[Closed] Weddings do they really cost that much........

£60 per head, screw me I wish mine was that cheap and I have 140 guests.
This whole wedding thing has spiralled severely!

As for gift ideas, vouchers for the honeymoon as they like us will most likely be very poor post wedding.

My mates wedding was about £7k, his divorce was nearer £40k.

He said his divorce was better value.

The trick is just to book a party and not mention the word wedding.

but no, they don't have to be that expensive.

If I was shelling out £60 per person I'd find cash a very thoughtful and memorable gift.

as its usualy the ladys parents who pay

well that's the [i]tradition[/i] but it doesn't always happen that way.

Apart from mrs_d's dress and a couple of nights in the bridal suite for us, I paid for everything at our wedding. Twenty guests max - close family only; no stupid disco. Civil wedding at a hotel (which just happened to also be a 14thC castle!) and photographer - total cost to me about £4k.

It doesn't [i]have[/i] to be a £30k tasteless splurge inviting everybody who's ever met the bride or groom or their parents...

Yes they do cost a silly amount. I lost it slightly when we got to paying £200 for some seat covers, followed by a photographer who wanted £1500 and insisted on being fed in his contract....

You only do it once......

You only do it once......

well that's how it's supposed to go... I don't think some people read that bit in the contract though

£2500 for a 2 day wedding for 100+ guests, all in.
People still tell us what an amazing day(s) it was, all it takes is hard work and some creativity and getting your mates to help out, instead of waste their money on pointless wedding gifts.
Amazes me how so many folk spend so much money on their wedding and moan about how they struggle to pay their mortgage, strange world we live in.

Got married in a registry office, bought a couple of mates a slap up dinner for being witnesses, spent the rest on doing up my house..

Cars, do they really cost that much?

Or HiFi, or football tickets or...

all it takes is hard work and some creativity and getting your mates to help out

Now I see where you're coming from.... the exact opposite direction from us. We went for the approach of paying a venue to do pretty much everything for us, we just had to choose the sort of event we wanted

Chatting with my old next door neighbour, he said he spent £75,000 marrying off his two daughters, both having the full on traditional ****stani wedding.

He'd been saving up for 25 years, since they were born, and now has nothing, no savings, no pension.

Seems a bit daft to me, but fair play to him for the whole thing.

If you've got the money then chuck 1000's at your wedding.

For those who haven't got it (and borrow to pay for it) then all I would say is don't get brain-washed into the idea that your wedding day will be the most memorable day of you life. Yes it will be good, and hopefully good fun and not too stressful! But after 22 years of marriage I can honestly say that I have had many, many more memorable days and moments than my wedding day.

Treat it as a big party and nothing more.

Do people's parents still fund these things? I wouldn't dream of spending anywhere near what we are unless it was my money.

I proposed after 12 longs years of avoiding it in April... Such was the surprise my 28 year old now fiancé had a stroke haha...

Anyway if you want a venue that is not a grotty worn out hotel then you can expect the venue alone to be at least £5k we have found... And even some at that price are not great.

£50 a head is pretty standard for just a basic 3 course meal.

£1000 for a photographer for the day, without getting ANY photographs is in normal, and cheap. An album... £500 extra, memory stick with photos £300 extra.

Wedding dresses that are not mass produced by debenhams, at least £1k

Drinks packes from £15 per head is normal, not many cheaper (we picked a venue that has let us take our own drinks, with no corkage fees, which can be £7.50 a bottle or more).

I don't know many people by any stretch of the imagination, in fact I lead a quite boring friendless life compared to some, but we got to 80+ people in the day, and 120+ in the evening.

The most costly part of all... Family relationships... Right from the start all you get is 'are you inviting such and such'... 'why are you not inviting you 5th step cousin'.

I now know why I put it off for 12 years, and I wish I had put it off another 12 years... It's frankly a farce and not worth it.

And no parent do not pay for a thing any more... Gone are the traditions

Oh and split up parents throw a whole other spin on things

First time around our folks paid for it 50/50. Not silly money but still not cheap (as chips) with church, cars, do etc.

Second time myself and current OH paid. Ourselves plus 4 for the reg. office, very good meal in a private room at a very good restaurant then w/e in Paris. We then had a party at home, built a full bar outside inc. optics and hired a barmaid.

Both were good.

now a days i think it comes down to people trying to outdo their mates weddings spending a couple of grand more as each wedding comes along.

but is it worth it for one day.

biglad - Member
now a days i think it comes down to people trying to outdo their mates weddings spending a couple of grand more as each wedding comes along.

If I had mates like that, they wouldn't be mates

Our wedding cost a grand at most.

