In relation to the OTHER MARRIAGE THREAD - we are currently discussing wastefulness ie cost of a wedding...how much was yours?

[binkleandflip]

I'll go first...

Mine came to £10k

Dress: £500
Bridesmaid Dresses: £200
Flowers etc: £250
Photgraphy: £1000
Wedding breakfast, reception and overnight accomodation for 36 guests: £8000

Look on dh's face when I said I'd like to renew my vows yearly as above...priceless

Our only major cost was the rings. The whole thing came in at about 3K and we could have paid 10 times that if we had wanted to. No criticism of anyone who does choose to have a wedding in that order of magnitude; to each their own. I just wish people wouldn't feel obliged to spend money that isn't warranted for a single day.

Oh yeh, contingency soon went as we had to pay extra for bell ringers and stuff like that. The church warden decorated the church on the day and that was a 100 donation to the church.

Oh yes, engagement ring 600. Wedding rings 200 altogether.

We were all for having a really simple do. No special wedding dress, just family and friends at the church, then a pub reception. Unfortunately we fell victim to my parents' desire to keep up with the Jones'. We had a really lovely day, one to cherish forever, but if we'd been paying for it ourselves we wouldn't have done it. It is, after all, just one day out of a lifetime.

all in for less than a grand...

gorgeous day
registry office
garden party at FIL's place (fab sunny day 8 years ago TODAY)
family made all the food
my mum made the cake
my wedding ring belonged to dh's grandma
BIL and various others took photos
honeymoon on greek islands probably the most expensive part!

Dress: £450
Shoes: £80
Flowers: £100
Photographs: Friends sent us their best pics
Lunch for 32: £2500
Cake: friend made it
We walked from the registry office in Ealing to the restaurant through Saturday shoppers and it was great, lots of people congratulating us, lovely day.

Wish we had spent more on photography. He was very very distant friend of family and cheapest around (said he was doing us a favour at that price cause we were friends). Took him ages to give us photos after us nagging him, and they ended up being rubbish and printed at boots!

Budget for my wedding next year is £12k - shamefu waste etc i am sure

Having said that, it was still a pretty simple do. Only 40 of us in total, buffet reception, and then we did get to go down the pub. And had none of that top table, forced speeches, MC, first dance crap. I wouldn't have a bar of it.

So what if a wedding costs an arm and a leg. If that's what people want to spend then let them, it's their money.

I got married to ex-h in 2000 and I'm not sure how much it cost. I think it probably cost between 7-9k, my parents paid for it and I remember feeling hideously guilty about that when we split up.

Dp and I sometimes talk about getting married and tbh I'd love to marry him, sure I'm right this time, but the issue of a wedding puts me off iyswim.
Loved what morningpaper did recently and would probably want to do something similar but with a dash off on honeymoon at the end of the party.

Ours was quite expensive (about 16,000 10 years ago). However, if I were to get married again I would do it in secret!

and with no extra expense other than the registry fee!

smurfgirl - not at all. If that is what you want to pay to have the wedding you want to have, you go right ahead. It's your money, you do your thang. I just feel sorry for people who feel obliged to spend money they don't have on having a particular 'vision' of a wedding when ultimately it doesn't matter a damn one way or another.

Personally - like others - I didn't want the whole top table / speeches / dance thing, that's just how it is. I certainly don't expect the entire country to conform to my choices

about £250 in 1995

1980. Cost about £500 I think.

Dress and two bridesmaids dresses made by me and mum. Ditto my veil. Total about £60

Flowers... about £50 (nice lady off the market did them)

Car.. £60, which I thought was too expensive at the time, but DH insisted we have it.

Church and vicar... cannot remember but something around £35.

Mate's grandad played the organ free of charge. Choir was about £20.

Reception was £200. In-laws brought champagne and wine in cases from France. It was their present to us.

Honeymoon was a cottage in Cornwall lent to us by a friend. So only paid petrol costs to get there.

OH yeah... forgot... crap photographer... £50.

Cake... about £20 (another nice lady on the market)

It makes me so so sad when people put off getting married because of the cost of the wedding. I know we were very lucky, but we would have got married regardless. I can't remember how much the church charged, but I'm sure it was only a couple of hundred at most. A lot of people would spend more than that on a TV.

well mine was abroad in 1999

cost 5 k all in including three weeks honey moon in the carribean we had dd1 with us
we were there 10 days then married then there another ten days

had a blessing and do at home about £1200 all in dj venue cars buffet toast flowresdid mos of it yself was late for the blessing lol
was great recommend getting married abroad although my hubby always calls in to question the legality of a certificate in spanish when we have a row lol

tribpot i just get sick of hearing on mn about how people got married for £2.50 and it was so much better than anyone who spent any money

i am so excited for our big special party to celebrate the beginning of our married life together, complete with fancy meal and a big white dress - i don't think spending less will make me love dp more, and there has been some fab stuff come out of the planning so far. My mum is so happy and excited, my auntie is excited, my best mate is thrilled, its brought me closer to my suture sil.

I'm working on building a wedding-resources website for people who want a wedding/civil partnership/commitment ceremony that's not the traditional pattern, and one of the things I'm dealing with is ways not to spend more than you can afford. For instance, if you've already got a shared home with enough toasters, duvet covers and naff ornaments of your own, why not ask guests to give you stuff like: making your cake or doing your photos or djing at the reception by way of gifts (obviously you don't ask a distant acquaintance who just happens to be a top photographer to do £500 worth of pics FOC).
ALso, if you and most of your mates and relatives are not hugely well off, why not make your reception party a potluck ie everyone contributes some food and drink?
(Actually, given some threads I remember on MN, that last option is perhaps to be used only if you know that your friends will be OK with it. Because some people will bitterly resent being asked to bring a bottle of wine and a dish of potato salad and will piss and moan about how much you spent on your dress which you could have spent on catering...)

Smurfgirl good for you! Have the wedding you and your DP want and bollocks to everyone else.

ahem future SIL!!

Not that there is anything wrong with spending £2.50 on your wedding...

What's the average cost - anyone know? Most people here seem to have spent less than I would have expected.

I think we spent about 3000 pounds 8 years ago. We had exactly what we wanted, i.e. not particularly fancy.

I didn't really want to get married, just be married. Enjoyed the day more than I thought I would though.

Some of the really over-the-top weddings I've been to have been the marriages that lasted only a few months. Now there's a new thread....

No idea because my parents paid. I think it was quite a bit but not by a lot of people's standards. Although DH and I paid for the cars and the photos which came to about £500 all in. And the honeymoon which I don't really count was about 2k. We had 70 guests for reception and about 150 for evening.