for it?

TBF ‘some’ things make sense, like wedding makeup needing to last longer. The mark of BS is when a vendor can’t articulate why something costs triple. Or insists that you ‘need’ certain things.

Not all of us want Hollywood weddings . But we also don’t want to get married in burlap sacks and the local chippy for dinner , which is the MN-approved wedding standard.

@Carrotten and yes to being sold loads of stuff!!!
😍 a woman after my own heart

My wedding knowledge comes from helping organise but when the time comes for my own… I’ll be avoiding the word ‘wedding’ as much as possible.

Surely vendors can’t complain.. i won’t be signing the papers there either so could argue that it’s indeed a family party, not a ‘wedding’ 😏 .

DH and I spent 30kish on our wedding in 2014 and somehow didn't go into debt and managed to save for a deposit. It's not an either/or . My concession towards frugalness was doing my own flowers (taught myself using Youtube) and doing my own makeup . Must have worked out ok since we got a full page feature in the weddings section in a national newspaper and a wedding magazine .

I do remember being shocked at how much 'wedding" stuff cost though. I spent years as a professional event planner, so definitely noticed the inflated pricing. However, as someone upthread mentioned, weddings need to be absolutely perfect so to a certain extent I understand it.

@Sharrowgirl

They haven’t become it, they always have been.

I agree 100%

@LegMeChicken yes, but surely a better way of doing it is paying for longlasting makeup. I should still have the option of the cheaper make up for my wedding if I chose, as long as its clear what I'm paying for. If something for a wedding needs to be more expensive that's fine, but it needs to be clear what the extra is for. Not just that I will expect it to be perfect because all women are bridzillas.

Thecweddings I’ve most enjoyed haven’t been that fancy - best one was a register office followed by a meal for about 100 in a Paris themed event in nice restaurant in Manchester— I doubt it was more than about 8k in total including outfits and photos

Don’t bother with stealth @allfurcoatnoknickers

It's like questions like do you want to use our cake knife? Yes! Why would I have any cake knife preferences?

You mean you're not bringing a sword!!!!!

It's nothing new.

I'm sure there is plenty of ways to spend less, it depends on what is important to you for your day.