Should we cancel our wedding?

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We’re due to get married March 23. Doing a basic package totalling around £4000 but the added extras are just racking up 😩… Photographer, bridesmaid dresses, my wedding dress, suits etc etc.
Due to cost of living we’ve had to delve in to our savings a few times and I feel like cancelling the whole thing as we will be left with £0 in savings after it. I’m stressed. Anxious every day about it. Would probably lose £1500 deposit if we cancelled now but that’s a lot less than what we would spend if continued.

I got married 13 years ago. Enjoyed the day and marriage is still going strong.

But I look back now to how much we spent and wish I had spent the money on different things. We could've put that money to much better use.

My brothers wedding cost £10k so I set that as my budget but he got married 10 years before me so I wasn't realistic.

The package was £6000 (more guests than you) and included wedding cars, so we were lucky.

Everything else I went super cheap on. Don't google "wedding flowers" google "flowers" and let that be your guide. If you put "wedding" in front of anything in a search engine, the price triples.

I got invitations, place settings, and thank you cards from a WH Smith end of line bulk order thing. They were purple. Everyone expected the dresses to be purple as a result. They weren't. Invitations ultimately end up in the recycling, I wrote them myself and posted second class. No save the date.

I got my wedding dress from China, via a woman who ordered them from China but had them in a wee shop, to take the risk out.

Husbands ring came from the high street, but cheap because it was tungsten (manual working man at the time, tungsten can be broken if hand gets trapped).

I went to wedding fairs for ideas an met a lady who used to work for a pricey jeweller, and still had contacts but no overheads, and got my ring super cheap as a result.

We did do hairdressers and makeup in my usual salon who had a beauty bit. That was a bit of a last minute splurge, but still cheaper because it was just hair, rather than wedding hair, I just wanted the day to look simple and natural.

Bridesmaid shoes were new look, mine were Next. I wore a new white thong and strapless bra from Primark, who sees it? You'll fall into bed wrecked 😂

I didn't do fancy favours, I had pins from Alzheimer's and cancer charities in memory of my grandfathers. I had flowers at each end of the top table and gave one to mum and mil. I send flowers to 2 bridesmaids after the event with a token from some online postal flowers company to say thanks for being my bridesmaid.

I met a woman in work who had just opened a bridesmaid shop and she got me 2 really lovely bridesmaid dresses.

We did a wedding list with a few items on it for people who asked for ideas. Bits for the house. We mostly got money for gifts, I didn't ask, but because we were old and had a house, thats what most folk did.

Wedding cake was less than £100 from M&S, chocolate with white icing, decorated with icing flowers already so no toppers required. We bought 2 cake bars from there too, one fruit, one Madeira, and hotel cut them up for people who were aghast at the thought of a chocolate wedding cake.

It was a lovely day, my dad said it was the most relaxed wedding he's ever been to, and he was worried he was going to get asked for cash 😂 he didn't.

I hated planning and worrying, but I'm happy with how it went off, I was happy to be married, our families wouldn't have been happy with us eloping, and now we've lost important family members, I'm glad I have the memories and pictures of our day. I'd have been happier eloping!

I was glad when it was all over, I won't get married again! The wedding present money topped up our savings, and a couple of guests cancelled in the days leading up to the wedding, but the hotel rearranged the seats and gave us the value of their meals in wine for the top table, so we didn't even have a bar bill the next day.

We went to Spain for a week and slept for the first 2 days because we were wrecked after all the stress. We did it for less than £10k, all of it, because I was really careful.

We spent very little on our wedding but friends rallied round and we had a wonderful day. Dead cheap honeymoon but we had each other. It is the marriage afterwards which counts not the day

Sorry I didn’t mention this earlier. My brain was in a complete pickle.
So when we booked we chose their larger room option which was more expensive and a bit “fancier” … We then changed our minds and went for their smaller room as we decided we didn’t need such a big room & we would scale it back a little. But the costs still seem to be mounting up which has been stressing me out, although there have been some great ideas on here at how to keep them down.

Your village hall idea sounds perfect.

He still wants to go ahead with our plans. He feels that we will be able to save up again with some overtime at work & budgeting. Whereas I feel like we will be working overtime just to pay the bills 😁 so we are currently thinking completely opposite.

We have both said that we just want to get married now so the way we do it doesn’t matter. We have had our wedding rings ready to go since 2019.

We had the option to do a small registry office wedding after our first time was cancelled but then we went in to lockdown… again. But now I wish we could have got it over and done with then.

When I got married I had a bunch of flowers from the florists, no bridesmaids, no ushers, men wore own suits, taxi to registry office, minibus for us and guests to go to wedding breakfast, no wedding favours, handmade invites, £150 dress and a homemade wedding cake. This was 20 years ago but all in it was less than £2000 and that included an evening disco and buffet. I had the best day.

Its about the two of you getting married, not about the show and circus.
A couple of weddings I have been to the bride and groom have hired out a nice bar with music and put on a hot and cold buffet. No sit down meal as such, and everyone buys their own drinks. Another was a village hall, again with a buffet and pay bar. Marquees in back gardens are fun, but you have to provide the drinks, pushing the cost back up.

It doesn't have to be expensive. Keep the package, and skimp everything else. My bridesmaids dresses were gorgeous and cost £25 each from tk maxx. There's hundreds of preloved wedding dresses on Facebook marketplace, have a look. Groom wears a suit he already owns. Bouquets put together from supermarket flowers on the morning. Do your own hair and make up. All these things don't matter much at the end of the day. Invitations by email/text/WhatsApp (I've never understood why people spend so much on invitations) or buy a pack of blank invitations from a card shop for £5-10. Ask guests to take photos and get one of the free apps for them to upload them to. Its about you and your other half getting married - everything else is just window dressing.

