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.

Dh used to work for someone providing a service for weddings
. If the service was booked for a birthday the boss would charge £500

If the word wedding is used in booking £1500+ depending on venue
People paid it!

However this is the exact reason we went for a small wedding.
Registry office 50 guests. To a local wine bar Drinks and leave.
We did our own thing in the evening.
Everyone we spoke to eas saying how it was lovely and chilled more intimate. Not being ushered from one room to next for canopes, champagne etc. Feeling rushed. Each to their own

Well of course it's about making money, that's what all businesses do...not sure I'd call it a "racket" though. No one is forced to have a big wedding with all the trimmings.
It's a luxury service, especially modern weddings which are really quite lavish...in our parents' generation, only wealthy people would have had a wedding like that. Now it's seen as standard that you have to have a posh sit down meal with multiple courses, fancy cake, expensive dress, fancy cars.

Our wedding cost around £6-£7k in total including the stag and hen do. It was in a village hall, we did a lot ourselves, called in favours and had a hog roast and buffet instead of a sit down meal. But even so, it cost nearly £1000 for the food alone. That works out at around £20 per head, for 50 people. Most people invite around 150-200 people and want a posher meal, so of course that's going to amount to thousands of £££. That's before you even factor in the other costs.
I think it's fair enough to charge more for a wedding than a birthday party, the expectations are much higher and with something like a venue, you need it for a lot longer...usually the whole day plus all evening until the early hours. And takes longer to set up and clear away.
Just have the kind of wedding that you can afford, then you won't resent paying the money.

@LutzClutz but in our parents' day, not many people had rich parents. I am not saying that everyone has rich parents today, but there are certainly more parents who are able to give their kids house deposits (and if you can give a house deposit, you can probably help to sponsor a wedding) than in the past.

I would be interested to see the average cost of self-sponsored weddings vs the average cost of parent/relative sponsored weddings. I have a feeling the self-sponsored weddings are far cheaper maybe even less than £10k!

[quote onlychildhamster]@Fairyarmpits Incidentally, I did have a 7 course banquet meal at a 5 star hotel for my family members but it wasn't in the UK (though it was in the second most expensive city in the world! But I think I got a good deal and there is an oversupply of hotels in my home country). It cost around £4000 for the hotel package for 50 people and they all brought cash gifts which more than covered the cost of the banquet. I didn't spend too much on the extras and my cousins/sister helped out with the decor. Didn't have a videographer but we did have a photographer. My dress was £500 from a dressmaker and I also rented a cheongsam gown for the equivalent of £350.

My UK 'budget' ceremony will cost me more than the 5 star hotel wedding! Which blows my mind.[/quote]
Crikey, what will you do for your third wedding?!

@Fairyarmpits its not really my third wedding, its the religious ceremony at the synagogue. It took quite a bit of time to convert so I couldn't have done that any earlier esp with covid (i literally converted before the lockdown). it would just be the ceremony and afternoon tea at the synagogue hall.

It is not as cheap as you would expect. I am getting my friend to cater the afternoon tea, re-wearing the same wedding dress, doing DIY decor. But it would still cost £6000. You have to hire a singer and an organist for the religious ceremony plus there are ceremony fees, hall rental. I was trying to do it on a shoe string and it wasn't that easy. I can fully see how people can end up spending £30k if there were more guests!

I mean, I didn't even go to a bridal shop to buy my dress- I went to an indian dressmaker who makes lehengas and some wedding gowns. I worked out that it would be cheaper than getting it at some london bridal shop that charges £2000. My dress cost the same as a wedding dress from Monsoon. My cousins thought it cost thousands!

@Sharrowgirl

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

Not necessarily, there used to be a meal then possibly a disco, there wasn't an evening buffet for example. At the end of the day the wedding industry is ridiculously expensive because the customer has made it so, trying to create the 'perfect' colour co-ordinated, social media-ready event. Brides look on the internet, magazines etc and see her favourite vacuous celebrity and want the same, not realising that because the vacuous celeb is famous they don't pay for a lot of it. How many arguments revolve around bridezillas who want everything?

Some parts of small town Canada have a ‘social’ a few months before the wedding. The local town hall is hired out for next to nothing, and all the locals and family members attend. Usually a couple of hundred people or more. All the money made on drink that evening is then given to the couple getting married to help pay for the ceremony. It seems to work well.

In the past, everyone got married whether they were rich or poor.

Not actually true. Have you ever watched "who do you think you are?" Or those inheritance shows or similar?

Lots of couples PRETENDED to be married but actually weren't especially among the working class who couldn't afford to marry.

It wasn't talked about or open but it was true.

I also agree with those challenging those saying "''twas ever thus" and referencing weddings this century only, I used to work in the industry also and in early 2000's and that's when things were really starting to change due to the influence of sm.

There HAVE always been those who pushed out the boat there's also always been those who could barely afford the license/registration fees but generally people fell somewhere in the middle and had their weddings according approximately to their income/class level

Now there are working class couples getting themselves into insane levels or debt they can't afford for ONE day

I've said repeatedly on wedding threads that it is perfectly possible to have a beautiful wedding on a small budget - and for the benefit of this thread I will also say it's possible to have an awful, poorly delivered wedding for a huge one!

Cost is not always an indicator of good service in the industry i would urge bridal couples to thoroughly check reviews and recommendations.

Prior to being in the industry I had a traditional chapel wedding in the early 90's both of us from big families and with a fair few close friends we really wanted there too. So 150 guests but we did it on a reasonable budget I think, chapel, then catered buffet and disco in a village hall type venue. Some items were provided as wedding gifts from guests with certain abilities/talents and I did some things myself and we shopped around and haggled on some things too. All in £3k which would be just over £5k now

Had an amazing day which despite subsequent divorce I do not regret.

