Newbie and very unsure-can I talk about wedding budget here?

kilted_barbarian

I am new to the forums here although I have been using moneysavingexpert for a while. If I have posted this in the wrong place, please can an administrator move it to the correct place? Thanks!

I am interested to know the experience of others on budgeting for their wedding? I am concerned that although we are at the early stages of planning, the budget is already very high despite saving a LOT of money on a few bits and pieces.

I have no idea how much to sensibly budget for flowers, dresses and suits, table decorations etc. We have booked our venue. At £8000 it isnt cheap, but that includes accommodation for all our guests, food, drink, and marriage as well as canapes and buffets. We will recoup some of the costs from the rooms, but even still we are looking at a bill for £7000.

The rest of the wedding, well we have budgeted a further £8000 for but is this realistic? I am so confused. On one hand I read the average cost of a wedding is £21,000 ( and this includes ring and honeymoon and like 100 guests, compared to our 30, no honeymoon and I have excluded the engagement ring - otherwise ours would be well over this figure!). Then I see programmes on the TV where people are organizing fantastic weddings for £12,000. It seems to me that decent advice is hard to come by.

I cannot seem to find any decent brochures for honeymoons, either in the travel agents or on the web. We want to chill out on a beach somewhere for a couple of weeks, and will probably look to spend around £3000 in total, but we want something special for that kind of money, and somewhere not in Europe!

Can anyone help?!?

princessamy86

You'd be best off in the special occasions and celebrations board, then there's a sub board for weddings at the top of the page. Lots and lots of friendly helpful people on there!

Pee

Hello. There is another board with a lot of thread's about weddings, and you will probably have more luck posting there.

There are certainly people who get married with a much smaller budget that yours - and lots who have a larger budget. You should be able to have a very nice day indeed for that money.

When are you getting married and when will the honeymoon be? You are thinking about a luxury beach holiday, without any history or wildlife? Mexico or the maldives spring to mind.

DKLS

You can have a fantastic wedding on any budget, I went to one on saturday where all in it cost 2K and it was a great day.

My own in February, is being split 3k for the wedding and 8k for the honeymoon, originally it was the other way around, but we decided to slash the guests from 140 ish to 40, lets face it If I haven't seen a relly for over 15 years, whats the point of inviting them?
I am using a specialist travel agent for our honeymoon in thailand, who has planned an itinery to suit the sort of travellers we are.
Remember its your day, not your friends or relatives.

kilted_barbarian

Hi All, thank you, I will repost in the correct section! Thanks for your advice, DKLS, I would be grateful if yu could pop me a PM of the travel agent? That would be great.

The wedding is in June 2011 - will need that time to save! The honeymoon will be towards the end of 2011 - figure it will be something to look forward to after all the commotion has died down a little! I wish I could talk my better half into letting me blow all the cash on a honeymoon and have a low key affair, but hey, I am just writing the cheques and she is the planner!!!!!

Pee

If it's that far away, you might find that your budget can be slashed a lot!

smartie12

You may want to have a look at this thread
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1917541

My wedding cost around £800:o:rotfl:

Rosie75

I'm having a similar number of people to you for my wedding in December (about 35), and will be spending about £6k, including outfits, rings, ceremony, reception (including drinks, a nice sit-down meal and evening buffet), stationery, flowers. In your situation, I would definitely divert some of the money you've allocated for the day itself towards the honeymoon - you have a pretty big budget for 30 people and it's very easy to spend lots of money on frills and details that no one is really going to notice on the day. Personally I'd appreciate those "little extras" more during a honeymoon than a wedding (though I suppose it's a matter of personal preference!) and I dare say you could easily cut your wedding budget by at least a couple of thousand which will make a big difference to the kind of honeymoon you could go on.

Katyag

We had a church wedding, hotel reception, 3 bridesmaid, proper wedding dress, men in kilts, pageboy.

Fab day, all in around £1,700!

never_enough

You can spend as much or as little as you want on a wedding. I've been to hugely expensive & real shoestring affairs. Both had good & bad points as a guest, but the bride & grooms could not have been happier with their day. There's a lot of stuff that you can do without that people think that they must have, so do think carefully, all the fripperies can amount to a lot very quickly. It's your day, do what you both want.
Try posting in the travel section for honeymoon advice. There are lots of travel agents over there. I would definitely try to syphon off more cash for the honeymoon, but then that's just where my priority is! £3k for two weeks is not a huge amount if you're after something amazing, but it's not to be sniffed at either. As previous poster has suggested Mexico, I'd like to add Goa, Thailand, Cuba & the Caribbean. They can all be done cheaply or very extravagently.
As you're not going on honeymoon straight after the wedding you're in a good position to snap up a late deal if you're happy to do that (& don't need to book time off hugely in advance)
Virgin & Kuoni both do honeymoon brochures I think.