How much do you earn and how much did you spend on wedding?

[Rehne]

Joint income = £160k (but London)
Ages: 29 and 33
Wedding cost: £25k (5k from bride’s parents)
2023

Just curious. So many of the quotes we had were crazy. And obviously Dh and I doing okay financially. Who is spending all this money given the average income?

When I got married we spent £7500 including the honeymoon. I earned about £20K at the time, DH a bit less.

DH spent almost as much on my engagement ring (about £20k) I nearly fell off my chair at that. My ring cost £300!

Married 2021
Joint income- 30k
Wedding cost- £6k

My parents paid for our hotel rooms the night of the wedding :)

My figure did not include rings or honeymoon. But did include accommodation for 15 in a nice period hotel.

I think we did well everywhere but the venue.

Our photographer was a family friend who took a course. Photos came out nicely. We were quoted £7k by a VERY average wedding photographer. Car was my dad’s mid life crisis purchase. Didn’t bother with any for bridesmaids/groomsmen etc.

Sister and I did the wedding cake. I just don’t understand the economics of most weddings

2004, both of us single custodial parents. His two sons 8 and 13 and my daughter 14. We were going to do the big expensive wedding for about 25,000 dollars Canadian (which would have wiped out both our savings) as both our first weddings were very cheap as we both got married previously so young (both only 20) Then reality hit. We realized that although we both made decent enough income , we had seperately never been able to afford to purchase a house , with the costs of raising kids on our own. We ditched the plans , put 20 grand down on a home for our blended family and our wedding cost only about 1000. Tuxedo rentals for the boys, a dress for my daughter, a wedding dress for me that I got in a sale for 100, officiant and family member made a cake and we put flowers on top. I bought flowers from the grocery store morning of wedding for my daughter and I and we tied with a nice ribbon. I stayed up late the night before and made some salads and a big plate of sandwiches. Our guest list of 130 had been brought down to only 40. My husband and father borrowed white fairy lights from the whole street. The school lent us chairs for the weekend. My husband and dad decorated the whole garden in fairy lights (and behind house was conservation land so no back fence or neighbors , just trees for miles. It was magical and I do not regret it for a minute. Not romantically or financially. It set us up to go from nothing we owned, to now 57 years old and retired living in a warm climate with enough money to travel back to canada 2 or 3 times a year for a week or two to visit the kids and now grandkids. NO REGRETS (but we did spend 2000 dollars on a trip for our honeymoon, to the place we fell in love with and now live full time after probably 40 or 45 trips over the last 20 years) THANKS ALOT, now you made me tear up @Rehne

Got married 9 years ago. Penniless students, earned absolutely nothing. Wedding cost £75k. We obviously didn’t pay for it but no doubt we’re skewing the data.

Married 2010
Joint income £68k
Wedding cost £500

See to me if anything the ring is more important than the wedding, it brings me so much joy to wear it every day and I’m always getting compliments on it.

2004
6k
I'm not sure what DH earned then and I'm not sure he knew either as freelance
I was on teachers wages

So how then is the average couple earning £38k spending £20k??

£25k was a squeeze for comfortable-ish dh and I. I’m assuming I’m tight.

I’m not sure why you are so confused, OP? Many MANY people receive help from both sets of parents for their weddings, so the income they bring in is pretty negligible.

Our wedding (my second) 7yrs ago cost £14k. Joint income at the time was about £95k. About £8k gifted from parents.

My first wedding cost £25k. Joint income £50k. About £15k gifted.

My sister’s wedding was £25k. Joint income £40k. £20k gifted.

I think you’re on to a fruitless exercise wondering why income doesn’t match up to cost!

Interesting, I’ve been to 7 weddings in the last 2 years. None of the couples (lates 20s/early 30s) got help…or that’s what they said.

I guess I’m jealous! DH’s family offered nothing but we knew they wouldn’t. They are above average in terms of being comfortable but very thrifty. Then again they’re not exactly multi-millionaires just own a house that has shot up in value over the course of 30 years.

