Am I mad/unrealistic? (wedding budgets)

[kaykayred]

Just looking for a quick reality check really.

Basically I am having a bit of a mind melting moment about the cost of our wedding. We can afford it without struggling (for which I am very lucky), but I just can't get my head round it.

My fiancé has a big family, and it was important to him that they came (obviously!). So we do have between 70-80 people attending, which is quite a lot. Likewise, due to our families being spread throughout the EU, we decided to go for a London venue to make things much easier for our guests re: travelling and hotels, as everyone could get direct, budget flights.

I had secretly hoped that the wedding would cost around 10k, but had budgeted for 12k. Having just done a full run down of costs, the maximum we are looking at is 13k. To me this seems utterly insane, although that could get cut quite drastically depending on how much wine is left over, as corkage rates are pretty high. In fact, half of what we are spending is going on food and drink. Is that normal?????

Before anyone mentions the wedding industry machine, I have DIY'ed pretty much everything you can think of. Decoration (still more expensive than I had anticipated), Stationary, Table plans...everything! We're marrying off season. We got a big discount on the venue (which isn't like..the gherkin or anything insane). A school friend is doing the cake at cost. Our (very good) photographer a steal at less than 1k. Amazing colleague getting us the flowers at cost, and we aren't having a huge amount. I regret not getting a high street dress, but my dress is still less than 1500 including all alterations. I'm wearing shoes and jewellery I already own. Doing my own hair and make up. I'm pretty sure that we have cut every corner possible to cut given our circumstances.

Am I just being totally unrealistic to think it would have cost less? I do want to have a lovely wedding, and I don't regret we've gone down the traditional route..but I guess my tightwad side is just hyperventilating a little?

I don't think that sounds unrealistic. The average wedding in the UK apparently costs around 20k. I imagine that might be for 100 or so guests, so your costs are not unreasonable.

Just on photos - It is very rare to find a good, professional wedding photographer for much under a thousand pounds - many charge several times that. I really regret not having spent more on professional wedding photography since that's all we have to remember the day by - as it is we have some lovely photos from friends and family but there are a lot of moments we don't have pictures of. If you do a Google search you can see that this is quite a common regret.

I really worried about going over budget when doing my wedding planning, but in the end, we didn't go into debt and we had a lovely day - as did our guests. Since the wedding day itself, we haven't regretted any of the money we spent, even though there were a few little things we ended up not needing/using and a few things we spent more on than we necessarily needed to.

It is unrealistic to expect to go under the budget. Usually you set a budget and you expect to go 1K up not 1K down. I mean if it goes down that will be great but i wouldn't count on that. Especially with so many guests from abroad. Are you going to see. them before and after the wedding? Thats money. Petrol, coffees, lunches.

The free stuff 'at cost price', like the cake and flowers, you could tell those friends that you dont expect present and they might suggest that the cost will be their present?

Tbh the biggest saving i would do is from the dress. I wouldnt consider 1,500 to be cheap. But i know thats cheap for many people.

You really can cut down.

Our budget was 3000, 10 years ago. I don't know what that would be with inflation, but it included the honeymoon and was a third of the cost of my sisters which was 6 months later. It wasn't London though.

However, would it be the day you want? If you really want everything you have priced up then you might have to accept the cost.

There are some really good blogs about budget weddings if you google. We cut costs by:

off the peg shop bought dress from outlet
Home made bridesmaids dresses.
no favours
no car
minimal flower's by a friend
Student photographer (but I would agree with asking a relative to do it these days)
hot buffet meal only.

No canapes
Wedding cake for dessert (Choc one)
married at same venue - late wedding.
Uk honeymoon.
Sale or return wine.
We also found a unusual venue with low bar prices (it was dh's only criteria)
Made my own invitations, orders of service, place names etc.

