The imaginatively-named Wedding Quiche

[TobyLerone]

Come one, come all.

Getting married? Come and tell us about it so you don't have to go on the scary Bridezilla forums.

Wedding-whore? Come and relive the best day of your life.

Wedding-voyeur? Bugger off, you freak! Get your fix here.

Ooh I love lemon curd> I did consider making that too, but the things-to-do list was already out the door and down the drive.

We met the videographer yesterday. He's totally on our wavelength so we're going to go ahead. It was so fun sitting down and chatting through all our plans with someone, we've not really done that for months.

I'm another one not bothering with favours. All but one of the last 5 weddings i have been to have not had any. At a wedding I went to recently they had decorated the table with foil wrapped chocolates, so I might do that.

I have recently purchased a small silk handbag. I was wondering if it was wholly necessary, but thought it would be good to have something with me to carry make-up for retouches, and I don't know if I can wean myself off my phone, even for one day! What are you all doing with such items? I was thinking that I would ask my best woman to hang on to it for me.

DP also has his suit ordered- it is just with the taylor for a few alterations, but he does look extremely lovely in it, definitely someone I will be proud to be marrying .

Our venue is good with booze. They have a decent price range, and basically allow you to set a limit of how much we will provide to guests, after which there is a very reasonably priced bar. They only charge what our guests drink below the limit we set, so if they drink less than we budget for, we don't get charged the extra. They also have the waiting staff serving the wine during the meal, rather than having bottles on the table, which avoids the situation of having to pay for a whole bottle of wine that has had only one glass drunk from it.

That sounds like a really fair deal, Thistle

I can live without a phone on the day, but I'm going to feel naked at my wedding without my SLR camera, so I'm going to try and get hold of a http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=14548796 Diana instead, so I'll need a little bag for that and my lipgloss.

Diana link fail

We're bringing in our own toast fizz as buying it all cheapo from where my cousins live in France, but it wasn't worth the corkage to do it all like that. Our drinks aren't worked out on a per head basis, more like £xxx for xxx bottles of wine, but I've just worked it out and it's about £10 per person which I don't think is too horrific - this will cover Pimms/ale/lemonade when people arrive, plus a couple of glasses of wine with the meal and the toasts.

Thistle I have bought a whole suitcase! A vintage vanity case off eBay, I had one like it when I was little for my ballet things and I saw some amazing photos in a magazine of a bride wearing a 50s style dress like mine and carrying a little cream case. I will have it in the car so can grab things as needed - I made a list of stuff I thought I might want and it was way longer than would fit in a small bag!

I will need my phone and camera so will buy something to put it in. I don't go anywhere without a camera.
For favours we are having brown boxes wit luggage tags with their names on so it will be a place setting too and we will put our favourite sweets from our childhood in as we are known for our love of sweets. Like Wham bars, popping candy and stuff. We are doing this as we are having speeches before we eat so everyone can relax so they can eat sweets while they are happening.
We have hored a room at ceremony venue for reception drinks after they don't charge corkage anf provide waiting staff and glasses i price. Then at the reception we are putting 3 bottles of wine on each table. We know they people who run venue so the price of venue hire was discounted by the price of the bottles of wine. Its also a reasonably bar. Cheaper than my local which will please people as the last wedding I went to was £6.50 for a small wine or £6 for a pint.

I'm not bothered about a camera and I'll give my phone to one of my bridesmaids so I won't have a bag. I hate bags anyway and try to go without normally.

I worked out the cost of what just the venues, food and alcohol and it came to just over £20,000. I think I must be going wrong somewhere!

Gosh RedGreen, that does seem a bit steep - my cost for the same three things is about £7,000 I think!

RGR that's quite a princely sum! Didn't you were say you were having quite a few guests though? Soon adds up when you have a lot of people - especially if you are footing the bill for an open bar.

Venue, food and alcohol is around 6K for us for 80 guests all day. That's with welcome Pimm's, a bottle and a half of wine per person and half a bottle of Prosecco per person....

vivi thats amazing value!
Ours is for around 75- 2 courses (roast beef and a pudding) then the wines then a buffet for 60 as we are eating at teatime so didnt do full guest buffet and its £3500, this doesn't invlude welcome drink. I wanted an Indian food buffet but the in laws will only eat meat and gravy, mil wont even eat pasta or rice!