No they don't have to cost anything like that at all, just look around and you will find them cheap enough. We got married here and it's still cheap, not even £500 never mind £5k for the place.

http://www.embletonhall.com/en/countryside-hotel/weddings

My brother and sis-in-law when they got married, (second time for each). Dressing up optional...

[IMG] [/IMG]

It's only as expensive as you want it to be, although, to be fair, the evening do was at the Ogri MCC clubhouse, so costs were minimal. 😀

We're getting married in August, all in it will come to something like £15k for 60 guests. Yep it's a lot of money for just one day, and it does grate a bit. We're paying for it ourselves rather than the parents, but then we both have good jobs and no kids, so are time poor rather than cash poor.

Of the top of my head, cost breakdown is something like venue £2.5k (half price for booking a Friday this year), Caterers will be something like £60 / head, Free bar £1.5k, Band £1k, Dress £1k, Civil ceremony fees are about £500, my suit £500. Can't remember where the rest goes, but it all adds up alarmingly quickly.

As for whether it was worth it, I'll let you know in three months...

Bit like bikes. You can spend anything from £10 to £10,000.

And there is a whole industry set up to persuade gullible idiots they absolutely must have xyz or the day will be ruined.

We spent about 5k all in and had a cracking day with family and friends.

The original plan for our wedding was a fancy do at Durham Castle after the ceremony itself at the registry office. After looking at how much saving that was going to take, we decided to bin that idea. Were we personally going to get the benefit out of spending all that cash? No chance, it was going to be a special day anyway for us, so we re-evauluated the plans.

Stuck with the registry office, which in Durham is in a gorgeous building anyway and the staff were amazing. 17 guests at the ceremony that we then had a slap up lunch for in the adjoining restaurant which was the priciest bit of the day, but was no more than £30 per head. We then buggered off to a hotel for the afternoon before heading to the evening reception.

Rather than Durham Castle, we had our reception in our favourite pub in town. They closed the place for us, the chef did an amazing spread of food and then outright refused to take any money for it, and they even got onto one of the local breweries who got a special brew on for us. We then got nicely drunk, in our local, with our friends and family, and genuinely believe we had a better time than if we'd gone for the castle.

Then used the savings to go to Bali. Get your priorities straight!

Aye, as expensive as you want it to be. First rule is, never go to a wedding show. Second rule is, if you ever see a wedding magazine in the house destroy it with fire. Colleagues of mine at work spent £30000, they'd saved every penny for years, they had a nice day I suppose but it looked... Well, it looked exactly like you'd expect if a totally normal couple decide to spend £30000 on their "fairytale" wedding. Tiaras, pink everything, all that bollocks. Doves in a cage crapping on the guests.

I've spunked so much money on ours so far I was dreading the thought that I wouldn't enjoy it, divorced parents are a nightmare, children of random cousins also a nightmare, most things actually are a nightmare where wedding plans are involved.

That being said I can't wait, I also can't believe it's only about 17 weeks away!

I've come to the conclusion that "saving up for a wedding" only to spend the money on a better house has been a very good idea indeed.

I'm getting married in September cost in total around 15k I reckon I could have done the whole thing for 4 but the missus is a snob.

Ours was a bit shotgun, and thus very cheap as we had no money at the time. Mum and dad very kindly offered to pay for booze and food respectively. This is what I remember of the costs for 35 people:

£300 Church plus flowers, organist etc
£300 Food
£200 booze, plus some treats I had in the wine rack
£100 hotel room, nice 4 poster overlooking salisbury water meadows
£100 Photographer, a friend who did some studio shots with us on the morning
£60 Suit hire
Free Wedding dress, made by my wife
Free wedding rings, made by my father in law
Free invitations, made by my wife
Free venue, borrowed rooms in the lovely old place that did the food. My sis worked there.
Free car, borrowed a Bentley from work. It was black tho 😉
Free entertainment, used hi fi equipment I own

Still with all that free stuff it was expensive, and with lots of little things I've forgotten about.

The best wedding aside from my own that I've been to was in the Swiss alps, overlooking the eiger. That one must have cost a fortune, but they had the money and it was a great extended holiday for everyone.

Ours was small because most of our family are abroad and I only wanted close friends to be there. I appreciate that when you've got plenty of guests it can easily spiral out of control.

Its about priorities isn't it? For us the marriage was more important than the wedding - spent about £3k all in 12years ago. Friends and family helped with favours and it was the best day ever, truly a top party with all our favourite people, much more important than wasting thousands. That money's needed for funding subsequent children!

im not looking forward to the cost of getting married! i cant wait to marry my girlfriend though been together for 8 years and i still love her as much as i ever have if not more!

but house 1st, then my dog then i guess it will be a shotgun wedding!

