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ive just booked for 2015.
5k has got the venue - country house overlooking the water and food for 80 folk + 50 night guests
band was 1k
Hoping for it to be under 10k all told - as thats what id saved for it.
as long as its a good time for all and not much more ill survive but ill not be borrowing to pay for it - some of the weddings ive been to have been at the expense of parents remortgaging houses and shit. - id rather just go to a registrars and sign the paperwork for peanuts than have a flash wedding if we were not able to.
for me its about bringing our families together for a party tbh - we live all over the world and only time we all get together at once is for weddings or funerals.
Probably knocking on 5 grand all in - wedding and reception for around 120 at a beautiful village hall, amazing buffet, bands, DJ, photographer - most of whom were mates. Me and the best men all just wore nice suits. We had an amazing day and lot of people said it was one of the best weddings they've been to as it was informal and relaxed.
I've photographed quite a few weddings and the nicest ones by far have been the ones that are a bit unusual and quite relaxed, and where friends/family have got involved in making/doing stuff. Feeling like you 'have' to do/buy all sorts of stuff is a recipe for a stressful yet dull wedding, IMO.
Do what you want not what's expected of you.
We worked it out it would cost between £15k and £20k for the wedding we wanted and number of people in the UK. Went to the Alps and did it for £12k, including renting a chalet for a week.
With foreign weddings though you are 'saving' money by passing on the cost onto your guests. Seems a bit cheeky to me and excludes/puts pressure on people with less money.
Unless you only know rich people I suppose.
This is a scary thread 😯
Luckily my OH knows she won't be getting more than a registry office and a two for one at the pub 😉
I'd go £1,000 wedding and £9,000 honeymoon. Anything else is nuts.
My business partner got married and we did it - church, meal for 50 people and party - for under £3k - basically by roping everyone in to help out. Luckily Nicola could make all the dresses, we have lots of practical friends and I have a nice barn so the costs were mainly materials and food. One of my favourite bits was a friend who brewed 120 bottles of elderflower wine as his wedding gift.
I wrote it up [url= http://www.makepiece.com/pages/Nicola-and-Daves-Wedding_1.aspx?pageid=260&catId=5 ]here[/url].
[img][url= http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7362/10960707374_a02941a2c3.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/68631407@N03/10960707374/ ]Weddingbarn[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/68631407@N03/ ]BeateKubitz[/url], on Flickr[/img]
+1
However, if £10K is what you can afford it's what you should spend and alter the day rather than put yourself in unreasonable debt. If going the traditional wedding route you are going to have to develop some serious heels to dig in to keep the two of you within budget. The big thing to remember is (and is easy to forget) is what you are panning is getting married rather than a wedding. A wedding last just the day whilst a marriage will hopefully last a little longer.
If your budget is 10k, maybe plan for 9k. If possible you can use 1k on the honeymoon but more likely that will cover the costs you don't think about upfront.
My wedding cost around 8k. I can go into details if you want. Here are some pics to show just what we did. If I was to get married again I don't think I would change it. Other than perhaps pick a day when my wife wasn't ill! We also had coaches take us to a nightclub that we had booked out for an afterparty but no photos from that.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/96268906@N05/sets/72157634957121163/
Edit - A lot of this was possible through friends rather than paying full price. The sound systems for the reception and the afterparty were both owned by friends so were free, we sorted out a deal for the club, the photographer was a friends brother so was practically free (£400 for over 12 hours!), my wifes dress was made by friends so was cheaper, our friends TAPT did the design, printing, made the ties & waistcoats and made the amendments to the suits - They also lent us the back drops, bunting and invites made by us, bands were all sourced through friends so were cheap, about 12 friends all deejayed for free, Half price prosecco and a pound corkage per bottle meant we could have bubbly on the boat rather than fork out loads on crap champagne at the reception venue. Chutney and biscuits made by some friends. The list goes on.
Don't mention wedding, PUSH for deals. Think about it sensibly rather than getting carried away or checking other prices.
With foreign weddings though you are 'saving' money by passing on the cost onto your guests. Seems a bit cheeky to me and excludes/puts pressure on people with less money.
People will choose to come or not, sometimes a good way to keep numbers down. Plus I only know rich people. 🙂
You could easily do it for <10k. Depends where you want to spend the money.
We (well in laws) admittedly spent more than that in June but we had 110 guests.
Some ideas:
[*]Our two biggest costs by a mile were venue and food. We have been to weddings where instead of a sit down meal a hog roast was provided which was perfectly good. That could save dosh. Venue wise, if you're willing to be flexible on dates then could try booking a cancellation slot.