Perhaps you could go small but plan on having a blow out party in 10 years and renew your vows?

Could you change it from a day reception to a late afternoon wedding with evening buffet rather than a sit down meal? Then just have all guests there rather than paying for day and evening separately.

There are some amazing pre loved wedding dresses, same for bridesmaids.

You don’t need make up done, there are some great tutorials or get a friend who is good to help/go to department store for free demo and practice. Treat yourself to some nice products you’ll get to keep.

I think most of the extras are probably unnecessary or can be done at a fraction of the cost just as nicely. Sounds like you’ll feel in a much better place mentally scaling back.

Speak to the venue, tell them you can no longer afford what you have planned and see if you can opt for a buffet instead. Cancel the bridesmaids and the fancy suits and get your dress on a budget.

Nobody needs a photographer in this day and age of the smartphone.

If it's keeping you up at night worrying then absolutely cancel it and have a small ceremony at the registry office and then maybe a meal at your local family run restaurant for the absolute nearest and dearest

Some of these ideas are lovely, if you are planning from scratch, but the OP already has a books, which if she withdraws from she will lose £1500 and have nothing.
They will still be having a wedding, so, having planned this one and booked it, it seems a false economy to just throw that money away.
The savings need to come from things that haven't yet been booked.

Plus, don't forget that many of your guests will give you cash in lieu of gifts so that will give you a buffer after the wedding.
I really think you would regret throwing £1500 away then scrimping at a really really cheap wedding as you know you have just wasted £1500.

*booking

Speak to whoever has your deposit and see what you can do. They might be able to scale down what you get and the £1500 will go further. But if you want to get married, losing the deposit is nuts!

"Nobody needs a photographer in this day and age of the smartphone."

Complete and utter nonsense.

If you want professional quality photos of your wedding day, you do need a photographer.

If you're not bothered about photos and would be content with a few smartphone photos from guests who will be mostly enjoying themselves and not prioritising photos from start to finish, you don't need a photographer.

I actually think photography is the one thing worth spending money on. If I was doing a registry office wedding followed by a restaurant meal with a very small number of guests, I'd still get a photographer to do some photos, even if budget only allowed a small amount of time for a mini photo shoot.

Obviously different people have different priorities but we love our wedding photos and I like seeing family wedding photos, it's a piece of family history.

we got married at the wedding venue, so no cars were required.

Family members/friends did the cake, flowers, photography. (we paid for the cost of the flowers around £90, and a SD card around £30). Processing from truprint was around £90.

We didn't have wedding favours at all. We had the minimum package for food and drinks, no extras. Cake was one layer, no topper.

Ushers and best man wore their own suits, we bought them matching ties.

Thank you gifts, we gave engraved glassware to parents, bridesmaid, pageboy, ushers, family who did flowers/cake/photography. I bought them from the local market and got a bulk discount, and it was half the price of anything online.

You don't need flowers on every table at the venue, just do the top table, and your bouquet. Research how to make button holes for immediate wedding party and buy your own flowers, tape and wire and make your own. (a skill I learned at Young Farmers many years ago and it has saved a fortune over the years).

You could get a normal printing firm to do invitations on A5 postcards , it works out far cheaper than proper wedding invitation printers.

I didn't have makeup, I did go to my usual hairdresser who charged me about £20 to put it up.

Another friend made my wedding dress, I bought the materials for under £120. Round here we have charity shops who sell seconds or end of line from bridal shops, so you can pick up a dress really cheaply, is there anything like that in your area?

My shoes came from ebay and were dyed to match the dress. Earrings came from ebay too. Tiara was from a bridal shop, cost £50 and was a luxury as I fell in love with it.

The bridesmaid outfit was £30 from somewhere like BHS and the pageboy outfit was around £15 on Ebay. When my daughter was a bridesmaid a few years ago I think her dress was £50 from Debenhams. Make sure you have a clear budget for your bridesmaids when you go shopping.

Most of the cost of our wedding was the venue and the food . It would be madness to lose £1500, so just see where you can cut back on everything else including food choices, alcohol etc.

My friend got married at the latest time possible and had food afterwards so only had to provide one lot of food.

Just realised this is a bit long, but it was how we kept the costs down. We had a great day and so did everyone else.

I had these exact concerns. What started out as a small wedding, grew and grew and grew and was getting way out of control. The stress and worry was taking all the enjoyment out of it. We spoke about it decided to cancel it and now we are eloping to Gretna Green just us and our little boy. All secret. My dress was under £100 from next. We have hired suits. There is lady is Gretna going to do my hair and make up for £80 and the next day we are going to head into Edinburgh for some ice skating and Christmas markets and now I can’t bloody wait!

Registrars are £680 alone though. Is a church wedding cheaper?

I had a fairly standard wedding, a really lovely registry office and then lunch and evening buffet and disco at a hotel. I had a cake made at a local bakery, a bouquet made by the local florist, an evening dress from a London department store.and o made a matching wrap. I did my own makeup after a beauty counter sales assistant in a high street high street shop showed me how to do it when I bought the products, I then practiced it every day for a week. I didn’t have any bridesmaids or a hen do. I’m had a really nice wedding, first dance, cake, speeches etc without all the extras.
I would approach the venue and see if they can offer you a cheaper package. As for everything else think if you really need it, can afford it and if so is it worth it.