minimum wedding spend

Rachie_B

yorkshirepudding wrote:

hello everybody, havent had time to read through the whole thread but just wanted to say that i am another member of the £100 wedding club. (not including weatherspoons meal after) heehee. :j

i don't know if anyone else has mentioned this but it's not the wedding that's important, its the marriage.

people seem to think that the amount you spend relates to how special the day is/how much you love eachother.

why not spend a hundraed pounds on the registry office bit, than just have a knees up, normal party styleeeeee. You never hear anyone complaining about how they are still paying off their housewarming/birthday party.

exactly

2 couples we know ,one who got married the week before us,the other the day after us! both had huuuuuuge no expense spared weddings,lavish honeymoons etc

2 yrs down the line they are getting divorced and still paying off said wedding :eek: :rotfl: madness !

Athravan

I am getting married in 2008 and am just starting to budget costs.... problem is OH is American and his family are flying in from the USA so we are thinking a stately (but not a hugely expensive one) hotel for the reception and service because then we can also get better deals on a bunch of rooms and hopefully negotiate a package... but do flowers, music ourselves, and shop around for a cheap dress and jewelery because i'm not really that fussy about that! I want some nice photos (taken by family member who's amateur photographer) so I want a nice setting, which the hotel has - and I want a really nice, elegant reception with 5 course meal, which is what I'm forking out most of my budget on.

I'm going to spend about £2000 on the reception, £500 on suits, dresses and accessories (shoes, jewellery but not the ring) £500 on the 2 wedding rings and hopefully around £1000 on accomodation - family pay for the flights, we pay for the accomodation. £1000 for extras like transportation, registry costs, some music, flowers, invitations etc. for 50 people total so not a big wedding.

Unfortunately I have no family with spare rooms who could put them up so have to pay the accomodation costs. I have no idea if his family are going to pay anything towards the wedding, I don't think so, but my family is going to pay the £3000 towards the honey moon (cruise) so I am hoping to save £5000 for the actual wedding and actually stick to that budget.

I refuse to let my OH take out a loan, if we can't save it, we will either wait longer, or sacrifice something / money save, depending on how strongly we feel about it. I strongly feel that a wedding should be a fantastic day based on the resources you have, not something you end up paying off for years to come when you should be enjoying your marriage and saving towards that first child!

My cousin recently got married at a cost of 50k which is about 1 years combined wages for her and her partner and I thought the wedding was seriously overdone - reception in Cardiff City Hall for 200 guests, horse drawn carriage, £3000 wedding dress, evening party for 300... I don't even know that many people and I personally only want close friends and family around me on my special day.

Just remember it's not about splurging with extravagance it's about having a great day with what you've got - whatever budget that may be. I've heard of people having a great day on £100 or marriages that fail after a year on £30k+ - it comes down to the people and the relationship, not the money!

cupid_s

me and my husband spent 9.5k on wedding and honeymoon. but we saved all this before the actual day and were lucky that both sets of parents helped us out financially with the wedding.

i am of a mentality that i will never spend unless i have the money and i am lucky that hubby completely agrees. but after we'd paid all the money for the wedding and paid the (31k) deposit for our first home and paid all the fees we still found we had over 6k left. So we spent it ALL on a holiday. We really enjoyed it but would never have considered doing this unless we had the money outright to do it. And i haste to add i wont be spending that much on a holiday in the future (i hope)

My sister and her boyf have paid a large deposit for her house and paid off all debts (with help of a loan from mommy and daddy which she's almost paid back now), my mom and dad will contribute towards her wedding and so will i. Unfortunately i think between us we'll only be able to manage about 3k. But if she manages to save loads more then what is wrong with her spending it all on a wedding?

As long as you have the money to spend and don't need to get into debt spend whatever you can and whatever you want

The most important thing as several people jave mentioned is not getting into debt and having to spend years paying it off

yorkshirepudding_4

i agree i think its great that you have used money to put down big deposits, but unless you have no mortgage whatsoever, you are infact "borrowing" that £6k or whatever you choose to spend at whatever rate your mortgage is at arent you?

Suewre

I was thinking you need:
suit hire for groom, best man and father of the bride.

Mine was 13 years ago

Bought dh's suit, about £50 in sale from Burton. Never even occured to us to get something for best man to wear! Same for my brother (my dad died years before my wedding)

A wedding dress and shoes

Mum made my dress, about £60 for pattern and silk and buttons, thread etc. Borrowed net skirt to go under. About £9 for shoes.

Bridesmaids dresses (not having a bridesmaid is NOT an option)

Mum made these as well, maybe £25 for the pair.

and shoes

They wore their own

My hairdresser did my hair for free, I had gypsophelia in my hair, my sisters gave their daughters french plaits and put gyp in their hair as well.

Wedding bouquet (nothing extravagant) and bridesmaids bouquets

Do bridesmades have bouquets? Mine was made from some fake one's I bought. About £2 plus some garden tape from mum.

Registry office/church fees

I can't remember how much these were

A photographer

Next door neighbout

Possibly wedding cars if you have to travel from chruch to the reception

Hubby's uncle

An evening buffet

In laws paid

Wedding cake (i know this doesn't have to be expensive)

Can't remember, not much. One of the in-laws neighbours did it. M&S do three sizes of wedding cakes plus the stands to seperate them

Wedding rings

These were good. £40 each plus I had 2 x £5 off of a £40 spend on jewelery at argos, so £35 each

But all this alone seems to go over the budget we have (about 3k).