I'm getting one of these bags

Our whole reception for 60 is £6400 - that includes reception venue, DJ, 3 course dinner, welcome drink and half bottle of wine per person, evening buffet for 100 people and table centrepieces. We are paying extra for drapes and lighting (because DP is a fanny).

We've managed to keep the price low as it's not a standard venue, it's a working dairy farm just outside our village. The food is £25 per head for canapes and gourmet BBQ. I've included in that price the marquee, catering, staff, site hire, all the extra food (doing the cake and cheese tower ourselves) and drink.

In fact, this might be interesting for those who haven't seen it, I'll C&P from the other thread our costings for the essential items for the basic wedding and reception, before any bells and whistles are added:

£900.00 Venue Hire (Barn & field on local farm for 5 days)
£1819.00 Marquee & Furniture Hire for 80 people
£350.00 Luxury Loos
£2010.00 Canapes & BBQ for 80 people, staff, catering equipment, crockery/cutlery/glass
£300-400 Cake & Cheese tower cake (all home made/supplied)
£450.00 Wine, Prosecco for toasts, Pimms for drinks reception
£100.00 Event Bar Hire (with £750 minimum spend deposit)
£119.00 Civil Ceremony/Notice/Certificate
£440.00 Celebrant
£150.00 Event Manager

That's a blardy bargain, AKiss

That's just our reception, it's another grand for the place we get married at, and £600 for the registrars. We also get 3 months membership to the country club gym and spa (worth £360) for having our wedding there, which is rather a nice free gift.

Still, pretty good value compared to ours when you consider that's all pretty much being laid on for you, ours is going to take a lot of blood, sweat and tears on our part to pull it all together for a similar cost.

It's so interesting seeing other people's costs, I've had no idea if we were paying too much but as we've got about 100 people and the cost above is for Pimms/ale on arrival, 3 course meal with wine and then bacon sandwiches and cheese board in the evening plus venue hire (barn and marquee) I think we've done quite well! The ceremony venue is another £800 I think.

Yeah I think that sounds like good value to me too, stan

Yeah, interestingly the ones where it's all laid on were much cheaper than the ones where you had to do it all yourself. We looked at barns that were 4K for an empty barn.

Just remembered, we also get to stay the night there included in that price.

Yes, that's what we found too. At the two nicest barn-y places near us are 4-6K for the venue then food starts at around £75 per head, so you could be looking at the best part of 13K just for some food in a room.

Hotels seem to offer the best value. The Hilton on the motorway where I worked for years and years are doing a ridiculous package, I'm sure it's something like 4k all-in for 80 guests... Don't think I could quite bring myself to celebrate such a solemn occasion just metres away form the locations of some of my most raucous and sordid misdemeanours!

Our friend got married in a small hotel in 2010 for 50 guests 3 course meal, dj and buffet for a grand. I wish they still did offers like that it was for the first 5 of year booked.
Our ceremony fee and certificates will all cost £900 ish.

The £20,000 was based on a wishful thinking ceremony venue for 130 people plus a wishful thinking reception venue for 300. Dinner and alcohol for 300 is really expensive! I think extended families may have to be 'accidentally' left off the guest list.

£900 for 5 days, vivi!

Our venue, food and booze costs will be about £9,500 for the ceremony, reception drinks and canapés, 3 course meal with wine, and fizz for toasting for 140 people.

It's interesting that there is a variation in prices for the celebrant. We had to pay £70 to give notice and the ceremony is £285.

300 is a lot of people, RGR, it will create a certain atmosphere, not necessarily a bad one, but it's tricky. I've worked at a couple of Indian weddings and other banquet occasions with that sort of number of guests and it can have the feeling of being masses of people in one place rather than masses of people at one event.

Yeah our venue hire cost is great - I particularly wanted several days before hand so we can completely deck the place out. I'm also considering taking the farm forward as a wedding venue to offer to others, I will manage it on behalf of the farmer, he seems quite open to suggestion... we will have to see