Realistic wedding plans or not? What do you think?

picklepick

I just wanted to post that its quite common these days for guests to pay for their own accomodation at a wedding! i'd never expect the bride and groom to pay for my hotel room!
What a nice friend Julie is to not attend her 'friends' wedding if she had to pay the measly sum of a room rate... if you're a friend like that im surprised u'd get invited in the first place!

*Louise*

wench90 wrote: »

Thirdly, any advice on getting a pay bar hired..no idea how this works?

Tbh, for the cost of hiring a bar for everyone to pay for their own drinks...would you not be better spending the money on drink? Especially if it's only for a smallish number of people. Just seems like a bit of a waste of money to me

Incidentally - I would expect to pay for my accommodation if I was travelling to a wedding, but I would want the option of choosing my own, if that makes sense. For example, at my wedding people could stay at the hotel for £80 a night, or there was a travelodge nearby from £19. I would be a little put out if I was told my only option was to pay around £100. (But if there was free booze, that would make it easier lol)

shelovestobuystuff

It will be a bit awkward to charge a room fee to your guests when its an exclusive use venue.Its not as if its a hotel.
I am having an all inclusive venue and I consider the the cost to be venue hire,if I charged my guests to stay I would be asking them to pay for the venue,that doest seem right to me.I dont expect my guests to pay for staying at my venue,it will all be paid as part of our wedding expenses.Anyway if they have to pay as if its a hotel,who will they expect to provide room service etc,you and your OH during your wedding weekend?

mrbrightside842

I'd be happy to pay for a room if it was a good distance away, but if the venue was near to my home I'd probably not want to stay the night. If you have a few guests who wouldn't want to stay over, it would add money on what you're wanting to pay for the venue.

kr15snw

Julie - Out of interest, if your 'friends' live away from you (lets say a 4 hour drive) and chose to get married were they live, would you attend?

As it would require a stay over, possibly even 2 nights.

We have plenty of guests travelling (we have friends all over the country!) and there is no way we could afford to pay for their accomodation.

JoolzS

I would certainly pay for a hotel room or a B&B to attend a friend's wedding. I wouldn't, however, pay for an overpriced room at a wedding "venue", especially one that didn't offer any of the amenities of a hotel. I do remember being a bridesmaid at my half-sister's wedding and being horrified to find out, after it had been done, that I was expected to pay for the hairdresser to do my hair. At that time my ex-OH and I were really struggling to pay our mortgage and that one hair-do cost about half a week's a food - I was unprepared, but paid for it anyway.

I don't have any friends that live outside a driveable distance so this isn't likely to be an issue for me. However, I do think that weddings can be horribly expensive for guests - new outfit(s), a present, accommodation, etc. We deliberately kept our wedding as cheap as possible for our guests - we had our reception at our home and told everyone they could turn up in jeans if they wanted to; and we wanted absolutely no presents. We did, however, make it a BYOB party (to keep it cheaper for us) but mentioned in the invitation that the bottle could be a bottle of milk!

The ceremony itself was at the local register office and only family, plus two friends, were invited. We told family members that we were having no "official" photos taken so they didn't have to feel obliged to buy a new outfit. We also told everyone we wanted absolutely no presents.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned - but to me a wedding is just a ceremony (religious if you believe in that rubbish, or civil if you just want it to be legal) followed by a party that should be enjoyed by everyone; and then many years of marriage. The marriage is what is important - not the single day.

It's been nearly 15 years but my DH occasionally bumps into someone he hasn't seen for years who came to our wedding party and they still mention how much fun it was. I've never said that to anyone else when I've attended their wedding - it's always felt so formal that I haven't really enjoyed anything about it.

Just before hitting send on this message I realised that I have enjoyed one wedding almost as much as I enjoyed my own - it was my best friend's wedding and she basically followed the same pattern as me, although she didn't make it a BOYB party because she wasn't quite as broke as DH and I were when we got married.

Julie

SugarSpun

I think the cost of the venue hire is all yours - or at least it should be. You can decorate cheaply by using ebay, invitations can be incredibly cheap (halfcost.co.uk currently has a set that includes everything for £17), my dress was £90 including shipping from ebay and stunning, silk flowers are also cheap and you can make the most of candles and tea lights, you can organise a cold buffet (or one with minimal hot stuff if you have people who'll happily heat/reheat stuff for you after the reception) by renting trestle tables and covering them in sheets (again, ebay, you can buy muslin for 99p a metre, wine/beer/champagne can be ordered from an off-licence on a buy-back basis if it doesn't all get drunk and they'll probably do glass hire as well.

As I see it, venue/ceremony costs are £4255. That leaves you £2.5k to throw a party and get clothes you like for it. There's no way you can't manage that.

kr15snw

SugarSpun wrote: »

As I see it, venue/ceremony costs are £4255. That leaves you £2.5k to throw a party and get clothes you like for it. There's no way you can't manage that.

It can be done! I've spent £80 on bridesmaid dresses and Im hoping to spend about £500 on my dress

SugarSpun

kr15snw wrote: »

It can be done! I've spent £80 on bridesmaid dresses and Im hoping to spend about £500 on my dress

Of course it can! Our clothing altogether came in at £146 - my dress £90, his suit £50 to hire (we ordered a tux to buy, but when it came it would only have fitted him if he had been 5'4 up and across), my shoes £6. We already had everything else. We didn't have bridesmaids/best man, but you can always buy gowns cheaply or ask them to wear something they already have.

A few hours with an iPod and a set of speakers and you don't need a DJ.

Our candid photos were so much better than our photographer's pictures, and disposable cameras can be picked up in pound shops or wedding packages.

Cake can be got from M&S or Tesco, although ours was made by a relative.

Tea light candles are £5/100 maximum, and can be put into glasses you find in charity shops for pennies. That, a few mirror tiles, and some glitter, and table decoration is sorted.

The rest of it's just food and wine, and all the above can be done for £500 or so. £2k is a fabulous party.

BTW, our local Aldi have the Veuve Monsigny champagne back in stock. It beat Veuve Clicquot in blind taste testing, it's about a tenner a bottle and it's gorgeous. They also have some decent Prosecco. Or there's always the day trip to France - warehouses near Calais are really suffering because nobody's making the journey at the moment, so there are some fantastic deals to be had.

Glass hire from local off licences, you could buy a gazebo thing rather than hire a marquee and re-sell it later and rent a few chairs.

Wall o'text - but the party's almost organised!

Discodave

Wench90 - hope the PM i sent was usefull