A wedding question

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Hi,

Partner of 9 years has finally (😂) started to make some noises about us getting married. He has floated the idea of a beach wedding in somewhere abroad (initial idea is Santorini) with just nearest and dearest (parents and bridesmaids etc) and our children there, followed by a party back home to celebrate where we can invite wider family and friends. He seems to think this would work out cheaper than a UK wedding. What are people's thoughts on the financial aspect of abroad versus home, and also just general pros and cons of each I might not have considered?

Thank you!

£30k??? I'm sorry, your friend is insane!

Our wedding was £6k 10 years ago...my friend is having a wedding which is costing her £7k in a few weeks time. Church wedding, 80 day guests and another 50 at night. Without going in to a million specifics... My friend is using a very pretty local village hall as the venue, hiring an outside bar who charge only if they don't make £1000 on the day (which with 130 guests they absolutely will) using a local caterer for the wedding breakfast, homemade decorations with Jam jars, vases, fresh flowers, wedding favours just a nice chocolate per person, tying a pretty ribbon around the back of the chair, using a great local band who don't charge sully money for evening entertainment, dress from a lady who sells last season's dresses at a fraction of the price (loads of these sellers around) etc. Will be beautiful, magical, personal and DEFINITELY doesn't need to cost the earth.

@Stardust1985

Wow that all sounds amazing and I'd love something similar!

PEOPLE DIE OP!!!! what on earth are you playing at waiting even a day more?!l! How do you even sleep at night with the weight of this risk upon you?! 😂

@Plmoknijbuhv
Yes I'd absolutely consider church.

Location is north east England, if anyone can suggest anywhere that's "middle of the road" pricing wise (ie not a registry office but also not a 20k castle 😂)

Op there’s no point looking for a helpful discussion on destination weddings on here! Mn hates them because it hates people having fun or nice things, weddings should just be registry office and pub meal job done and everyone should just drive a Ford fiesta as it gets you from a to b 🙄🙄

we’re getting married in Cyprus next year. I hate Uk weather I love the sun and heat and I didn’t fancy a soggy muddy Uk wedding that costs £40k. Our AI holiday for 2 wks in Cyprus is around £5k for 2 adults, 3yo and 1yo. Wedding will then be around £15k, but can do it a lot cheaper.

Cyprus and Greece you can get legally married. Spain you can’t, you need to also go to Uk registry office. Santorini is not cheap however it’s about the same cost or more as a Uk wedding and because it’s a small island holidays there are more expensive too. You could look at Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus.
you can book packages where you get married at a hotel for just a few thousand.

I would go somewhere special to you, or at least somewhere that you have been before and liked. Santorini is incredibly busy and will be expensive for accommodation.

FWIW I agree that you could have a wedding in the UK that's not a registry office or church. Lots of people have weddings in really cool locations. Can't see why midweek would matter, your guests would almost certainly need to use annual leave or take kids out of school anyway. And 2027 gives you lots of time to save.

Hi op not RTFT but I got married abroad 10 years ago now here's my points to consider

Yes much cheaper wedding but it was just me and dh we had to pay for no DC then
We had 21 guests and everyone I invited I provided a map with the invite with location of wedding and reception party and differerent accommodation options

Santrorini is an extremely expensive location so consider that for guests other Greek islands maybe more guest budget friendly, zante, kos etc I got married on one of them

Local wedding planners usually ex travel/tourism workers mine was amazing handled all the legals and suppliers etc

Need to be in the country for so long before the wedding check the local rules for us was 5 days.
Couldn't get legally married on the beach so in the morning dh and I did legals at the town hall then full ceremony on beach

We paid for food and drinks transport on wedding day

We have also been to 2 abroad weddings one in Cyprus one in Portugal we love them personally but as you can see from this thread there not everyone's taste

I don’t understand why your partner is happy to have a tiny wedding abroad but not a smaller UK wedding? If he doesn’t want a register office you could choose a nice venue and just have less guests. The number of guests is really what drives up the cost, a lot of the other ‘extras’ like dress, makeup/hair, music, cars etc can be done cheaper if you want.

In the UK, a nearby midweek wedding could be 1-2 days leave and minimal travel and accommodation costs. Of course, you might decide to get married at the other end of the country, but you could probably still do it in 3 days leave and find more reasonable travel and accommodation than weekends or overseas.

Santorini is probably at least 5 days leave as a minimum, especially if its then becoming the main family holiday plus higher travel and accommodation costs. And I'd assume you're thinking a time when you can pretty much guarantee nice weather so looking towards high season?

It's not really as comparable as you're trying to make out

Just to add^ I'm glad we went abroad was right for us at the time we were very young but didn't want all the fuss and wanted to save for a house deposit and we also had the added bonus of all family in good health and could travel and were happy to do so

www.racheljoycephotography.co.uk/bestnorthwestweddingvenues/

Anything on this list that appeals to you?

Been to two lovely weddings recently. One in a Scottish old house now an hotel beside a loch. The other a really really old hall. Registrar in attendance and both were amazing.

