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?

We catered for 70..and our wedding cost £6k.

Dress should have been £1500...got it for £500 in the sale.

Photographer was just starting out..so paid £500..photos are incredible. Personally I would spend money here. Got a name of a fantastic photographer I could share with you (we would have gone with her but she was out of our budget, but in yours!). No one regrets amazing photos. One of our photos has been in a top magazine. On the other hand..crap wedding photos..ugh..big big waste of money! Please, do not cut corners on your photography (the one we used was recommended by the expensive one, had been her 'apprentice!')

This is why you do not get a mate to take your photos!!!!!

Horror Story

Cake - free. Mum made it.

Flowers - £150

Food was £1k.

I don't think you are cutting as many corners as you think, but equally I think that's not a huge amount to spend on a wedding in this day and age.

We got married in May last year and probably spent a bit less than you. I think that is a lot to spend on a dress, but if its the one you want and you can afford it then get it

£1000 is most definitely not a steal for the photographer, but if you think that then maybe you have seen their previous work and the photos are really important to you... How much to spend on a wedding is a very personal thing. I actually now think I should have been less tight when planning my wedding, but more because it would have made me less stressed. It was still the most special day.

I think the average cost of a wedding is 12k. I can imagine that a London wedding would be more expensive. Honestly? Yes, it is a ridiculous amount, but you are not alone.

My wedding cost about 5k, 3 years ago. And food and drink were by far the most expensive items.

I think if you want a big white wedding, it does realistically cost what you have spent. If you are happy with the arrangements, and aren't starting married life with a pile of debt, have a fantastic day. You are only going to do it once!!!

To be fair 13k is pretty reasonable really seeing as you are providing (hopefully) all the drink and the average price for a wedding is 20k.
You've definitely overspent on the dress though which you realise. My wedding was as you described earlier, 30k, fancy, but I still didn't spend more than 700 on the dress.
Don't worry about spending money on professional photos, I always look at mine and I have loads put up around the house. Worth every penny.

It depends on what is important to you. For me it was the dress, and I would not compromise on that, and a nice venue. On the other hand, a friend did the photographs, I bought the invitations in a high street store and I had no decorations or table dressings.

You have what you want and if it costs so much you are having sleepless nights, you will have to cut costs somewhere. So many extras are not necessary. People would say to me, what is your colour theme? Er, didn't have one, it wasn't important.

I agree you should decide what matters to you, and focus on that. For you it's family, so photos and food/drink are not negotiable.

I agree that London is a sensible venue and unlikely to have made much difference to your costs.

If the dress makes you feel great and you have plans for it (though selling it, or at least looking into selling it, might be worthwhile) then great.

Wedding websites and magazines are terrible for giving people ideas. The main things I remember from weddings (including my own) are the content of the ceremony including venue, the quality and quantity of refreshment, and how convenient the location was. Favours, bridesmaids' dresses, coordinating waistcoats, table confetti, chair covers, calligraphy table plans, even wedding cakes, are an irrelevant blur.

According to the OP the photographer is closer to £500 than a grand, that's perfectly good value.

All the people whining about the dress - if you want to wear an off the peg Monsoon number that's fine. But proper wedding dresses - well-designed, well-made, beautiful fabric, altered to fit - start at £1500. I think the OP has done really well to get one for that price. It's absolutely true that you can buy them for less but they're not that nice tbh. I looked at 1000s.

My sister compromised and went for her second favourite dress because it was cheaper and has always regretted not going for the one she really wanted.

--I spent £750 on my dress.
--£2750 for venue and food
--£700 for decorations

Not sure on the cake and flowers yet or the bridesmaid dresses but hoping they'll be about £500/£700 something like £150 for flowers, £150 for cake, £200 for dresses or something of that ilk.

So all together it will be around 5k which we thought was quite expensive but to be fair it's not in London.

I think you have to do what you have to do to make it the right amount of money.