[/*]
[*]Booze - if you go to a venue try to find somewhere with a corkage allowance and buy your own. Aldi champagne - £13, Prosecco £7 for reception and speeches. Our table wine was actually more expensive than the sparkly as we got from a vineyard in france we have visited. We also didn't offer a free bar.[/*]
[*]Flowers - see if you can get a wholesalers to buy direct from - should be better price than florists. We did ours for about £400 and arranged them ourselves the day before. Took a few hours with bridesmaids helping[/*]
[*]Dress - i'm no expert but my wife's dress was fantastic. She found it for £25 in a charity shop (shame she also bought £700 dress but decided at last minute she preferred her £25 back-up!)[/*]
Hope it helps!
We took a similar approach as grum and £5k all in for us. Again personal, relaxed bit quirky with a retro theme and everyone said how special it was.
Church wedding and we used the church hall for evening do. My wife's aunt did the catering for about 75 (she does this for hunts on an estate) and everyone loved the food. Cakes made by my mum and wife's friends. Booze was shipped over from France. Dress was from a vintage shop cost after cleaning £100 (photographer was raving about it all day). Suits all hired. Photographers were about £500 and they were top quality. Decorated venues with friends. Had a ceilidh in the evening. Honeymoon was about £700 for a cottage in Yorkshire. Was great to be able to pay for it without getting into debt too.
Don't get caught up in spending loads. Make it personal decide what things you would really like and don't worry about the rest. Make sure your guests get some good food and more important is having a good time together with your family and friends. If you can get them involved them it does really help make people feel part of your day.
We got married in the Saddleworth Hotel, the main selling point being that they specialized in weddings and you had sole use of the venue. It was perfect in every way and the owner is fastidious over the smallest detail.
We paid £1000 Hire
Then i think about £86 per day guest (however that included a 5 course 3 AA rosette restaurant meal, a rolls royce silver phantom drop top wedding car, DJ, flowers, reception drinks etc)
and then £14 per evening guest. We had about 35 day and 35 extra for the evening which worked well as you got chance to actually socialise with those you invited as oppose to some weddings which are so huge you get to see the B&G for maybe 30 seconds.
That was about £5K all in, plus £750 for hand made dress, £150 suit hire for gents and we made the invites and had a friend as photographer who was about £600 for the day including electronic copies of hundreds and hundreds of pictures.
Just over £2K on the honeymoon (saved over £1500 by booking the cheapest room then bunged the woman on the front desk $100 dollars to upgrade us which she willingly did)
I would have happily had a BBQ in the garden but its all about the wife at the end of the day and its her day to feel special.
Most importantly save and pay for it so you can start married life debt free, plus pay off debts other than mortgage if you have one first. If you havent got it dont spend it as the stress at the start of married life wont be worth it
I got married in September, our initial budget was 10k but all in it cost ~14k. We could have probably saved in places, the day was however, magical. We were lucky to have the whole day in one venue and my uncle providing the photography as a gift.
It can be done cheaply, there will be arguments in the planning stages.
Try not to mention to suppliers that it's for a wedding and it works out cheaper 😉
We were a bit screwed with the pretending it's not a wedding game. August BH, outdoor Barn - no one would believe it was anything else...
We're getting married next Nov and have been quoted £7k for venue hire, food and drinks (90 people day & night). We're hoping to come in under £10k so need to do invites, rings, dress, photographer and band/dj for less than £3k so we're looking to save where we can.
It depends on your venue but you can save a huge chunk depending on the time of year you get married. I think Oct - Mar (ex Xmas) are generally cheaper.
If i could guarantee snow and sun id happily get married in winter.
Odds on for driech weet and grey.
We're getting married next Nov and have been quoted £7k for venue hire, food and drinks (90 people day & night). We're hoping to come in under £10k so need to do invites, rings, dress, photographer and band/dj for less than £3k so we're looking to save where we can.It depends on your venue but you can save a huge chunk depending on the time of year you get married. I think Oct - Mar (ex Xmas) are generally cheaper.
Obviously everyone has their own tastes so this might not suit, but I think you should be fine.
Photographer - haggle. Or I'm sure you know someone handy with a camera.
Invites - make yourself. Probably still £200 on materials though.
Rings - My wifes was >£30 from Amazon, mine was made for me by a friend so it was free.