Photography:

I did consider not getting a professional wedding photographer when I was looking at websites and people were charging upwards of 2k for just a few hours work, which to me was just a joke. We did consider asking a friend to do the pictures but firstly, it's a close friend of ours, and we wanted them to actually be able to enjoy the wedding, without worrying about disappointing us with bad pictures. Secondly as it's a winter wedding there isn't going to be much light, and our friend is an amateur who takes pictures because they enjoy it. They don't have any experience in low light environments. The photographer is closer to £500 than £1k. I'm actually quite surprised people saying to get a friend to do it - all the married friends I spoke to said really I needed to be spending more on a photographer, as the pictures were the only thing they could look back on.

I do plan on looking back on the pictures. I am having a number of elderly relatives at the wedding, so this might be the last big occasion I see them at.

Food:
The caterer was recommended by the venue, and when I compared his prices to others who serviced our postcode, it was very much the average price range. The buffet option was the same cost as the sit down option (why do people say it's so much cheaper? Certainly wasn't the case where I was looking). It's winter, and there are lots of vegetarians, so something like a hog roast wouldn't work. The caterer has been super open and helpful in helping us avoid the most expensive options (e.g. beef and some types of fish), and recommended medium priced options that had worked well in the past.

I strongly suspect we have overbought on the wine, since we were so paranoid we would run out. The bottle a person rule that was recommended everywhere just didn't seem enough! There's no wastage though so we can drink this whenever.

Dress:

I know. I know. This is done and dusted now, but one of my biggest regrets. The dress is lovely, but I will forever regret the money spent on it. The only silver lining is that it is good quality lace, so I plan to keep it and at very least have it made into a veil I can pass down to any daughters so it stays in the family. Or I could sell it after the wedding and try to get some money back!

I think it's about normal TBH - for a London wedding for 80 people, that's rather cheap!

to put into context, I've been married 7 years, got married in Kent, well outside M25, had 73 (including us!) for the day and including honeymoon it came in around the £20k mark.

I also think there's a lot to be said for saying "we can afford this, so let's not do it in a way we'll regret" - you orginally thought £10k, went up to £12k when you got more realistic and now it's "only" over by another £1k. This you can afford and so given you will be spending a huge amount anyway, doyou really want to skimp anywhere to cut that extra grand out, long term, what else could you do with what is probably not even a month's rent that will give you as much joy and long term happy memories?

I personally think the bits about a wedding that matter are that you are legally married (!) and you throw a good party for your nearest and dearest who have come to see you get married. So spending the bulk of your budget on hosting friends and family, so food and drink, is the right way to go about it.

Another way of putting it, when else in your life will you throw a party for all of yours and DH2B's family? This is a hugely expensive party, but it's a one off. If you can afford it, do it.

(downsides of marrying a man with a big family, you just have to accept your version of 'small wedding with close family' and the rest of the world's will be different! )

For a London wedding, it's peanuts. You're doing really well. Weddings always cost more than you think they should. I think £1500 for a wedding dress is very good value.

If you go to all that trouble and expense and you don't have proper photos, you'll be pissed off. Friends will take snaps anyway.

It's all very well suggesting Surrey/Sussex/Kent, but if people are arriving from all over Europe some will come by plane, some by train, and will most likely to be coming into London Heathrow or St Pancras. It's much easier to find accommodation in London. And they don't then have to make further travel arrangements from London to the venue or hire a car.

We had the same issue as my husband's French, and while we both would have liked to get married in the country, it was so much easier for all his French relations and his friends scattered over Europe to get to London.
The alternatives weren't really practical.

Our wedding cost £10k ( not including honeymoon) 10 years ago for 100 guests and it was a fairly modest event.

If you want not to spend loads of money on food then you need to do something different from your typical hotel reception. Our friends had a marvellous do at their local hall with a roast pig, local ladies made selection of desserts and they had an open bar with keg beer (real ale enthusiast).

They booked entertainers from their local pub so had a great woman on the guitar, a magician and a DJ. It was a fab night and very them.
However it did require a lot of work and they also did things like the bride got her dress from Ebay at £60 and was very pleased with it.

It's hard with weddings. I spent too much on my dress, you kind of get suckered in when you go into the bridal shop, it only cost £600 but for me that's still a ridiculous amount of money, I could have bought it for half price on the internet but was worried by it being my special day guff, in the end the bridal shop were completely horrible to me once I'd bought it and I had to take time off work and pay an additional £150 to get it shortened.

