To not get paying thousands for a wedding?

[Milkshakeandcream]

I know I'm probably in the minority. It's just something I struggle to understand.

My friend is getting married and it's costing literally tens of thousands of pounds. They haven't really got the money but are saving hard and borrowing and I know that it's what she wants.

I'd be really annoyed if someone judged me for what I spend my money on. We all have to prioritise and do what makes us happy. Knowing this, I still wince at the cost and can't help but think what else the money could be used for.

My cousin spent thousands on a lovely wedding and they divorced three years later.

If you spent a lot do you regret it or was it worth every penny?

Our was 50k. Yes there's probably better things to spend it on but it was all paid upfront, no credit and you're a long time dead. Why not, we have big families and wanted a big party after covid!

I do feel sorry for people who think they have to spend lots or don’t get married because they ‘can’t afford it’. I had a nice but low cost wedding and over 20 years later zero regrets. Our good friends are same.

We got married 15 years ago. I'm not an extroverted person and have hated being a bridesmaid in the past, so being the bride filled me with horror! All of DH's family live scattered across the globe, so we had a registry office wedding with 2 guests (4 were invited, but swine flu took out the other 2). My dress was traditional for a bride from his country of origin, not a big expensive white thing. We went straight out for Dim Sum, followed by a lot of cocktails with friends - perfect! No regrets. We just wanted to be married and are still very happy. Probably spent less than £500.

Ours was maybe 15k (in the early 2010s) but a good deal of it went toward catering for our 500ish guests as I recall. No regrets! It was the best day, nobody went into debt or had to save for years.

Ours was a big wedding and cost a lot.
It was fantastic. I'd do it all again.
Been married 27 years.

£20k for ours years ago. (15+)

The money is long gone.

Wonderful memories of our dream wedding.

It wasn't enough for anything important like a house deposit etc so didn't prevent us from doing anything.

No regrets.

I can see how £18k is easily reached.
A sit down meal and drinks will be £100 a head, 100 people, and there's £10,000.
Dress £1500
Suits £1000
Bridesmaids £300 x 2 or 3
Cars and transport £1000
Band £1200
Photos / Video £1000
Evening buffet
Flowers
Invites & stamps
Thankyou cards and more stamps
Money for the church.
Cake
Favours for the tables.
Gifts for mothers, bridesmaids, best man and ushers.

Then add in cost of Hen & Stag doo's and honeymoon.

The biggest cost is the meal and drinks yet its deemed very rude on MN to invite people to the evening only, ie the party after the meal.

And the minute you say wedding everyone seems to want their say on how you do it. And big seems to mean silly money.

Personally if I was to do it again I'd cut the guest list, their were people at our wedding who ILs insisted were invited but they made zero difference to our day.

Weddings are an expensive business and always have been.

People massively under estimate how much these things cost..

My mum says you could have a low key wedding like cousin x whilst not realising that lots of the fairly normal weddings she's been too cost over 20k

It's similar to the people here talking about a wedding that cost 7k 15 years ago. It will cost a lot more now

My sisters wedding from just 7 years ago would have more than doubled in price

Unless you've funded a wedding recently its difficult to get a grasp of how something like 10k just dissappears

Our wedding in 1991 was about £6.5k. 100 guests - marquee, caterers, lashings of fizz and Pimms. The cost included frock, going away outfit, flowers, etc. No make-up artists, favours, etc.

DS's wedding in 2022 was about £25k all up. Not dissimilar to ours and no silly spending. They didn't have favours - the cost was donated to charity.

The cost of our wedding was split between my family and us. DH's parents wouldn't have dreamt of contributing. DS's was split between both families.

Some of these replies are the equivalent of saying well I only spent 50k on a house in the 80s so god knows why ftb are spending 200k + now.

. Our local church charges close to a grand without anything like flowers and organs etc and one registry office was a thousand pounds for them to attend your ceremony. We were also quoted 2000 for a gazebo in my parents garden.
The going rate for a photographer is over 1k, a dj can easily cost over 500

That's without all the food costs these days

All of the relatively normal weddings that people have attended would cost a lot these days.
It's easy to see 15k and assume something massive but that's far less than an average wedding these days

It amazes me when thousands are spent, yet there is no money for a house deposit. Seems so stupid

I find it completely bizarre, but each to their own.
My wedding was £49 for the register office (9 guests), we probably spent £50 on cabs, dress was £100, no flowers, no photographer, £50 cake, maybe £200 on drinks, and the expensive bit was dinner which we had in a private room in a 5* London hotel - I think it was around £600. It was the best day. I was pregnant and glad to be home in bed for The Apprentice final! This was 16 years ago.

We spent about £300 maximum in the end. Was great! We used our wedding money to have IVF.

@Wonderwater2 I think you've hit it on the head People massively under estimate how much these things cost.

You've got me thinking I don't think my ILs had ever actually paid for a wedding and had zero clue how much ours was costing. I think they got a fright when they paid for SILs a few years later.

My parents paid their own wedding which I know went over budget as did my sisters. I budgeted mine from a friends spreadsheet and still went over budget. Very easy to say this is nicer or better and only a little more and before you realise it your £2/3 k over budget.

I do think you either need to keep it tiny, immediate family only. Registry office, restaurant, party at home.
Or your into silly money especially when you start inviting Aunties Uncles, cousins and cousins kids, friends etc etc it's hard to draw the line.

