Am I being unreasonable/bridezilla?

[on123]

Hi all just would appreciate a second opinion.

My wonderful partner proposed perfectly with the most perfect ring and we set the date for next July 2020 as we never wanted a long enegament period.

We initially, when we had no idea about the real costs of a wedding said we would only spend £5k as neither of us wanted any debt etc from the wedding.

I have spent hours and hours scrutinising every part of our budget and getting the lowest quotes and prices for every single element. Our list is JUST the essentials there is nothing extravagant on there - the only thing being a videographer which I really want as I would love for our children to be able to watch it back.

After hours and weeks and months of work and doing everything I can I cannot get the budget down below £7k.

I always wanted a tee pee wedding, with my favourite local band and a honey moon to Canada. I’ve put all of those beside me to save the budget and feel like I have sacrificed everything I ever wanted wedding / honey moon wise to try and make this achievable.

The main thing is, we CAN afford to spend up to £8k and we would still have no debt, plenty of other savings etc everything covered and I’ve even put this in spreadsheets and showed it to my partner but he just keeps saying no we said £5k - he is now asking if we can cut anything else out and can I scrap the photographer and videographer and can we have a honeymoon in Sweden because flights are only £60.

I feel totally upset and like I don’t even want to look forward to it anymore or plan. I’ve never wanted to spend a load or be extravagant but I’ve litrally got rid of every dream and still he wants to keep cutting, itl end up being a cheap and horrible wedding that will have just been so much about scrutinising prices instead of enjoying the planning and having a few nice elements.

Am I being a bridezilla??

I know all my sisters and friends spent at least £30k on their weddings alone. I cannot get it any lower than I already have!!

So you’re partner is not helping at all, and laying down the law?

That does NOT bode well for a happy marriage.

Speakers £60
Lights £48
Mic £30
Food - this seems expensive, see if you can cut it down?
Bridesmades - deleted
Flower girls - cut costs right down, we got lovely outfits for ours in the sale, less than £30 each
Page boys- do you need them?
Flowers cut right down - bouquets for flower girls only -£20
Suits just get a suit for the groom, surely it won’t cost anywhere near this much
Rings £300
Toilets £600 inc vat
Licence £21
Bar and staff hire £500
Alcohol up front cost £1k
Decor - not essential
Make up £50
Hair £10
Registry office £250
Photographer - don’t need - ask family and friends to take photos
Videographer - don’t need, get family or friend to video
Marque inc floor chairs and tables £1,400 inc vat ( cheapest anywhere I can find round here!)
Drinks on arrival and wine on table £300

There, I have to trimmed bits off that won’t make any difference at all to how much you enjoy your day

We are having a big wedding (80 guests) a honeymoon and a family moon (4 kids) and have kept costs for everything below £5k by being ruthless with what is actually needed to have a good day and what isn’t.
We have prioritised a children’s entertainer over lots of booze. Surely if you have children already that kind of day would be a better focus?
Or ask guests to bring a bottle instead of a wedding gift?

Your oh's attitude of you sort it all and then I'll just veto it out of hand is a bit worrying. Does he want to get married? Or is he only happy if he has everything his own way whilst contributing nothing to get there?
A village hall will cost 100 and save 1-2k on toilets/marquee hire. 1.5k on a bar is ridiculous. Buy and supply your own, a couple of hundred quid in aldi will get you all the beer and wine your guests can drink. So that saves you about 3k.

Ds was a attendant recently-

Linen shorts and shirt from h and m- £25
Converse type trainers- £20

Dd was a flower girl-
Pretty cotton dress from next- £25

You could have the marquee- smaller one in the gardens of a village hall.

Speakers and mic stuff. Ask around. You’ll be able to borrow it I am sure.

Put some ££ behind the bar but also have a pay bar.

We did free booze all day (we didn’t scrimp) until about 8pm then it was a free bar. We had wine, cava and pimms from 2-8 so we felt that was a good compromise and my dad bought everyone a drink when the bar opened.

Do your relatives know anyone that likes flower arranging? My mum got an old lady from the church to do hers for just the actual flower cost - they were stunning. Or just have a small bouquet and a buttonhole for FH.

Defo cut any flower girls, page boys, bridesmaids etc - waste of money imo.

I wish people would stop saying village hall. Ewww

Wow, what a cuntish comment!

Your fiancee obviously proposeded to you beautifully and just wants to be married to you. A big do isn't his preference so as a compromise list all the venues that pp have suggested here with costs, same with all the additional stuff you want and go from there. He is paying half and you both originally agree 5k, with the suggestions people have made here it is possible, but I don't think you are listening to anything other than 'its your big day, you deserve everything you want'.
You are having a small official wedding ceremony before so what you are planning on spending the bulk of 5k on is basically just a big party. So have your beautiful intimate wedding ceremony and give your fiancee an option on what/where a party is.

