How much did you spend on your wedding?

[oliveoil]

This may have been done before so sorry if repeating.

Friends are getting married soon and are spending £20K not including honeymoon.

I am gobsmacked, is this the norm now?

How on earth do you spend £20K?

we spent ten and half on a regisrty office hired suits for three a 800 wedding dress and 400 rings 300 food 100 disco the rest i cant tell you its easy done

I got married coming up to 10 years ago now, but we had a small(ish) wedding, 40 to the whole thing, going up to 100 for the evening, and not including the rings or the honeymoon, it came to £6k

You really don't get much for 20K so I'm not surprised

My 2 weddings came in at about 20K total I think

I am really shocked.

Is it the catering and hiring of venues or just lots of little things that add up?

I went round the world for less!!!!!

I think we ended up spending £3k in total.
£1k of that was the rings.
We got married at Gretna Green and I had a Monsoon dress and dh hired a suit.

BIL is getting married on xmas eve and they have spent near enough £20k I think but they are getting married in Canada and spending 2 weeks there, plus they are having a reception when they come home.

Lets say you have 100 people to a sit down meal in a nice hotel - food = 50 quid a head plus drinks so you can easily do 8-10K on the meal without any room hire fees etc

Florist and photographers see weddings as prime rip off land so that could do another 2K

Yeah, we spent a fortune - had the whole nine yards and a couple of extra yards on top. Bloody marvellous it was too.

If they've got plenty of money it's not a problem but if they are Mr and Mrs Average then I could think of better things to spend the money on (IMHO). We didn't have a huge wedding, chose to spend the money on the honeymoon instead and i'm so glad we did.

mine was just over 3 years ago and the total cost of everything (my dress ,veil, shoes, 4 bridesmaids, shoes, dresses ,6 suit hires ,church ,flowers, reception ,food, cake, rings, car hire,...) was 3k. it was the best day ever and only took 5 months to organise! i patted myself on the back
20k? wow what i could do with 20k..................

we spent 11K in the end - i thought i'd tried to economise but not really... the food and drink for 120 was the biggie, plus dh got me to agree to a cheap venue so i spent enormous amounts decorating it, daft really. I did have the most wonderful day tho and the venue looked completely magical if I say so myself...

This is the main reason DP is still my DP and not DH. I think it would be obscene to spend 20K on a wedding. I wouldn't want to, I would rather spend it on a new car or a conservatory (really romantic I know). I suppose it's your priorities really if you have the money and want to spend it on your wedding then fair enough (I do like a good wedding just as a guest though) but I couldn't enjoy the day knowing what it cost and what I could have bought with it.

About £2500, including honeymoon. But not including the wine FIL bought over and above 1/2 bottle per head.
Registry office, 50 guests, 3 course sit down lunch at great, but very affordable, local restaurant. Huge choccy cake made for free by fab friend. Made my own dress (shimmery burnt orange coloured) and dh wore usual type clothes. No real bridesmaids or best man as such. We walked from home to registry office (Lovely sunny day). Honeymoon was 2 weeks camping in France.
For us, it was perfect. We had no complaints ( although DH's Gran may still be in doubt as to whether we are REALLY married ....does it count if the bride wears orange an dthe hastily nominated 'best man' is wearing flip flops?!)

they both work f/t and are loaded but still, £20K!!!!!

I would worry that it would be crap or something would go wrong and all that money wasted.

ALOT LOT LOT MORE than 20k. but we had the day we wanted, could afford it and enjoyed ourselves.

does it really matter what you spend if its what you want too do?

I am looking at the moment, I reckon 10-12k for 60 people. Its the reception that bumps it up.

My cousin spent 30k 2 years ago!

We spent less than that but not too much less - probably something to do with the free alcohol all day and 4 course sit down meal for 100+ people..... Depends on the day you want really and the type of venue / catering, etc. It's easy to be extravagant, but equally there are ways in which you can rein in the expense.

The amount of people invited and type of meal / drinks at the reception are typically the main things which can bump up the price - so 100 people for a 4 course sit down with unlimited alcohol / free bar...will set you back much more than 100 people for a buffet with a single free drink and a paying bar for example.

£12k all in, including wonderful honeymoon.
We budgeted every penny, comparison shopped for everything, and spent on the bits that were important to us.
We were very, very lucky in that our parents paid for it all (and by that I mean they gave us a fixed amount of money which we chose how/where to spend, rather than us just having anything we wanted and billing them).

UK average is apparently around the £17k mark excluding honeymoon now.
It's worrying
a) how easily all the little things mount up if you don't keep serious track
b) how much extra the service industry charges when they hear the 'w' word
c) how extravagant some couples are - getting into serious long-term debt for the sake of one day

make sure you have a great time OO!

£500 in total it was lovely I would rather spend my money on my children, than one day.

12 - 13 k six years ago. DH had a policy that matured at that time. it was a fab day but there have been moments where we've though- goodness, wouldn't mind the cash now!. However I know us well enough to know we'd have frittered it away on stuff less memorable.

Only thing is, enjoyed it so much I'd rather like to do it again but Dh doesn't want a divorce/remarry situation

About £450 including Dh's suit, my dress and meal afterwards.

£5K

rings 350
dresses x2 new 400
suit hire x3 300
church/bells 433
horse/carriage 150
cream roses/personal/church/venue/mil 160
venue hire 100
5 course silver service for 86 plus pre wedding hot nibbles as most had travelled 2+ hours 2300
gifts 60
meals with b'man/b'maid 80
night away 200
invites/directions/postage 160
'wedding this way' signs 30
table decs 30
band 200

friends did photos/cake/video

we organised it ourselves and had a fab time last oct and friends still can't believe it cost so little

We spent 5-6k on ours (much paid for by parents ), my two brothers who also got married last year spent around 20k and under 2k.
I never trust those averages anyway because they usually seem to be provided by the wedding magazines or the UK wedding marketing council or whatever it's called.
IMO what makes the prices mount up is the attitude 'it's my special day so I must have whatever I want to make it perfect!' which justifies anything.

When I was a PhD student a flatmate got married in a wonderful lavish ceremony (to which I was invited so can't complain!) and the dress alone cost at least 2k. She explained it thus: 'When I was trying it on I said to the woman in the shop that I felt guilty about spending so much money but she told me I should have whatever dress made me feel most special.'

We had already booked (Dec 04)a personal 17 day safari in Kenya £4K, so got engaged in June 05 and arranged the wedding in Oct 05 and married the sunday before departing friday.

We got what we wanted by shopping around as also buying/renovating our first ever home.

Both parents gave us an amount to be spent how we wanted so we did 50/50 on wedding/house.

We're getting married in July, and I think our sums will look a lot like yours matnanplus.

But I can see where the money could go...a friend of mine made me read one of those posh wedding magazines and we were in stitches all evening. 'Essentials for the modern wedding,' included cocktails named after the bride and groom, singing waiters 'to surprise your guests' (!) and a helicopter to whisk the happy couple off at the end of the day.

I wish I could remember more of this, it really did make me laugh - but at the same time made me realise how much the whole thing is the ultimate spectacle of conspicuous consumption. Does anyone, anyone need glass cloche place names for the table? We're concentrating on wonderful food and some tasty drink, and the pleasure of having all our friends in one place!