£40,000 on a wedding?

This is insanity.

Yes that's the average income but it's not the mode, so there will be loads of people who have much higher and much lower incomes than that.
Possibly people who have lower incomes don't bother getting married because it can cost so much? It would be interesting to find out the income brackets of those who choose to marry. Given half of children are born outside marriage there are many cohabiting couples who aren't married.
Marriage certainly hasn't lost popularity in my children's circles, all well-paid professionals in their thirties. All lived together for years but all the couples married and none had children before marriage.
Son's wedding in 2022 cost about 18k, family paid around £10k, joint earnings then were about 100k.

Joint income 80k

Getting married in sept

So far wedding £13k
Honeymoon £4.5k

Helps we are mortgage free though!

I have never known a couple not to receive help (that I know well enough to know, which is most of them – eg, close friends and family, siblings etc.). And I’m almost 40 and been to an awful lot of weddings. My circle is quite wide – I know people earning much less than the national average and people earning a lot over. I would say they have all been gifted between £5-10k per set of parents.

Our wedding was 10 years ago. It cost about £6k which was gifted to us by family. So we paid £0 ourselves. I think our combined income was only about £65k at the time.

We could have spent more. We had considerable savings at the time but honestly the whole wedding industry feels like a rip off. I feel quite sad when people post on here about the cost of their engagement ring and it not being enough. Who said it should cost a months wage or whatever the stupid rule is? It's all just designed to make us feel insecure and spend stupid amounts of money on one day.

Joint income was £130K. Married in 2022.

We lived in London, got married at Islington registry office, then went for a nice meal afterwards with my mum, stepdad, and my grandparents but they insisted on paying for the meal. We then stayed in a very nice hotel overnight.

We spent £1000 max.

We earn more now, and have moved out of London, but I still wouldn't have changed it or spent a penny more. We did it our own way with no fuss, and got some lovely photos and memories on the day. .

No help. We are paying for it all ourselves btw.

I have DIY'd a lot of
Shopped around
Cut out pointless things (signage)

My dress cost a lot more than I expected though! I was very naive from that point of view!

When we married nearly 48 years ago our joint income was less than the cost of @Letitbe24’s engagement ring 🫣. In fact the most our joint income ever got to was c£55k, with me the higher NHS wage earner.
The salaries often quoted on MN seem like impossible figures, I guess being a nurse meant I would never be rich!

I’m not sure I understand the relevance of what you earn to what you spend on a wedding tbh.

But then I’m a happily divorced person who wouldn’t spend a bean on getting married if I ever did it and think the money people spend on weddings is insane.

So I will back away slowly and get my coat…

Can’t remember income but it was low, mid 2000s, no family help, less than 1k.

Got divorced though.

I’d never spend huge sums of money on a wedding and if I get married again it will be small and at a registry office.

I'm getting married next year & friends who got married earlier are amazed by the cost- but weddings have gone up significantly with the cost of living. Someone I know who got married local to where I am suggested we looked at the wedding barn they used 6 years ago- they paid around 6000 for it, it's more than 13,000 now! And that's just the venue.

We've managed to find a venue for just under 8,000 but we still have to get everything else sorted, it's going to end up being around 25,000 and that includes me making my own cake, doing all the flowers & only having a maid of honour.

The only venues that were cheaper were either village halls or marquees & due to some complex needs in our family they didn't have the facilities we needed unfortunately.

Its a large chunk of our income but we save very well & are careful with our money. Of the £25,000 we are also very lucky in that about £8,000 is being gifted to us.

At the time we got married (I'm a SAHM now)

My income- £60k
His income- no idea
Wedding cost £35k

My parents paid for all of it

Joint income was around 25k, wedding cost £300. We've been married almost 30 years. We got married abroad and just paid for the basic package. My dress was made by a friend of my mums and my mum took our wedding photos. We were on the beach an hour before our wedding and back on the beach an hour after, it was perfect for us and we've never regretted not having a "big do"