You could sell your dress after the event - do it soon after so it's still in style and recoup some of the cost. Ditto with BMs dresses, if you are paying for them, i doubt theyll really want to keep them.

Weddings aren't cheap and it's important that your guests who will have paid a considerable amount of money to get there (outfits, travel, overnight hotel stay, present) are well fed, so I think you just have to live with it. I wouldn't be asking any of them to give you free cake or flowers, that's for them to offer, not for you to ask, and do not ask for money in your invites.

Have a wonderful time.

Presumably your. £1,500 dress budget includes bridesmaids? Generally you can get a good dress even including alterations for £1,000. For really good value look at getting a Knock off dress? Try Landy Bridal.

London is more expensive. Is your venue all set now? If your families are all flying in then you could have had it overseas and got a lovely venue for less. It would also have cut the guest list and lowered cost.

I think you could have been more rigorous with the guest list. 70 isn't a small number. It's nice that you want to invite the whole family. I think it's lovely that people can still be so generous. But it's not a budget choice.

The photographer is standard pricing afaik (perhaps not in London). Why don't you look for photography students (easy in London) or someone looking to build a portfolio who has a good eye. Get a few posed shots as directed by a good friend and plenty of candid ones. Make up a book yourself on photo box or similar. There's really no need to pay inflated prices if you're willing to DIY. Much if what you pay for is the time it takes to get the book put together. They also edit photos but how necessary you think this will be is up to you.

I think you're kidding yourself if you think you're cutting corners. You're going for the whole hoopla, which is fine if that's what you want. You could have had a budget wedding (still traditional) but you'd have to make different choices.

Don't worry about the dress, you may feel like you regret it now, but on the day and in the photos you will be so glad that you chose a really lovely dress. (If it makes you feel better mine was over 3 grand). Love it, never regretted it, worth every penny.

Laughing at all the '£××× for a few hours work re a photographer' , and 'get a friend with a good camera' comments.
It's not a few hours work, the taking the pictures on the day is a very, very small part of the photographers job, when you break it down into planning meetings, scoping out the venue, editing (1000's of photos to look through and edit), uploading, printing, designing album (if there is one) and delivering products afterwards, most wedding photographers will be scraping by on minimum wage or less for an all day wedding!!
And just because someone has a good camera doesn't make them a photographer, they need to know how to manage and pose guests, deal with drunken relatives, keep everyone happy whilst capturing every moment and ensuring the bride and groom aren't away for too long. You think a professional is expensive? Wait and see how much an amateur will cost you!

Do not use a friend for your wedding pictures as they will most likely turn out to be shit.

Anyone can own a camera but knowing photography as another matter.

enough with the dress regret - you said you can afford it, this won't involve going into massive debt, and you clearly don't drop a grand here and there on designer items normally - if there's one day when you can just get something truely fabulous that's not a compromise or a 'high street knock off of a catwalk hit' or not quite right - then it's your wedding day. You will never be able to justify spending that much on an item of clothing again, even if you can afford it in the future.

Take a deep breath, don't look at it in terms of what else you could do with the money, you want a family wedding, you and your DP have a big family, you have prioritised making it easy for people to attend over saving money, you have prioritised having good food and drink and your guests' comfort over saving money. Now you have taken that choice, live with it - it's ok.

80 people in central London, with food and drink provided (rather than people having to buy their own drinks) will never be a £3k wedding. If you returned the dress and cancelled the photographer, you'd still be spending over £10k.

Agreed ^

I don't think 10 grand was ever realistic tbh.

oh and you'll have a renewed appriciation for other people's weddings now you've realised just how expensive a "non-lavish" wedding can cost!

Tis true what bawbag says. We got my uncle & DF to do the camcording. Uncle got a little merry at the reception and added some commentary to our first dance along the lines of how bad we were and DF thought it was fun not to edit it out , which actually it was.

My pet peeve at weddings is not having enough to eat or drink so that was a priority for me. I was really annoyed afterwards to discover that the hotel had held back on the wine we'd paid corkage for so sometimes people had empty glasses.