Hers was a corset made by a dressmaker - £150 (£40 on materials), and simple skirt made by her mum
Band/DJ again free. Surely you know a few people who could do this. It would probably be cheaper to buy some soundlab PA speakers and amp from Maplins than hire a PA. Also some disco lights!
Admittedly I am pretty lucky with knowing people who can provide me with things, but all it takes is a bit of forum trawling and I'm sure you can find some people to help for half the price of people advertising.
Got married at a hotel that did deals on the rooms. 37 close friends and family, sit down spread for 37 people, no evening do or music.
Mother in law/godmother did the flowers, god father provided the brides transport (was head honcho of the 2CV owners club 😳 ), my mum made the cake, wifes uncle iced it, one bridesmaid, cost less than the £4.5k honeymoon
Edit: the subsequent cost, both financial and emotional has been beyond calculation mind....
We apparently paid £500 for chair covers we'd never own 😯
We got married this year, think it was between 5 & 6k.
Church wedding, 40 guests
Evening do was an extra 30 guests.
My mate used his MkI RS2000 Escort as the wedding car. I know a photographer, so got a decent discount there. My OH has a friend with a cake business so that was taken care of.
We used Loweswater village hall for the evening do, beautiful setting, cheap as chips too. The local sports committee supplied the bar, all profits go to local causes and drink was cheap too.
We had a 3.00pm wedding, shorter day = less £££. Rather than a wedding breakfast we just had the evening meal, used the local butcher and had a hog roast.
Most expensive cost was the band we hired but they were top notch.
One bridesmaid kept costs down too.
Don't get caught up in spending loads. Make it personal decide what things you would really like and don't worry about the rest. Make sure your guests get some good food and more important is having a good time together with your family and friends. If you can get them involved them it does really help make people feel part of your day.
This.
One of the best things we did - hire a marquee and stick in my parents garden (with not a great deal of room to spare) - then did a booze run to France which meant that no-one had to dig into their pocket throughout the evening. Block booked a number of the closest bed and breakfasts (a number of which were run by family friends) so that people travelling could walk and didn't have to worry about designated drivers or taxis...
Wrightyson Think the co-ordinator got the jist when he said - chair covers to make the chairs look nice for the day guests would be 6 quid a chair + fitting - when i turned round quick and said 480quid plus fitting for a chair covers - that folks hang their jackets over in the first 10 minutes , i dont think we will need that.
He then tended to glass over frivilous extras after that,
Photographer - £100. Only thing I wish we'd spent more on as photos ended up being poor. Should have gone with someone else who was recommended who was £300.
🙄
Some people just never learn... I've photographed hundreds of weddings and absolutely agree that money is not the defining factor in a successful wedding. The happiest weddings I've attended are, as Grum mentioned, usually a bit quirky or different. It's the people that make it or break it though - of you invite 50 old relatives with no sense of fun or energy, your wedding will be crap. I wish I'd invited more mates and fewer rarely seen relatives (not that my wedding was crap, it wasn't!).
Ours cost £92, paid to the registrar in cash in a brown envelope ("sorry, cash only, no cheques or cards"). Also cost another couple of quid for the train ticket to work afterwards.
We couldn't stop laughing at the gushing registrar going on about our happy event "come on luv, hurry it up, I've a train to catch and the kids are bored".
Best buy under a hundred quid I've ever had. (though I think she paid).
Do it for a grand and put the rest into the mortgage.
Mine cost about £1000.
We picked everybody up and dropped them off about 30 during the day, paid for all the food, wine and beer during the day. Had fireworks. Then hired a room for the evening do and put on finger food/nibbles. A wedding night in a local hotel, then off to the old dungeon ghyll for a few nights.
Been 14 years now
Our's was about 2k if you include me buying a posh suit and shoes that I then wore daily for the next two years. Registry office close family only meal in local bistro . Evening party in church hall with dj pa and buffet . Wifes "wedding" dress was a nice party dress from Harvey Nick's sale for 100 quid . The only flowers were her bouquet and my button hole picked from our garden. We decorated the hall with candles in jars and balloons ourselves in the afternoon. Photos were done by mates with decent cameras. We had a personal very happy day no debt and 5 years on I am sure my memories of our day are as special as anyone else's .
It ain't about the ring the dress or the party it's all about the girl.
What Crankboy said. Pretty much the same here. I think ours was £1800. Got my suit from M&S, wife got a 'party' dress from Debenhams, £100 ish. Registry office, 34 guests at a nice country pub, everyone had a disposable camera while my son did some 'artistic' shots, my sister made 5 MASSIVE chocolate cakes & everyone had a fab day.