My wedding with my dress and other arrangements cost around £1k. However, my dream was always a big and lush wedding that would have probably cost a lot, so I guess I wouldn't have regretted it and probably regret not having the wedding of my dreams.

Genuinely try and price it out.

For example:
50 person wedding ( gives you 25 each which is enough to invite your parents, 2 siblings their partners and 2 children, 2 sets of aunts and uncles, 2 cousin couples, 2 friend couples ish) . Assuming that you are getting married and only having an evening do

Pick a registry office
This fairly bog standard one is the only one in swindon that would allow me to our parents and our siblings in the room size.
its about 500 pounds unless you commit the ultimate mumsnet sin and get married on a week day so people have to book time off.

100 pounds of legal stuff like giving notice, buying certificates etc

That leaves you with 400 pounds for the rest
Most pubs require you to use their catering.most start higher tenner but that puts you immediately out of budget.
So say you find one with about 7.50 a head.

That leaves you with 25 pounds to cover

• any form of drinks for people

• transport to and from the venue

• wedding dress and accessories any form of hair and make up

• suit photos

• invites (remembering postage!)

• dj/ music

• photography

• flowers or decorations

I got married just over 20 years ago,I spent less than 1k on my wedding, my pal got married 3 weeks after me and she spent over 20k.

We both had lovely days, the way we wanted them, and people commented positively on both weddings.

I never judged her luxurious wedding and she never judged my cheap one.

We both got divorced eventually as well 🤣

Mine was nothing to do with the money. I just didn’t want a wedding. A few aunties were pissed off, but we had a lowkey ceremony.

We've been married a long time now, our wedding cost around 5k I think - a figure we were happy with. That's with a church wedding, lovely venue with sit down meal then evening do with food, photographer, cake etc. Costs started to rocket though even within a few years, the same venue was charging 50% more for the food alone. I think I'd find it hard to justify the costs these days vs 20 years ago and would be looking for some sort of compromise.

Nobody got in to debt, everybody was really happy with the day and I wouldn't change anything. Even then I know there were hugely more expensive options that we just chose not to take. These days everything is expensive - you must have chair covers (we didn't, just wasn't a thing then - you got what chairs the venue had, which were nice), you have to have a make up artist for everyone (we didn't, a friend did mine and bridesmaid), you have to have a hair stylist for the day (again, a friend offered) - a friend played piano in the service etc. Really, looking back, I guess we were lucky - but those kind of things really made it more personal and it's given us lovely memories.

I wouldn't pay tens of thousands - but I did want a lovely wedding in a really nice place, and I was lucky we could do that in budget.

@allhailthebrain I agree - things have gone a bit bonkers on the frippery. I was very glad that ds and dil didn't do that. Like us they put some ribbon on family cars, DIL's sister and aunt did the reception flowers which were simple, there were no favors or chocolate fountains. Like ours it was a late afternoon wedding, followed by the reception - one celebration.

I'll probably get slated for this but for my generation and a bit before (weddings in the 60s/70s/80s) ordinary people with ordinary jobs had off the rail or home made wedding dresses followed by a reception in the church hall or working mans' club, usually a buffet. If there was a bit more money available there might have been a sit down meal at a local hotel.

The castle as a backdrop business started in the 90s I think and is a bit fur coat and no knickers. If you don't own the castle or the local Manor House, why start a marriage based on the pretence of grandeur when you grew up in a three bed semi. It has all become rather bizarre.

Ours was over £20,000 13 years ish ago (the vast majority of that was on food and drinks- 2x buffets, 1 sit down meal and a lot of champagne).

It was lovely. We didn’t go into debt for it and don’t regret the spending.

My mum and dad spent £300 on theirs and still speak fondly of it- weddings really are a horses for courses situation.

If I recall the wedding and the honeymoon was about 18K with the honeymoon costing nearly half the whole total.

We had to compromise on some bits because it was just too expensive. We could have done the wedding cheaper but I wanted a certain venue and we couldn't get the guest list lower than 50.

Was it worth it? At the time yes but looking back I almost wish we had done it cheaper, it was a lot of money to spend and even though we had a house deposit we could have put a bit more to it and we may be paying less mortgage now.

I think the honeymoon was worth it though, 2 years after the wedding we had our first child so we have never been able to do anything like we did since.

We spent 3k, it’s our 25 wedding anniversary this year so would probably be 6k in today’s money, we had 100 guests at the village hall with a buffet and an unlimited bar in the day, pay bar at night.

The best wedding I have ever attended and I have been to over 30 was my nephews which was quite a simple affair. We decorated a hired marquee the night before and my niece his sister had picked and dried lavender which was used. His brother had made the cake and he had a BBQ, this was right by the sea, there was also unlimited ice cream in cones.

@RosesAndHellebores fur coat and no knickers is about right.

Personally I think it is crazy to spend a fortune unless you are rich but many many people do.

Our wedding cost less than £400 44 years ago and we had a great day. All we cared about was getting married not a big party, flashy cars etc.

I worked with a girl whose wedding cost over £25,000 in 1997. She then moaned for over a year about the fact they were living in a rented flat in Catford which they hated. Didn't seem to think about using that money for a deposit on a house. Their marriage lasted less than 10 years.