Ours is going to be about 4-5 grand all in for around 100 guests. Lovely venue too IMO. I don't judge people for spending loads but it does seem a bit bonkers to me.

We could easily do it cheaper too I reckon.

Parents are paying a decent chunk of it.

About 5 grand for ours. We fell on hard times leading up to it and really struggled. My mum helped out with the food costs. Our wedding rings cost 40 quid for the pair and we had so little money at that time I had to sell a computer to buy them.

Go get married abroad e.g. St Lucia, lots of other couples about to ask as witnesses..it's also your honeymoon. Throw a party when you get home..cheap as chips..everyone happy.

Our wedding was brilliant. Mrs O's wedding car cost a fiver (cheers, Etive Taxis!). Mind you, he did clean it specially.

2 grand for ours in a small scottish castle. Another grand for a monster party back in nz for friends. Both exceptional fun. I have been to a couple of six figure efforts, one of which the groom told me the night before that he was banging the chief bridesmaid and had been for 2 years !

35 guests for us, at £25 a head - cake, flowers and cars sorted by friends and relatives, parents sorted our room bill at the hotel.

Mind you, the four week honeymoon in the Rockies cost quite a bit!

My parents paid for mine

No guilt I think it cost 10% of their cash savings and they had always said they would. I could have had an expensive wedding but actually it was cheap

I think getting married in a registry office with a smaller group and then doing an event later for the masses saves loads as then you don't need a licenced venue.

I didn't even realise a mate had done this. I assumed I'd watched him get married but actually it wasn't a legal ceremony.

My wife and I ran our own service in a deconsecrated church. We did readings and sang songs and made up our own vows. Sister decorated the church with foraged stuff

No photographer. Dad said the meal cost about the same as buying a pub meal for each person

We paid for wine but not a free bar as myself and so many cousins had been getting out of order at other weddings feeling obliged to drink loads as it was free

Married in the Town Hall, Back to the pub fot the do, no photographer we bought loads of cheap disposable cameras and gave eveyone one and told them to go wild! overall cost under £500.

I don't get the disposable cameras thing - given the cost of processing you'd be better buying a a half decent digital camera and passing it around. Maybe write "wedding camera" on it with a sparkly marker.

This was about 8 years ago and digital cameras were very expensive.The processing wasn't that dear either as we got a bulk discount for takeing 30 in at once.

A guy I worked with got married quickly as they found out a baby was on the way. Her family were quite middleclass and were not impressed when they were told it was in the registry office followed by a trip to pizza express to make the most of the all you can eat lunch buffet then to one of the local pubs.

The bride and groom were happy and surely thats all that matters!

you'd be better buying a a half decent digital camera and passing it around. Maybe write "wedding camera" on it with a sparkly marker.

That wouldn't end well with some of my wedding guests...

Ours was around a £800
village hall family done the catering,wife's cousin had a mobile disco it was a brilliant party
no honeymoon as we were doing up our first flat funnily enough had our 20th anniversary party
in the same place last year cost was around the same,bottom line is it can be as expensive as you want it to
be it's all about personel choice have a friend whose getting married next year and they have the whole wedding planner,cake tasting,floral selection ,band auditions etc think the costs are crippling them !!

I loved my wedding. Registry office but all mates there. Dad did photos but he quite good. Huge party at our house. Masses of lovely food all done by a caterer. I sorted all the booze - great barrels full of ice and champagne, some really nice wines plus we had a kids bouncy castle in the garden. Fantastic atmosphere and great value.
I would have found it hard to give away a load of cash for formalities I did not want, some chicken and underwhelming sparkling wine. The fact it did not cost a fortune made it so easy to relax and enjoy a huge day in our lives with family and friends. So if you have unlimited funds then go for it otherwise you really don't have to bankrupt yourself.

Ours cost about the same in total as the OP is spending on inviting one couple. 20 years on and after observing many couples I have a theory: the success of a marriage is inversely proportional to the amount the couple themselves spend on the wedding.

I think ours came to about 5-6K 9 years ago - father in law paid for most of it. We hired the local village hall and got caterers in - about 100 to 120 guests plus a few more at night. It was a brilliant day and pretty good value I reckon. There's no need to spend a ridiculous amount of money, and i'm sure we still would have had a brill time if the budget was less. I could quite fancy doing it again actually!

It's like a competition for who spent the least on their wedding. C'mon, surely someone out there has done the £15K plus? Dish please. 🙂

The Christian ceremony makes me sick.

22yrs together, no faux-religious social shit.