No need to go mad IMO, you'll only be lining someone else's pocket.
we had a hotel do, max 20 guests - immediate family only, really
I paid for the hire of the hotel for the day, registrar, civil ceremony, daytime reception, my suit, wine, photographer, honeymoon. came to less than £5k. Was a pretty fancy hotel mind. www.langleycastle.com
Mrs_d's parents paid for the flowers, her dress hire & our stay in the hotel for 2 nights - no idea how much that cost
when the wine ran out (fixed budget) my sister bought a load more - thanks sis.
no evening do - not necessary for < 20 people, we just said "there's the bar"
Venue for food dance ect could cost in excess of £15,000, i am a professional 2 rosette chef of 23 yeaars who has cooked for Royalty (regal and Elton)£4000 of that would be exclusive use ,i did my wedding in a michelin star restaurant all in including photographer for £900 .i did call in favors, however we could get the price down, think mid week or Monday,think out of season ? beach in late early year ?many possibilitys especially on the food PM for menus and prices ?? check out my current soon to be last Hotel "The Gallivant hotel Camber " we are beach but i can work anywhere ?.com
That used to be "the place". Was quite good.
I'm conditioned by my job to suggest splashing out on a decent photographer but I'm honestly gobsmacked at what many of you have budgeted for photographs of one of the most important days of your life. Disposable cameras? Friends? Relatives? £100?!! I do realise that many people don't give a tinker's toss about photographs but surely some creative, timeless images of your wedding day should be high up in the list of priorities?
And whilst I'm belly-aching, this thread has turned into a one-upmanship competition to determine who has managed to spend the least. Human rituals are as important today as they were when we were still sacrificing goats. Not something to be ashamed of... At least buy a decent goat.
We hired a villa in Tuscany and had my folks and bro, and her folks and sister there for a week. Got married in Lucca in an 18th C palace then went down to Amalfi coast for honeymoon. Neither of us wanted a big white wedding with people, just our nearest and dearest. Had a blast.
When we came back we hired a village hall, did our own music, food, toys games and a massive bouncy castle. Again, roaring success and had a blast.
Don't do anything to impress others, do what you want and enjoy yourselves.
User-removed I'm not seeking to slag off your industry just pointing out that the human ritual of publicly committing to your partner does not need to be an exercise in conspicuous consumption nor a cash harvesting exercise for a dedicated industry.
If I wanted to brag about cheapness I'd have mentioned other weddings eg. Paid for the registry office non wedding dress from a catalogue . Meal in a Chinese no presents buy your own food then on to the pub.
Been to many weddings where unlimited cash seemed to have been thrown at the things (including a wedding where the wedding present to the bride and groom from the bride's father was a brand new Aston Martin) - but all of them pretty bland really, not that memorable and blend into each other.
The wedding we went to which really stood out from the rest was the simplest and cheapest. Hire of boat on lake for ceremony, followed by marquee on the lake shore with good food, free beer, fine wine and a DJ. Very simple, the most personal and all that was needed for a good time.
Ours was 12k with fancy venue, sit down meal, designer dress (my suit was from debenhams though!), hired two boats, loads of booze, evening buffet. Missus is creative though o we did loads of the decorating etc ourselves. So loads of room to cut costs. 10k is plenty if you avoid champagne, wedding cars, favours, a billion bridesmaids, suits for best man, get a mate to do photography etc. If in marquee just buy loads of booze from the supermarket, been to plenty of great weddings with pie and peas on instead of a fancy meal. Nice surroundings, people you actually want to spend the day with, dancing, good (but not necessarily expensive) food, job done (DO NOT suggest scrimping on the dress though!)
user-removed - Member
I'm conditioned by my job to suggest splashing out on a decent photographer but I'm honestly gobsmacked at what many of you have budgeted for photographs of one of the most important days of your life. Disposable cameras? Friends? Relatives? £100?!! I do realise that many people don't give a tinker's toss about photographs but surely some creative, timeless images of your wedding day should be high up in the list of priorities?
We were lucky, we won our wedding photographer!!
He was doing a promotional thing at one of the wedding fairs we went to, we entered and won!
It included a pre-wedding shoot and photo-book for our 'guest book'. He was there for the whole day until the end of the first dance with his assistant Sarah and they both did an amazing job.
We got the pre-wedding photobook, the full day photography and 60 prints in a really nice album as the prize. We wanted more photo's so ended up adding an extra 40 to the album and then we got two smaller parents albums and I decided I wanted the originals on disc too. So he still did alright out of us, but we got some amazing pics and great albums...