Thanks @RainStreakedWindows I'll take a look ☺️

So many ways of having a nice wedding in the uk under 10k. You can book out a nice country pub with a view, rather than an expensive hotel. Get friends/family to help with flowers, cake, decorations, maybe even photography.

What we did:

• FIL's in a band, they played the evening music. We paid for a DJ after that.
• SIL and aunt-in-law baked the cake.
• Family friend who is a professional photographer gave us mates' rates on photography.
• Best man and his dad home-brewed 200 pints of real ale, delish
• We used my workplace as wedding reception venue, I got a discount on venue hire.
• I, my mum and mum's friend did the bridal party flowers, in the morning of the wedding, while bridesmaids hung out drinking prosecco (one of my favourite parts of the day). My mum's friend is a florist, and we paid her mates' rates.
• I bought my dress on the high street, £220, I looked fab if I say so myself. Wore traditional wedding shoes of my mum's culture, bought inexpensively abroad.
• didn't pay for make up (I don't wear it), one of my bridesmaids did my hair, took her 15 minutes to make me a gorgeous braid crown.

The only thing I spent proper money on was the catering and wine, because for me, that's of biblical importance

I can't remember how much it all cost in the end, we sort of paid for bits here and there. But it was really special and personal and meaningful

Santorini in reality won’t look like the pictures. You’ve probably seen Fira and Oia, which are beautiful but very, very crowded in July/August. Probably Easter and October too really. The beaches are volcanic, so grey sandy/rocky. Outside of Fira and Oia, there are prettier Greek islands. It’s also really hot in August. 40 degrees plus, and feels even hotter as a lot of the island is quite unsheltered.

If you do an abroad wedding, I think you need to have been there first. Pick somewhere you love and have a connection to, even if it’s just memories of a nice family holiday there.

We got married in 2023 for £10k in the UK. 25 day guests and 50 evening guests. It’s easily done. We only spent £10k because we had more of a luxury feel (The White Company scented candles, champagne not Prosecco, 5 course meal for the 25 day guests, and I spent £2.5k on my shoes and 2 dresses which all clearly wasn’t necessary but just what I wanted and could afford). Venue was a 4 star country house hotel.

Exactly this.

I wouldn't want to be forced into going to some resort I wouldn't ordinarily have chosen for a holiday, use up annual leave etc just to attend your wedding. Just get married here in a small ceremony if you want that, have the party, go on holiday.

Langley Garden Station (near Hexham) is gorgeous https://www.thegardenstation.co.uk/weddings

Also take a look at the Weddings In Northumberland website. A lot of register offices don't look like register offices and then you could hire a local village hall for the reception.

This time last year I was at a wedding in Cyprus that was "so much cheaper" than the same package in the UK.

Except it cost us about £800, and the bloody package didn't include so much as a crisp or a canape outside of the main meal in the middle of a 12h wedding in the middle of nowhere.

I was pregnant and bloody starving.

If you're willing to properly feed and pay for your guests out-of-UK-pocket attendance, THEN you can call it cheaper.

https://www.mynorthumberlandwedding.co.uk/venues/

So you aren't even really getting married there? So a posh shindig?

Hi OP, congratulations! We are currently finalising plans for our wedding for this August and also went to an abroad wedding last year. I have to say, the wedding abroad was amazing. It was a much larger party than you are planning but there was no expectation from the couple for anyone to feel they had to attend, everyone just wanted to go. We spent 4 days in Spain and all had a fantastic time. I think their package cost them around £16,000 plus the additional charges then travel, accommodation, food for their stay etc. The ceremony was not legally recognised and they visited a registry office when they returned with 2 witnesses to make it official but neither consider this their wedding.
We are also having a large wedding, around 100 guests and basically having it in a large village hall. The venue hire is £4000 and catering costs are £8000. Our band, photographer and videographer were all £2000 each. The florist is £2500 (I love flowers and this was a big thing for me). We are not having a cake. We have still to organise wine on top of this and pay a corkage charge to the venue. My dress was £1300 and my bridesmaids dresses were about £1000 for all 4 including their alterations. We have hired in chairs and decor which is an additional £1500 and stationary is around £800 in total. For the size of our wedding, this could be considered budget due to the cheap venue costs. My DREAM venue was around £20,000 and that included absolutely nothing. It was £3000 cheaper if we chose to get married on a Wednesday in October. We are fortunate that this is something we have saved and budgeted for and my parents are kindly helping with some of the costs. They gifted us some money as a wedding gift to help. I have a friend getting married a few weeks after us with only 20 guests and the costs are only really reduced by catering and venue. Photographer, band, etc are all the same.
weddings can be so personal and done to all budgets but completely depends on what you want. We talked about what our ‘must haves’ were and started with them and then worked our way back!

My ds got married abroad long haul and was very pissed off when I refused to spend a fucking fortune going somewhere I had no interest in, when I couldn’t ever afford a normal holiday anyway.

Hexham register Office is in an old stately home opening on to a park with views of the Abbey. Lots of couples then walk to their reception - loads of options ranging from pubs or church halls to 'posh' restaurants/hotels or the Great Hall at the Abbey.

Stupidly forgot the price of the celebrant which is £800. We obviously still have to pay the wedding license on top of that.