We are lucky because a colleague of my partner used to be a photographer so he's doing it for free (well not technically free we will be paying for his food and accommodation which will be about £100, but that's cool).

The best advice I received before my wedding was that all you'll have left over to remember the day is essentially your rings, and your photographs. I've found this to be very true! I wouldn't scrimp on these things, and try maybe impossibly to cut corners elsewhere.

Ah, late now but if providing your own wine, some suppliers will let you return unopened bottles for a refund, worth checking if you can do this, as that way if you have over catered on wine, you can get some of the money back rather than having a very well stocked wine rack a you start married life!

Re the bar tab, can you cut that? You are providing wine and I assume bottles or jugs of still water? For your numbers, I'd cut it to £500 behind the bar and clear wine is still freely available. Also worth checking what your dad or your FIL plan to do, both of our dad's wanted to "buy everyone a drink" so they put money behind the bar each.

It sounds like you have put so much effort into keeping costs as low as possible that you can feel justified in spending money on the dress and photographer you want. If you can afford it why not? You will look and feel amazing and feel reassured that your photos will capture the day perfectly

Thanks Mary - hey, at least we'll have a bottle to take to parties for the next few years!! They might even be vintage by the time we finish them!!!

Re: bar - I might ask the bar staff to let me know when the tab has gone over £500, just so I can gauge how it's going. But I think I'd rather cut from the decoration rather than the booze - people don't generally care about chair covers if they are drunk enough

I will fall off my chair if FIL wants to put money behind the bar. He is a nice man, but something like that would be completely out of character. Since my parents are essentially paying for the wedding with the money they gave us, I would feel very uncomfortable with them putting even more money in. We've heard from him twice since we got engaged a year ago, and both of those were us contacting him to ask for size details for the suit hire.

poorincash - I think the dress I could justify to myself at the time because it was literally the cheapest one I tried on. There was another dress, which I absolutely fell in love with and looked frankly stunning, but it would have been about £2300 with the alterations. I decided that was too much, and compared to that, £1500 for a dress I really loved (but didn't have quite the same "HOLY FUCK THAT'S INCREDIBLE" FACTOR) was reasonable.

I think if any of my friends get engaged I would definitely encourage them to go high street shopping before going to wedding dress shops. I've seen some frankly beautiful stuff from Adrianna Papel (or whatever the name is) for £500. Still very expensive, but still a third the price.

But you can't cut £500-£1000 off the decorations budget because i doubt you are spending that much - are you??

No, but I could cut £300 from the decorations pretty easily. I mean, it wouldn't look at nice, but it would be an easy cut to make. Likewise I could cut the dessert from the catering which would be roughly another 3-400 (guesstimate).

I've also guesstimated £500 for the bar staff costs, which I think is a little steep, since the catering staff costs are separate. So even if I'm £100 off, that's another £100, which all adds up to £700 or so.

So even if we haven't over bought on the wine, that would still get us down to just over £12k.

I got married about 10 years ago, it was a small wedding around 50 guests but it still cost between £7-8000. I think I spent about £750 on my dress so much cheaper than yours. The photographer was £850 and the cake was £375.

In hindsight I would have spent less on the dress and cake but I regret not splashing out on getting my hair and make-up done professionally I look radiant in the wedding pics but to me I don't look bridal if that makes sense.

I got my mum to do the photos (they were shit) and bought a dress from Designers at Debenhams (I looked tarty). Regret not spending more on both.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I just tried to find a rough cost difference between 2 and 3 course meals at weddings, and stumbled across a website asking how much people paid for their catering.

I came across this gem

Just shy of 17k
We get 5 hrs top shelf, 12 butlered hor' deourvers, 10 cold hor' deourvers, 2 hot stations, 4 course meal with 3 different meat choices, champagne toast, dessert, and a wedding cake
Oh forgot about pre ceremony cookies and lemonade, and midnight snack

Thank god. This makes me feel totally reasonable in comparison!!