Ha! Just looked on his site and two of our pics are on his 'wedding page' rotating gallery thing; the second & fifth ones.....:
http://www.ianstaceyphotography.co.uk/wedding_photographer/wedding_photography.html
Whilst we are talking photographers, this is an art student I came across at a wedding, superb pics
http://anna-jackson.blogspot.co.uk
And prob very reasonable
Hi there, Bit of waffle coming up
We got married in august his year. All in all it cost about 18K is we are honest with our selves. I did a spreadsheet and marked down every cost associated with the wedding and had a specific credit card so that we could keep track of things.
Ive been to 5 weddings this year and each one very different to the next. They ranged from a 2.5K one to ours. The most memorable was by far a festival wedding that came in about 10k.
What I would suggest is sitting down with the missus and deciding what you really want from the wedding. If its to show off then that’s fine (its your day after all) if its just to “get it over with” then that’s cool too but decide what you want first. For us it was the location of the church which meant that we were limited to the venues we could have had for the reception. If you want to do a marquee wedding they can be really nice but bear in mind that the weather will have a massive effect on your wedding day.
Things like the venue, dress, bridal party, cars etc are all big ticket items. You can save a massive amount by not having a sit down meal. Or by making it different. One wedding we went to had a fish and chip van for the mains and an ice cream van for desert! It was great! We spent a lot of time making all the stuff for our wedding ourselves. We did the flowers that we purchased from a wholesaler. We spent 500 quid on these and if we had a florist do it we would have been looking at 3k! we made all the cards ourselves and loads of other stuff. It makes your wedding a lot more personal.
I would recommend not spending a massive amount on the honey moon or at least having a “get away” and your main holiday later. Ourselves and our friends spent a lot (some massive amounts) on their honeymoon. It puts massive pressure on you to enjoy it and for everything to be just right. Meaning that if it isn’t you feel a little short changed from all the brass you’ve spent.
I would recommend you spend the money on a good DJ and a good photographer. I can recommend both if you want to Pm me and they were both very reasonable.
Lastly start planning it now. Plan the day and do an itinery. You can then tell the bridal party what will happen during the day and everyone will enjoy themselves. Oh and ffs don’t get conned into offering a free bar!
andybrad - MemberWe got married in august his year. All in all it cost about 18K
I just spat coffee over my computer.
18k on a wedding? Just a day.Wouldn't it have been better of spent on house/mortgage/kids/holidays etc etc etc
I'm sure you had a fabulous time. You say you put it on a credit card. I do hope you paid it of as that much debt for a wedding is crazy.
andybrad - MemberWe got married in august his year. All in all it cost about 18K
I just spat coffee over my computer.
18k on a wedding? Just a day.Wouldn't it have been better of spent on house/mortgage/kids/holidays etc etc etc
I'm sure you had a fabulous time. You say you put it on a credit card. I do hope you paid it of as that much debt for a wedding is crazy.
Married 6 weeks ago - cost £19.4K - lucky parents of both sides helped out otherwise the budget would have been different - friends are getting married next year budget of £9K.
Best advice - find what suits for you and your budget and enjoy the day - but just remember there will be costs that you never even saw coming! Start planning now and where possible book stuff asap for a better rate.
Enjoy the day and let it be about you and the NEW BOSS 🙂
I just spat coffee over my computer.
Explains the double post then.
If you've got the money, why not. Can't take it with you when you die.
Haven't made it through all three pages...
However, the main thing to bear in mind IMO is to have the wedding you want not the wedding you think others think you should be having. If there are things that you feel you "should" be doing but couldn't care less about then forget them, if there's things that are important then shop around and get the things that really make you happy for good value. Make sure it is the day that makes you and your S.O. happy as the day itself happens so quickly 😀
"Value" is not really a term that applies to anything wedding related. Most things are a rip off if you just go along with the obvious. For example we got married in Summer at peak price times but we had it on a weekday when everyone was available and were in a better position to haggle with things, getting the reception venue for less than the lowest listed Winter prices with lots of bargaining.
Other main advice would be that you'd be a mug to pay the asking price for anything wedding related. Get haggling!
iolo - Member
I just spat coffee over my computer ... 18k on a wedding?
easily done.
venue, food, clothes, rings, band, photographer, etc. etc. it all adds up VERY quickly.
Don't afraid to be a bit different and have some fun.
Our "walking out" song was the Indiana Jones theme tune 🙂 (We're about to embark on a new adventure...)
The whole church cracked up laughing 🙂