Another one saying that you've got quite a bargain and that the food and drink is always going to be more than 50% of the budget.

But more than a bottle of wine per person is generous! Are you moving to a cash bar at any point?

Xpost. Sorry you've already bought the dress. Well in that case don't agonise. Just enjoy it. Don't make it something you'll always regret. You know what you're getting when you buy a wedding dress. Long term investment it's not. Clearly you need a great photographer to do justice to this day as that is a long term thing.

All your guests will remember the food and drink mostly so it's good you're paying for lots of booze and as long as you've gone for a venue with good food then people should be happy.

Is the wine sale or return? Because if you have over ordered, you can get that back, but better to have some more if you know your/your DP's family are big drinkers.

Thank you so much to everyone for all the kind comments about not panicking. And thank you as well to all the people recommending where they might cut costs. I might speak to the caterer and ask for two price options: one with dessert and one without. We have plenty of cake for everyone anyway, and it would be a shame if it didn't get eaten since we can't freeze it (it isn't fruit cake). Plus there are canapés before dinner, so no-one should ever be going hungry.

I have to try and remember that this is the max budget - if we do the double dessert, if every single bottle of wine gets drunk, if people use the full amount we are putting behind the bar, etc.

Someone mentioned something upthread about when our family would next get to see each other. The realistic answer is never, considering the geographical and linguistic barriers.

Have to say, we were only expecting between 60 and 70 people to want to come!! Obviously we didn't invite anyone we wouldn't want to be there, but we thought more people would be put off by the travel, and had factored in a 16-20% refusal rate, which seemed to be the average we found online.

As someone else said, whilst in my head I am doing a shit ton of things myself, and am lucky enough to have some very talented friends and family, I am pretty much still having a traditional wedding with all the trimmings. Sometimes it honestly doesn't feel like that, but it's true.

I always assumed that people who spent roughly this kind of money on their wedding were having massive great big affairs, with all the fancy stationary, the church, the enormous dress, the make up artists, the hair stylists, the designer shoes...that sort of thing. I guess it's just a bit of a reality check!

My dress was £30 in the monsoon sale reduced from £260. You don't have to spend a fortune.

Yonic - we have 30 bottles of prosecco (CHRISTMAS OFFERS PEOPLE!!), and 110 bottles of wine to last the meal and reception.

We have said for when the bar opens during the reception, we will pay the tab up to a limit of £1k, for beer, single mixers and soft drinks only (and wine if ours runs out). I'd be surprised if it the tab runs out as the majority of people I know stick to wine.

The wine will be set up near the bar so people can help themselves throughout the night, and the staff will add more bottles as the others empty (as I don't want fifteen half drunk bottles). We aren't having many additional evening guests, and most of my family will probably leave quite early (since they are older).

*Westmacott" - not sure I understand? We had the choice of buying wine direct from the bar (which had a bigger mark up than corkage rates) or bringing our own wine and paying corkage on what got drunk. There's no wastage, so we pay corkage on the bottles used, and then can take the rest home with us.

We spent £8k last year with 65 guests. Don't regret a penny of it.

Our photographer was 20% of that and she was geat. Got some amazing informal shots and dealt with difficult family situations without any fuss.
My dress was 750 and I plan to sell it this spring and buy piece of jewellery so that I can always ' wear' the dress.

Food and drink are the most important. If that goes wrong, everyone will remember - you don't want guests going hungry or running out of alcohol before the end of the night. No one will remember decorations, flowers, table plans or stationery. People will remember if it was a fun party or not, if there was music and dancing, etc. They will think you are beautiful no matter what you are wearing - the main thing is for the dress to look nice in photos.

I am now divorced and think all the money I spent on random stuff (dress in particular) on my wedding was a total waste, but the food and drink were good and plentiful and people still remember it was a fun party.

Well, don't put any money behind the bar and you'll be back down at £12k. We didn't!

It's up to you either way of course but do you see how your choices are adding up?

If the caterer is flexible enough not to do pudding then you've found a good one - some venues make you have a minimum number of courses or a minimum number if canapés or whatever.