Are civil ceromonies expensive?

RACHIE77

I have been browsing about Civil Ceremonies, just getting ideas as it were and it seems that they can be really expensive. To go to a registry office seems to be a decent enough price and anywhere else will charge you the earth!

I wanted to see how much it would be to have a ceremony and reception in the same place, somewhere pretty but not too flash necessarily... From what I have seen they are charging circa £2k for the ceremony and then you sort out the evening meal etc on top of that...

I had thought it would be a cheaper option to have everything in one place but it seems its not the case??? To get an idea of what i was thinking, I was basically looking to find a reasonable price to see if we could afford a wedding, it seems a church wedding is cheaper tho but this wasnt gonna be my first choice - can anyone help??

exil

Depends what you want. Cheap and cheerful with a small no of guests, a few drinks and sandwiches, or the full monty with rolls royces, penguin suits, posh food, live band etc.

Relatives of mine had a reg. office wedding, with the "reception" at parents' house, with caterers delivering food, didn't cost very much.

RACHIE77

I was thinking of the whole event in one place kind of thing but it seems like that gonna be a pricey way to go!! LOL!

KizzyK_2

Depending on you (cause everyone is different ) see if these guys can help
http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/contentviewarticle.asp?article=1175

Me and the OH are going to get the legal formalities over and done with a day or two before hand and go with something of our own make up

It works out cheaper for us

Rachie_B

if you arent religious i wouldnt go down the church route just cos its gonna be cheaper .........

TBH everywhere is different and it depends on many factors ie how many guests,whether you buy your own wine / champers etc

you pay the registrar £250 (approx) no matter where you hold the ceremony

then for the wedding breakfast (meal after the ceremony) it can vary HUGELY in price depending on how many courses you have,welcome drinks etc etc .obviously the more guests there are the higher the cost to you !

to cut costs you could have a late afternoon ceremony then just feed guests the once ; ) also if you know someone with a large garden (and its the right time of year !)you could hire a small marquee and get people you know to help with catering etc

if i were you id go and visit lots of different venues ,or email them and request wedding packs with prices etc


eg we paid i think almost 3k (56 day guests / 100 night) but that was for the room we got married in,the marquee for both receptions,all food and drink for both receptions ,DJ for evening ,use of private wedding gardens,cake stand,bouncy castle for the kids & our accom for the wedding night,use of a wedding co ordinator throughout

and that was in the middle of the summer in a popular venue,obviously that figure could have been reduced if it wasnt summer / we used a room rather than the marquee / we had chosen a cheaper menu etc etc

good luck with finding something suitable and within budget : )

Heth_2

I wouldn't have a church wedding to save money! Depending on the church and what extras you might want (church flowers, organist, choir, bells) it might turn our to be rather an expensive option. Then you have the csots/hassle of getting from the church to the reception as well - wedding cars are not cheap at all!
When we married almost a year ago the church licence, fees, bells and donation came to around 500 pounds, whereas it would have been about 250 to hire the ceremony room at the hotel where we had the reception (plus cost of registrar). We also paid about 325 for our wedding car, and 100 quid for the pew ends we had in church.
We wanted a religious ceremony though, so comparing the cost never crossed our minds.

After the church we had the reception in a hotel, and the meal, plus drinks, including room hire, setting up, buffet in the evening etc.. was about 5000 for 83 guests.

margaretclare

Heth wrote:

I wouldn't have a church wedding to save money! Depending on the church and what extras you might want (church flowers, organist, choir, bells) it might turn out to be rather an expensive option. Then you have the costs/hassle of getting from the church to the reception as well - wedding cars are not cheap at all!
When we married almost a year ago the church licence, fees, bells and donation came to around 500 pounds, whereas it would have been about 250 to hire the ceremony room at the hotel where we had the reception (plus cost of registrar). We also paid about 325 for our wedding car, and 100 quid for the pew ends we had in church.
We wanted a religious ceremony though, so comparing the cost never crossed our minds.

I think ours must have been the ultimate MSE church wedding, but then, we're members of our local Methodist Church and they don't charge anything at all to church members. We still had to pay £30 each to the local registrar to 'give notice of intention to marry'. And we had to be 'grilled', interrogated by her, to make sure we knew each other and that it wasn't an arranged marriage just to stay in the UK. (As we're both native English that seemed a bit pointless, but she assured us that that was what they have to do nowadays!!)

Aunty Margaret