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?

Be wary about saying it is a family party to,save money.

I have worked in pubs, hotels and venues. One reason weddings hike the cost up is because there is an expectation that they are a 'once in a lifetime' event and therefor things will need to be a higher standard than aunts Betty's 43rd birthday bash. A half decent place will always do a good job, but the one time only nature of a wedding means that some redundancy will have to be built into the system.

So a manager might put on more waiting staff, have more chefs in the kitchen and more staff on standby in case of problems than they normally would for aunty Betty's.

So pleas don't just assume it is greed pushing the costs up. In any decent place it is just good management.

bigpaws - 13k wouldn't buy you a deposit for a garage in London, or anywhere in the commuter belts, let alone a flat... Deposit for a 2 bed (considering we're going for kids immediately after the wedding) in ANYWHERE around London is about 70k MINIMUM with the demands banks make for deposits these days.

I get your point that it's a lot of money. I get it. It's an enormous sum of money. But to compare it to a house deposit is frankly childish..

My DD is getting married in four weeks time, her dress cost £1500 and will cost £150 to shorten, it has eight layers so has to be done properly. They have called in lots of favours including a friend doing the photography but are also doing a "marrioke" which includes professional photos and a movie but that is only costing £750 pounds. They are teachers so are having a school theme, the table decorations are piles of old books tied up with ribbons, cost very little. They were given a price for flowers but scaled it down to a minimum. We don't need taxis because the wedding and venue are in the same place. One of their art technicians is writing up the place names. A friend is playing the bagpipes so that will be a nice touch. There are lots of other things they have organised but have left them to it as they know what they want. There will be toasts, wine at the table etc but no-one would expect a free bar. At the end of the evening there will be bacon sandwiches but again have haggled the price to £5 per head. We have 107 guests to the whole wedding and 65 to the evening. How much it costs I'm not sure but think it will be around £13000, we haven't got the final bill. Both sets of parents are paying half. The wedding is in a beautiful setting and I'm sure will be worth every penny.

I forgot to add that I think what you are spending is reasonable. My son went to a wedding that cost £35000, have what you want and enjoy it.

For London and the amount of people you are having that is actually a good price, I think you've done well.

Also make sure the caterers don't have chocolates brought out with the coffees etc. - you want that cake eaten!

Photographer sounds like a good price - we couldn't actually afford one (we are in the south east & the seem to start at £1k).

£70k would buy you a house in some parts up here, never mind the deposit.

Sorry I didn't mean to snap so much beforehand. Although some of my friends have bought property, those that have tend to be a good few years older than us. House prices in France are worse than London, so we can't buy here, and our jobs are pretty much exclusively london based, so buying a house in rural Scotland wouldn't be much help.

I don't blame you for snapping. I live in the SE and there's no way I'm ever going to buy a home now, I missed the boat for that in the 80s when prices were low enough for me to get a mortgage, but I chickened out as interest rates were sky high and homes were getting repossessed left, right and centre. Now interest rates are lower, the prices are mental. I live in a very not-at-all posh little one bed flat right on a busy road in a rather grotty town centre, and it would cost me £140k to buy it. It's irrelevant that you can buy a 10 bed mansion for £10 elsewhere in the UK; I have to live round here, unless I abandon my elderly parents to the wolves, and DP moves away from his children.

You've done well for London, I think. You can afford it. It's just hitting you that it's a lot of money. It is a lot of money. But if you want all your family and guests there, and to do a good job hosting them especially as so many are travelling so far, I don't think you have any alternative. So why are you feeling bad about it? Guilty? Just last minute random wedding collywobbles?

Spend the money. Have a fantastic wedding and marriage. I'm sure this is one your guests will truly remember. It's a big family get together as well as a wedding and it will be very special.

With 110 bottles of wine and 30 bottles of Prosecco for max 80 people, you absolutely do not need to put £1K behind the bar! That is way more alcohol than a caterer would calculate per head for a wedding. Unless every single last guest is a party animal. (But if you want to, go for it.)

Oh and I'd go for two courses with the wedding cake as desert.

I never seem to get any of the wedding cake when I've been to a wedding. It gets cut up later while everyone is dancing, plonked on a random table somewhere, almost just treated as a photo prop for the 'cutting' but then just disappears.

I'd like to get some of the wedding cake. Serving it as the desert sounds a brilliant idea.

Chunderella you're just talking nonsense now, I'm not going to disrupt the thread further by engaging with you further.

OP I agree that it's unlikely you'll get through a grand behind the bar with that much wine. It's a nice thing to do and then you'll be covered, but Im sure you'll have plenty of change.

If you do want to budget £1k for the bar, definately tell the venue you're putting £500 behind the bar innitially and to come to talk to you once it's running low. You can then put hte rest behind if you want to, but you might find it doesn't run out as quickly as you think with all that wine.

Put the wine out on the tables at the evening do, you'll find that people will just top up from the bottles around rather than go to the bar - much better to use up what you've already paid for than you spend the extra grand and have loads of left over wine to take home.

BTW - the cynic in me says if you put the full grand behind the bar, if it's not completley used up, the venue won't get round to refunding you, put it behind the bar in installments, £500 to start with, then another £250 when that's gone, final £250 if that goes too. If it all goes, well fine, you budgetted for it, if you only spend half of it, that's an extra £500 to spend on your honeymoon!