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

Dont remember exactly, but I think it was in the region of 8K. Most expensive was my dress and the photographer (he was worth it, the photos are fab) It was (excepting the days when my DCs were born) the best day of my life.

Saying that, my brother is getting married in 2008 and I think I would do things differently (I know that is wrong, but bugger if I can work out the right spelling) now.

I like the idea of a pot luck wedding, where everyone brings something for the buffet instead of a present. And I was completely amazed at the wedding dresses going for peanuts on ebay. Why did I spend so much on mine?

PS
Catissleepy
Happy wedding anniversary. Get off MN and go snog your DH!

about £10k all in but quite a lot of that was honeymoon at the most goooooooorgeous hotel.
1997

The average is 11000. I reckon you could spend that easily. We didn't because we opted out of our original catering in the end and other things ended up being free. But money doesn't go so far now.

We are getting our marriage blessed because we have had a really tough first 4 years. But we want to wait another year (5 years) possibly 6 years (10 years). And I don't think we'll spend much. We place a lot of value on marriage though.

sorry, typo. 16000, not 11000!

But that stat is 2 years old and other sources of research suggest upwards of 20k as an average. Depends who and where the researchers are asking I guess!

We got married in 1998 and spent 11,000 pounds (don't have a pound sign on my keyboard lol) including our 2 week honeymoon in Tuscany in a fabulous 4 star couples retreat in an old wine estate in the hills.
That was average then so I readily believe 16,000 must be average now.
And we cut corners ... borrowed a flash car, mum made the cake, grown up bridesmaids bought own dresses and shoes etc, cheap dress (425 quid).
But, I did buy a tiara from Harrods
And because the reception was at a hotel the wine was extortionate ...
Oh, we had 110 guests (I have a huge family)

Got married in June, including the buffet, outfits, honeymoon etc, it was about £3000. Paid for most of it ourselves.

Mine was budget wedding extraordinair!
reception was held in my house

Booze (wine boxes, cava and OJ) - £40
Buffet - £120
Registry office - £97.50
Flowers £30 from supermarket
New Shirt and tie for DH - £20
Buttonholes (fake roses from dunelm) £6 for 6
And my best buy - 2 dresses (one in 16 and one 18...) - £20
(rocha john rocha designer summer dress in blue cross sale...£10 each!)
Shoes - £25
5* hotel for wedding night -£125

Mum made a wrap for me as a present
My mum made the cake as well!
Bridesmaids bought own dresses (party dresses from asda, they were 4, 6 and 8 years old! (I think!))
Photography was mainly my sister but we asked for copies of everyone's pics and used them.
People either stayed with friends near us, in our house or the local travelodge.
For music I got everyone to bring a pile of cd's and loaded decent songs onto the xbox the day before and had that playing.
Mum helped decorate my house with tablecloths, flowers and ivy leaves.

Total - under £500

smurfgirl - have just read thread and I can understand what you mean about people saying 'cheap weddings are awesome' people get snidey about me saying how cheap and wonderfulmy wedding was but we had no money from anywhere and DH wanted to get married that year so that was all we could afford.

Having said that, the reason it was great is because neither of us like being the centre of attention for long so only having 25 very close friends and immediate family in our house is what made it wonderful, not the cost!

I love huge weddings and think they are gorgeous and so much fun, so enjoy your dream wedding!

Someone I know had a £60K wedding. They'd been living together for apx 10 yrs and split up 6 months after the wedding

spent £1500 on a register office and pub do. I'm not one for a huge traditional ceremony, but equally we kept costs low because we don't have much cash. if we were rolling in it, I might have booked Claridges, but still wouldn't have an enourmous dress/any bridesmaid/men oin daft suits.

i do think it's sad whenn people get into lots of debt over a wedding though. DH has a colleague whose husband left after 5 years of marriage, but she's till putting inb the overtime to pay for their wedding .

Our wedding cost roughly £500, including nice hotel and dinner for the night.

We spent about £1500 on a week in New York for honeymoon.

5 years ago
£20-25k
dad paid
fab day, still very much together btw!

ooh exact same time!

Mine was 14 years ago yesterday. Here's a rough guess at costs

My dress - approx £500
bridesmaids (6 of them)
3 x £180 3 x £45 (in a bridal sale!
Flowers £250, my mum paid for these.
Mum also paid for all the bridesmaids headresses and shoes
Flowers in church and at reception were a wedding present from my friends granny, who was also a neighbour
Wedding cake was a present
Meal at reception - £800
buffet at evening reception £700 paid for by my mum.
Bus for daytime guest £45 paid for by PIl and step MIL
bus for evening guests £115 paid for by MIL and step PIL
Band £200, we got it for half price because 2 of the members were DH's cousins

my mum was never asked to pay for anything, she offered. Dh did ask his parents if they could contribute something and they came up with the cost of the buses.

First time: about £800

Second time: I wanted to go to a tropical island but dh hadn't been married before and we had been to loads of great weddings and he said I WANT THAT!!

All in £24k, inc 3 week honeymoon extravaganza in 5 star luxury in Cape Town, safari and then Mauritius.

Booked a castle; bought and expensive dress...the works.

Parents (both sides) contributed around half and we paid for the rest.

It was fab and I don't regret it at all...that said we did not go into debt, saved for it, and if our parents had not helped would have cut our cloth accordingly.

Dress and shoes and bits £150
Registry Office £100
Reception £400
Rings £100
Flowers £30

Approximate only as I can't relaly remmeber but none were above that

Christmas wedding

Under 3000 including a five day winter honeymoon in Prague at the Savoy hotel

Biggest Savings:

Went to Covent Garden market at 4 in the morning a couple of days before - bought £150 quids worth, enough for 4 bouquets, 12 table decorations (made them myself). So got very fancy flowers (4 different roses for bouquets)that would have cost 2 grand in a florists.

£180 on new enormous silk dress from China from ebay - in shop in Britain 1500

Gina wedding shoes - new - 30 quid ebay (small feet) - London shop 295 quid

Cartier wedding ring - ebay - 140 quid - not new - probably from someone divorced but don't care

Wine - (very good wine as fussy)and Laurent Perrier pink champagne for the toasts - from Costco - 200 quid approx

Biggest expense - sit down 3 course meal

• fully catered - free range chicken (as fussy) - £18.00 per head - for 95 people

Hired a town hall - lovely stone fireplace - tables filled with candles - cold clear day

Just got friends to take photos, borrowed a friends jaguar to take us to reception

Someone commented on the extravagance of the wedding (an old relative) and how young girls have everything- she assumed wedding was very expensive and thought I was very young (was 32)

my dress was £200, My boss did the photos as a gift, mum did the catering & cake.
My oldest brother did the decorations cos he owned a card shop.
Bridesmaid dresses were bought at a sale in sainsbury's for £10 each.
Dad drove me to church in his car.

It was a great day too.

ImBarryScott I think that's the most depressing thing I've ever heard.

KT - I do hope you mean the woman still paying off her wedding after the marriage went t*ts up, rather than me having a cheapo wedding !

My dress was £100
Bridesmaid dress £80
Kilt hire £150 (2 kilts)
Accessories (tiara, shoes etc) £60
Flowers £100
Photos £100
Reception £350 (paid by dad)

Used own car as wedding car, got a free night in the hotel we had the reception as part of the deal.

There was 11 guests, and that included me and DH and my mates 2 kids!

Very small family event and it was great.

Planning a big do for our 10yr anniversary though! (6yrs to go!)

oh and rings were £55 for both