The Christian ceremony makes me sick.

Nothing like tolerance. Any other religions you hate?

Why does the cost matter? Isn't that a personal choice?

But you have to smile. Marriage is (correctly IMO) perceived a something special, something that is protected by law, an institution where we are happy to re-write history to ensure that it is available to all irrespective of sex, religion (or otherwise) etc. It is a mark of the most important human emotion - love - and a sign of long term commitment between two people. Hopefully it is something that we only do once, or at least only a very small number or times, in our lifetimes and yet despite all this we get,

..."how much? I could buy a bloody bike for that!"

Tis a strange world!?!

We spent £16k on ours - and that was without parental financial support.

We could've had a great day for much less money as many have demonstrated on here, but we wanted lots of extras - a classic Ford for her, a new Lamborghini for me (hired not bought!), a meal for 100 people, gifts for close friends/family etc etc.

We were fortunate enough to be able to afford it and had the desire to do it and we've no regrets.

Yay! £16K 😮

Any advances on that then?

I think I'm just past the 16k mark and still have a few bits to sort out.

Only bit of advice I can give is don't tell the people you are booking that it's for a wedding as that word seems to mean a license to print money.

I got married in NZ and then did the party and re-affirmation of vows in the UK. When booking the venue I said it was a wedding party and the price was £1800, I then phoned back a couple of days later and said it was a family party and the price went down to £750. The same with the disco - £1000 for a wedding party, £450 for a family party.

The divorce was only £500 though 😆

"Nothing like tolerance" Totally agree. Lets see the Church of England embrace marriage between a man and man or woman and woman.

I think £20k+ is pretty normal in the South East, for a traditional wedding with all the trappings.

The wedding I enjoyed most was the smallest & cheapest: registry office & a big meal afterwards for not very many people.

The two most expensive weddings I've been to were least fun, and both ended in divorce.

I think there's a moral in there somewhere, so if you're spending north of £5k, you're doing something wrong.

I think there's a coincidence in there somewhere

FTFY 😀

Ours cost just over £10k - we got married at Rowton Castle. My mother paid for it - I think she just wanted to see me in a dress! 😆

Bizarrely my brother and his wife got married in the same venue, but their wedding cost twice as much. I think the fact her dress was £1500 more expensive than mine was probably part of it!

The thing is, for me it was a day and I'd have been happy to have done it cheaper but for the Mrs it was something she'd been dreaming of and planning her whole life. In that context the cost is worth it. I kept an eye on individual expenses and negotiated down where I could but I made it clear I didn't ever want to know the final amount. Did make her promise it wouldn't be over £10k though.

Yes, given that something like 40% of all marriages end in Divorce, you're going to get a lot of expensive weddings ending in divorce AND a lot of cheap weddings as well......

I'll leave it Hora as the thread has sensible direction at the moment

Think we had change from £3500 , 11 years ago and still hanging in there !!
We both worked for the same company, so the MD in his E class merc was the chauffeur for a beer, friend was an avid photographer, so we gave him £150 for the day. 40 guests in the registry office ( no more room for more) so fed them at the wedding breakfast and then 100 guests on top at the evening do, with a workmate being a DJ for a favour ( although we gave him something) and mum put some cash behind the bar for the evening. I bought a suit and the mrs got a dress with a seperate top , so she could wear it again as not a wedding dress. Great day and night.
My sister, on the other hand spent £40 grand on hers. Which still astounds me. Was a great place and do, but bloody well should have been. I gave her away, so was chuffed to do that too.

I think ours is gonna be about £15k, in 5 weeks time.
That is for 70 day guests and an additional 30 in the evening. And that includes a honeymoon of 7 nights in Sri Lanka doing a tour and 7 nights in the Maldives, which we decided to splash out on as we don't normally do expensive holidays. So the honeymoon is gonna be about a third of the cost...
The cost of stuff and the requirements did seem to escalate once a few wedding magazines had been bought!

We won our photography in a competition at a wedding fair, so that saved us probably £1000 or so.

You don't need to spend much. All you need is a room and some mates. The rest is all you being milked.

So ... what's the deal with second marriages? Have received an invite from a middle-aged relly who's getting married for the second time.

My response will be to jog on as I have no desire to attend and frankly would rather be riding my bike!

Am I being unreasonable? 😉

Hora, the Church of England would let you through their doors, that is tolerance.

Have considered any other religious organisations view on same sex marriage? One originating from the Middle East perhaps or was only the C of E that upset your childhood?