Nobody will give a shit about the chair covers drunk or sober! Seriously!

I had my hair professionally done but did my own makeup. It looked great in person but isn't strong enough in the photos. If you are doing your own you need to keep that in mind.

You haven't really gone massively overbudget. If you said £12K max and now it's £13K I can't see the point of trimming it down a bit. If it's not going to leave you in debt then just go for it. IMHO.

We are doing a similar number of people (85) for about £8K for everything.

Things we have cut on:
My dress is going to be about £120 (but to be honest with accessories and underwear is going to be several hundred pounds)
We are serving wine but will be bulking out our own bar with local microbrewery beer
No canapes
No evening buffet - just cheese and biscuits
No flowers at the venue
No chair covers
No naice furniture - we are using the furniture the venue comes with and it is a bit ugly
Our venue is a village hall and costs £450
I am going to do the flowers for the venue
We are having a professional photographer for half the day (formal pics and ceremony)
Uncle is kindly providing cars for the wedding party
Sister is kindly making cake which will be the dessert
Sister and friend are kindly providing music for the ceremony

Things that have cost more than I thought they would:

Bridal party plus bridesmaid dresses (nothing posh and only for my two sisters, see above) plus bouquets, plus hair and make up comes in at over £1.2K. That is without shoes or alterations people!
Grooms party suit hire has come in at over £600. We wanted to pay for this as we don't belive in asking other people to pay, but still.
Registrar fees, giving notice and ceremony venue hire (not posh, at local uni) is coming in at over £1.2K

I would like to say £500 is a lot for bar staff for a single day. How many do you need? I did have to do A LOT of shopping around to get hold of a caterer who didn't rinse us on cutlery, crockery, glasses, table linen and staff though.

Thanks for the tip MrsHathaway. That's well placed advice as I do tend to avoid strong make up. I've heard that you always need more blush than you think you do...

I just thought I would throw my 2cents in!

We paid around 13k for our wedding on a Thursday in August in a stunning venue. We had canapés and prosecco, wine served throughout the meal (that way no one ran out as some tables didnt drink as much as others - roughly 1/2 bottle each is what we were told was appropriate) I had a beautiful dress for 1100 but I also tried one on for 900. I don't regret for one second spending 1100 on my dress as I felt like a million dollars, I paid to get my hair and makeup done as well as I have no skill in this area and I don't regret that either as in the photos I look amazing (I'm not kidding - it was incredible) which was also down in part to my amazing photographer who was 2k and was fantastic. I have a fabulous album I look at all the time and beautiful photos on my walls. I figured these photos were going to be on my mantle for the next 40 years and I didnt want to regret anything about them. My DH looked fantastic in tails from moss brothers. I have no artistic ability so couldn't make everything myself. I found ways round that though. My table decorations for 10 tables came in at around £120 all in. I booked a mercedes to get me to the venue (all in one place) which cost £50 and was a nice car with the bows etc. We didnt have a formal dessert. We had a traditional ice cream bike (£175) and a choc fountain (£200 approx). I went for one of the cheapest but still classy invites and did my table plan with stuff I picked up from hobby craft (well my bridesmaids did).

One of the most important things for me was making sure my guests were happy. We had some that had travelled half way around the world.

It was an amazing wedding day and I have zero regrets. After all, it is only money! You will make more of it!

Spend and enjoy!

Also, my Sister In Law tried to do it all herself to save money etc and it ended up costing the same and she literally did everything!

I also don't think venues were you have to get in caterers and bar staff etc are the cheapest option. Nice hotels usually have good packages in winter and you don't incur extra costs like bar staff.

It is a once in a lifetime event (mostly!) and you should enjoy it and not fret about the money. I like that you are putting money behind the bar. We did a free round at the bar for everyone but that was about as far as our budget would stretch! Especially if people are coming from afar!

Most of our guests were drunk by the meal as we had loads of proseco! When I think about it it makes me smile :)