I'm also an army brat and so this so far has been the one and only time almost everyone I loved was in the same place at the same time and meeting each other. A few couldn't make it due to illness/bereavement last min which was a shame but you can't plan for everything.

Almost 30 years later I still get guests saying what a fab day it was.

In a professional capacity I get what the vendors on the thread are saying about overheads etc which is true but come on if you're in the industry you ALSO know there ARE vendors that take the piss! That don't provide as good an item/service as they should for the price they are charging. Just as in any industry

And yes if customers were more discerning prices would likely come down

Pp has alluded to another reason prices can be high which is that fewer couples marry now as culturally we as a country are no longer as traditional on the subject and cohabiting is much more socially acceptable and this is even more the case when the economy is doing poorly as now because most non religious brits are weddings as a luxury now.

I agree weddings are a luxury I don't think getting married is, because of the legal and financial ramifications of not being married especially usually for women and more especially for sahm.

@bellsbuss those prices will be for wedding ceremonies in registry offices not the act of marrying, for the simple act of marrying the price is lower usually less than £200 for legal documents and registrar fee it used to be even cheaper just a few years ago.

Here in Scotland you're not even legally required to have a venue! You can get married on a beach, woodland, a park...

@Graphista i agree that there are legal/social ramifications to not getting married etc but i think these ramifications are more obvious when you have assets vs not having assets. My DH and I married when we had little money at age 22 and 24 as we met at university/were from different countries so marriage was a way of staying together. We did expect that we would have more money in the future so we agreed; ok one day when we have more money, we would celebrate properly(didn't realize the pandemic would delay it by another 2 years then!) and I also expected that we would buy a property together in the future (which we did). Also both of us are ethnic minorities so marriage is the default option...

I get what everyone is saying about marriage having benefits. But I am just not so sure that if I was stuck in a poverty trap, married to a local, had no hope of ever owning property, I would see the benefits as clearly. I mean, a lot of ex husbands often get away with not paying child maintenance! If you don't own a house, you wouldn't get a share in it. As Mumsnet has taught me, its better to be alone than to have a crap partner even with kids. And its a lot easier to get rid of a crap partner if you aren't married. Unless said crap partner has assets ( I hope Melania cleans out donald trump one day).

I didn't know about people not being married in the past, but pretending, thanks for sharing. My impression was that you had to be married as a woman to have kids or your kids would be taken off you to be placed for adoption...

but i think these ramifications are more obvious when you have assets vs not having assets.

More obvious maybe but they don't only apply in those circumstances. It's not only if a couple splits - where being married offers certain protections and makes certain things easier even if there is little in the way of assets (certainly applied for me!) but also if one party, esp the higher earner becomes incapacitated or dies.

As Mumsnet has taught me, its better to be alone than to have a crap partner even with kids.

This I would agree with having been basically happily single myself the last 20 years almost

And its a lot easier to get rid of a crap partner if you aren't married.

Not necessarily - as I said esp if one is a sahp and dependent on the other financially they can be trapped into staying

My impression was that you had to be married as a woman to have kids or your kids would be taken off you to be placed for adoption...

Not necessarily in gb- complicated and rather regional.

Pre internet pretty easy to pretend that you were married and nobody would know to look into your status necessarily - if of course a man went along with the ruse, and many did even if they weren't necessarily the father of any of the children.

What you're referring to was more if you were obviously a single mother with no man about and even then didn't always happen though forced adoption did happen a lot until at least maybe the 80's/90's? (Later than most people think!) even though I think official practice was not to coerce/force adoptions from the late 70's it still went on. What also happened a lot were secret in the family "adoptions" that weren't official where the grandmother or a married aunt falsely claimed they were the child's mother and raised them.

As a trainee nurse I well remember on a placement another nurse was trying to organise her passport for her 1st holiday overseas (I think it was her honeymoon) her "mum" was being really awkward about giving her the correct documentation and kept trying to fob her off etc turns out "mum" was actually gran, eldest sister was mum etc she was shocked and devastated and felt so betrayed.

My own mum (catholic) has told me of friends and relatives that were thrown out by parents, made to marry the father even though they barely knew each other, coerced/forced into giving up their babies for adoption or secret family "adoptions" etc. I'm an unplanned pregnancy myself! Indeed I think I'm right in saying at least 3 generations back all the brides I am directly descended from were pregnant on their wedding day!

The idea that it's a modern thing (unplanned pregnancy, pre marital sex) is very inaccurate.

Again people who've researched family histories have found unknown of babies born prior to the marriage and family that's known about.

And I believe this will be the case whatever the cultural background of a woman because ultimately we are human, sexual people.

It may be a lot more difficult and problematic in some cultures than others but it doesn't stop people doing what people have always done!

One of my relatives has been doing our family history last few years and discovered some surprises! This includes at least 2 "1st" marriages that weren't , babies nobody knew about, and even a prison sentence nobody knew about! (The family though the person was serving in the military at this time)

This was hundreds of years ago when it was much easier to hide such things.

It can be both fascinating and upsetting.

Extrapolating somewhat but personally I think this makes these dna ancestry commercial companies irresponsible as people have no idea what they will discover!

For starters it's estimated something like I think 25-30% of all babies are being raised by someone who is - unknown to father or child - not the biological father, these "services" have also resulted in a fair number of people discovering they have half siblings they knew nothing about (often the result of affairs their parent had) or indeed that they are adopted and have been told their parents are their biological parents. It's created a shit storm in USA at least apparently where there are now quite a few support groups for people who've discovered unpleasant truths as a result of doing such tests (which aren't always that accurate apparently)