Dragging the thread back a bit: we mangaed to make a profit on ours. We paid for it all ourselves using the woods around our rented cottage as camping and mates helping out with everything. We had a ceremony at the local registry office with immediate family a meal at the pub and off ot a hotel fo the night. We then spent a day organising the big party and hog roast when we had about 200 mates/family for the big ceilidh. Parents insisted on chipping in so by the time we got back from honeymoon (camping around Cape Wrath) we came out about £300 up. Anybody else manage that?

Vegas for me. Think the ceremony cost $500 including photographs and limo. They beam the ceremony live via web to friends back home if you want them too. On to San Francisco for honeymoon.

We get married in just under 2 weeks time.

I'm 25 and mrs Crispo to be is 24.

To be completely honest we are both from very fortunate backgrounds and our parents have insisted on paying for the wedding for us. I've obviously paid for honeymoon, rings, hotel for the night, gifts for parents/ushers etc.

To be honest I dread to think what the total cost has come to, we're having 120 day guests then another 40odd for the evening. Think we are expecting a few more at church too. That's just the way it is when you have a big family and lots of close family friends. All I know is that I am very very grateful that we've had so much support!

I honestly can't wait for it now!

@cinamon_girl - attendance is not compulsory

@crispo - good luck

My wedding cost a few hundred, registry office plus food and drinks in the back garden

My daughters will be a bit under £25k for 80 guests

Crispo, good luck and hope you have a cracking day...

Sounds pretty similar to ours back in 2005. In-laws caught the venue, food, flowers and photographer; my parents supplied the booze (breakfast and bar) plus entertainment; we paid for dress, rings, honeymoon, presents, wedding night etc. I think the whole thing came in around £12k for 80 odd dinner guests and 20-30 extra in the evening. We were really lucky and caught a new venue just as it was gaining momentum, paid £2k for what now costs around £4k 😯 . Food and booze was about £5k from memory and this included a paid bar, obviously this is one area you can save a packet if you're looking to do so. We supplied the wine for the meal and paid corkage of about £1.50 per bottle IIRC.

Far to say it was a superb day and is, by far, the most enjoyable (formal) day we've had. We still have mates referring back to it as a classic which is nice. The guests are the most important component IMO, clearly the bride takes center stage but if you want a memorable day then make sure your guests are catered for and you'll have a blast. [b]DON'T[/b] treat it as a reunion for old friends and distant family, it's your day and it's yours (and your parents) money, why waste it on people you don't see often and who don't play an active roll in your life? From my experience this is where weddings come unstuck with disparate groups of people milling around and not interacting... if most of the people know each other it's much, much more fun.

[u]Some of the points that worked for us were;[/u]

A Friday wedding. Although guests needed a day off to attend it meant they still got a weekend, it's was also half the price of a Saturday so we could pamper them a bit more. Everything at one venue so no trooping between church / registry and reception. Once they arrived guests could relax and start to get in to the spirit. The venue included accommodation for about two thirds of the guests (mix of bedrooms and cottages on the estate), obviously this was extra but guests were happy to pay as they would have a hotel. Meant the party went on into the small hours...

We left at about 11.30pm and went to stay in a very nice (cosy) local pub. It was rather entertaining walking in in full wedding atire and the look on the locals faces was hilarious... I ended up pulling pints behind the bar and my wife got heaps of attention. Safe to say a good move. If we'd stayed I'd have got pissed with mates and probably slept on one of the chairs 😳

I have to plug the venue as it and it's staff were amazing. Chris, the owner, was taking guests for tours of the wine celler and letting them sneak a few glasses. If you take a look remember we only paid £2k so you can see we got an amazing price, it's a whole lot more than that now...

[url= http://www.orchardleigh.net/ ]Orchardleigh House[/url]

how good can a single 8 hour period be? I mean £30k on a wedding?

Mention the word 'wedding' to a business and it's keeerrching£££££££.

My mate spent a fortune on a wedding at a very grand hall in cheshire. They went to select the wine for the dinner and got charged half the normal restaurant price for a full bottle for a tiny sip of each despite the fact the catering alone was costing £15k.

"would madam like the standard air or the premium luxury wedding air on the best day of her life"

my wedding cost about £30k.....and that was just on my side...i think my wife's family spent about £15k on their part....i had about 800 guests and she had about 700....we come from big families...that was 7 years ago.....that's asian weddings for you!!

I couldn't get over the fact that most places charge you for a cake stand and a knife.....

You pay anywhere from £5k upwards for a venue with some grub and then it's £50 for them to provide you with something to stick your cake on & cut it with....! They try to make it sound like they are doing you a favour too!!

Oh, and would you like us to cover our tatty worn out chairs with a cotton throw and some ribbon?? Yes. OK, then. Bend over and take it like a man.......