*proposed!

Can you look at changing the dates? My friend got married in a beautiful hotel with lovely grounds and it cost 6k because it was January. The same hotel costs around 20k in peak wedding season.

Honestly I'd scrap the videographer - that's £700 saved straight away.

Our wedding photos sit in the album in a box untouched as they have done since the day the album arrived. Took us a year to be interested enough to pick the photos for the album. And yet before the wedding, photos seemed crucially important

You need 3 photos of your wedding, one for his mum, one for your mum and one for the thank-you cards. After that, it looks like any other wedding.

Thankfully we did not have a video as that would also be unwatched in the box.

Thanks all for you messaged havnt had quite chance to sit down and read all of them.

The videographer and photographer is super important to me, and the one thing that won’t be gone after the day! I get most people hate wedding videos but I love them. So that’s something I will not cut or have anyone else do to a poor standard.

The toilets aren’t portaloos they are cabins, it’s taken me weeks of haggling to get them that price.

Thanks for some reassurance off the majority of you, I really think I’ve done as much as I can and cut as much as I can without starting to impact the day really negatively. Il take a few of your ideas on board tho whilst planning.

Weekday isn’t an option as my mum and sisters are teachers and simply cannot have weekdays off.

I’m going to try and speak to him, and if he isn’t willing to budge I’m not sure what I will do... at the moment I feel like cutting everything and trying to keep it under 5k will just make every bit of planning stressful and unenjoyable - and on that basis, it makes me not really want to plan at all.

I would just pass it on to him and ask him to do it himself, I bet the budget would change quickly enough.

Of course you can cut down the budget so it is under 5k. But I also think that it's a shame to use so much money for a day that will be "fine" for you. It's not worth it then, might aswell skip the party. You have the money And none of the things on the list were ridiculous.

Also please note the bar, is £1.5k upfront but the return is over £1k so it works out beneficial to help reduce costs.

Yeah rezzie that’s how I feel

And I could get it if our future was going to be kids straight away etc or a house so we’d need to save money but we already have 2 girls and own our house

I think you’re right about the photographer, you’ll want those photos for years to come but you don’t need to spend a fortune. Speak to friends who had budget friendly weddings and great photos for recommendations.
I was shocked by the prices for bars, staff and alcohol when planning mine. Since we were having an open bar situation all the staff would have to do is provide and pour so instead I rented 2 large drinks fridges for £60 each, filled them to the brim, put them next to a table with additional booze, soft drinks and glasses and a handmade sign basically saying ‘help yourself’. Sooooo much cheaper as we could bulk buy everything from Costco or supermarkets when on offers. No staff costs. Everyone loved it. No queues either.

Oh, sorry, just seen you’re having a cash bar, that changes things a bit!

DP and I are looking at wedding options at the moment, and we're planning on not spending much more than £2K if we can help it. We'll still have the day we want, but we'd much rather spend the money on a honeymoon. We're going to call in a few favours to help us get to that figure, but in the context of the rest of our lives, it's only one day.

I think it is poor form to make money on selling your guests drinks. If you stick to having it in a field, scrap the bar and make it byob- don't profit at your friends and families expense

Actually wel be saving the guests money, we will be able to sell drinks at a fraction of this price they’d be from a hired bar

But flogging them cheap drinks is going to costs you 500quid plus a 1k downpayment. You could buy them all free drinks for well under 500quid if you just get some beer wine and coke etc yourself.

The actual wedding day is at the registry office, Is that where you want the photographer and videographer? Or are they going to he at that and the party days later?

Your own mum and sister really cannot book one day off for your wedding?

Dunno, seems like pp are giving excellent suggestions but you don't really want that. You just want your fiancee to give in and do what you want, this is after his perfect proposal and beautiful engagement ring.

I agree with those that say to let him book it, he may well think a field with portaloos and a pop is bar is great, or he may just go with hiring out a pub or (shock horror) a village hall. Either way he should be involved with the planning and spending as its his money too.

We had a register office wedding at 12 for 20.
I hired my dress.
My sister made the 2 beautiful bride maids dresses- a wedding present.
Mil sorted the 2 tier cake - another wedding present.
Her friend took the video.
We paid him but it was about £80 and was excellent.
We had a party at night including disco and buffet.
This was held in a lovely big function room above pub.
We had 60 guests.
We did not have a honey moon.
It was a few years ago but everyone throughly enjoyed it.
The place was lovely not cheap at all but costs were in the 100's.
You do not have to spend a fortune to have the perfect day.

We did have a photographer as well as the album mil had made which she presented made up at the night do - which was brilliant.
We paid for the photographer with the money his work mates collected for him :)