How much is your budget?

Impet_Limpet

Just wondering what peoples rough budgets are for their special day? This is excluding honeymoon and engagement related things? I know magazines say the average is godness knows how much. My budget was originally about £3500 but due to gifts from family towards the wedding we've been able to put it to about £5500.

I had no idea how much a wedding cost before planning our own, we'd always just seen the average wedding costs £££ and thought "I'd rather overpay my mortgage.." It wasn't until a friend planned her own wedding within 12 weeks that I realised it was achievable on a smaller budget, in addition her wedding looked fantastic and as if alot more money had been spent on it!

Queen_B_3

Ours is £10k. It was orginally between £8-£10k but now we've actually put budgets next to stuff it is £10k. This includes everything wedding ceremony, breakfast, evening do, my maggie sottero dress and fabulous 2 week honeymoon to the Maldives.

The only people I've ever known with crazy wedding budgets were people who were not paying for it themselves, one of my work colleagues her wedding cost in excess of £22k and she went to Ireland for her honeymoon, her wedding venue was £3.5k just to hire before the rest. She wasn't bothered about how much her wedding was at all and doesn't even know how much most of the stuff cost.

I've already made some savings on my budget, we're £200 under on our wedding ceremony,breakfast,evening do and I've got a discount on my dress by being cheeky and we're hoping to shave a huge chunk off our honeymoon by paying with some Clubcard rewards. So you never know, we might end up doing it all for £8k in the end.

Impet_Limpet

22k Blimey!

My nan offered to contribute 2.5k to our wedding but I told her it was far to generous and we reduced it down by over half, I just didn't feel right accepting that amount of money.

Queen_B_3

Our friends wedding cost £18k, it's crazy money and your right you could use it to pay off your mortgage. I sometimes wonder if ours is too much but it's within our means and it means I get everything I want and I'm hoping to only do this once, ha!

I haven't taken into account any family contributions yet, my parents have said that they would like to contribute but we haven't agreed on what yet. I did tell them I wasn't expecting but they are insisting but to be honest any donation would be gratefully received.

anderson8

ours was originally £4k but that wasnt realistic after we booked the hotel so its going to be about £5.5k

Bride2be24

ours is £15k. my mum are dad are paying for our hotel,catering etc which totals about £7000 which we are very very grateful for

deano23285

all in, mine should cost around £8000

got £5000 from her parents, my mum says she will give money but doesn't how much or when, honeymoon and all deposits we've paid ourselves

floss2

Ours is £5k, but the spreadsheet is currently running at £5.5k including the hotel bills for OH's parents, my 2 sons, best man & his wife and bridesmaid & her hubby, all funded by us.

Cat72

I was hoping £5000 but it was unrealistic when venue/meal alone was £2500.
So its now £7000 -we are paying for everything ourselves and cant afford a honeymoon .
We did decided to get a better photographer but I feel this wil be an investment for the future.

In hindsight I wish I had never agreed to pay for everyones outfits to keep his family happy and I would definately not appease to other people if I had my time again .Especailly when thay havent offered to help or contribute to anything.
So for those plannning a budget -stick to what YOU want x .

floss2

Cat72 wrote: »

I was hoping £5000 but it was unrealistic when venue/meal alone was £2500.
So its now £7000 -we are paying for everything ourselves and cant afford a honeymoon .
We did decided to get a better photographer but I feel this wil be an investment for the future.

In hindsight I wish I had never agreed to pay for everyones outfits to keep his family happy and I would definately not appease to other people if I had my time again .Especailly when thay havent offered to help or contribute to anything.
So for those plannning a budget -stick to what YOU want x .

I agree with that last phrase - it was our choice to pay for hotels for the wedding party as we felt they shouldn't be too much out of pocket just because we had chosen to have our reception at the most expensive hotel in town

Re honeymoon - we're saving up for the wedding and then for a new bathroom, so we've asked for Thomas Cook vouchers instead of presents

mypie

We orginially set out with 4k but that has slowly creeped up to 6k - including Honeymoon. We have had a bit of help from my parents but we were sure to only book what we could afford to have.