How did everyone else manage? Surely these are the basics...?

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soba

We got maried 11 years ago, so things have obviously gone up in price since then.
Thought I was having my friend's vintage car for the day, but my husband arranged to have me driven to the church in his friend's Triumph Herald convertible! It was a lovely day, so that was fine. We got married in the local church, with two bridesmaids and two best men. I got my dress, veil and petticoat second hand from the local newspaper, and had my make up and hair done by a beauty college lecturer. We bought the bridesmaids dresses and they bought their own shoes, bags and jewellery. OH already had a suit, so just bought a new shirt, best men already had suits, so that was sorted. Photos in the park, then transported to the reception (about 10 miles away) in OH friend's beautiful Volkswagen camper, this was also a surprise for me. However the greatest surprise was when the camper broke down about half a mile from the reception, and we had to walk there. On the wedding video you can see the RAC van coming to pick it up from the reception - he's never lived it down I can tell you. For the evening 'do' we hired the local football team's club, and had a marquee outside and had a barn dance. The day before the wedding we had to lug bales of hay from the local farmer's that they'd lent us for the weekend for the non-dancing guests to sit on! The band was great and everyone had a fantastic time, eventually everyone was transported home in a bus that we'd hired. We spent the night in a posh hotel that we'd got as a freebie, but got up too late for breakfast, so had to go to Mcdonalds.
It was a very relaxed affair, and even though I say so myself, it was the best wedding I've ever been to !!
Sorry, can't remember any prices, just wanted to reminisce!

Snowpixie_2

What a great thread!!!
I am totally amazed what amount people spend on a 'perfect wedding'. Weddings should be completely how you want to be - it's your day and friends will respect you for it (unless of course mummy and daddy is paying for everything!!)
Me and hubby got married quite young 8 years ago on less that £1000 and we didn't miss out on anything. We are still very happily married now thankfully and that was without the aid of an average £8000 wedding.
Here's my advice:
* If you already have your own home, people will struggle what to buy you anyway and you will end up with things you don't really need. We asked close relatives to contribute towards the wedding rather than buy a gift. My mum and dad supplied and paid for the reception buffet, granparents gave money towards the photos, a friend made the cake as a gift, best man and ushers paid half towards the suit hire... it all adds up! Don't think you are being cheeky as most people are happy you tell them what you want, rather than waste their money on something you don't!

* Try and get a late slot at church, this way you don't have to pay for a sit down meal in the afternoon. We got married at 4pm, went to a pub for a few drinks then moved onto the evening reception at 7pm. Didn't have to buy favours or table dressings and we made our speeches to all our friends, not just the select few!:beer:

* Do your own buffet! Buy a few bits each week so it doesn't seem like a big spend. We did buffet for 150 people for £80. Family members are more than happy to help!

* Buy some nice patterned paper and print your own 'order of service'. You can also buy card invites that you can print evening invitations on. This saved us a fortune on made to order invites. You can still personalise them - and exactly how you want them!

* Buy your dress from ebay! You will be able to get a really nice one for less that £100. You can sell it on afterwards if you want too-not as though you were it again! bridesmaids can be found too!

* Let bridesmaids wear there own shoes! Does it REALLY matter if they aren't matching? If the dresses are long it covers the shoes anyway, and the feet aren't being photographed!

* Make the bridesmaids bouquet and the lapel flowers yourself. We bought a big bunch of gypsophilia (I know that's probably spealt wrong, it's the little white flowers you get in nearly all bouquets as decoration). It's cheap but effective - tye together with a bow.

* Do you know anyone with a big white car? We where lucky and knew someone with a wedding car they let us have cheap, but we also persuaded a friend to let us use their white volvo - they ended up offering to be a chauffer too!:A

I think that's all! I hope you have a lovely day, but just remember it is your day and you should spend it how you want, not how people expect!;)

Miss_Worry

I just had to register for the chat forum when i started reading this thread!

I am planning to get married next Nov so have 13 to 14 months to plan, save and spend! Though me and my partner have said we only want to spend what we can afford, like so many other people have said and have budgeted £3k. Fingers crossed with lots of money saving tips it'll be ok.

Plus my mum is a registrar (though she refuses to do the ceremony - of course!!) and she has some amazing stories and tips, so i thought i'd let you in on them;
* Weekday weddings are cheaper (we all knew that!) but be warned late afternoon weddings in the week do get booked up quickly and only so many weddings can be performed in a day (max. my mum has managed is 10 and that is going to many different venues).

* Obviously sunday & bank holidays are the most expensive days to get married because the registrar wages are higher.

* Having your ceremony at a registry office will cost less than say a posh hotel or castle as the registrar doesn't have to travel. Roughly £75 at office and £200 at venue (plus cost of hiring venue on top!)

*Be careful if you do get married abroad as sometimes the paperwork doesn't meet UK regulations, meaning you might not be man and wife and if you ever require copies of your marriage certificate you will have to get in touch with the place you got married (UK registry offices can't do it!!).

*Also as far as i know you still have to pay the UK registrars if you get married in any form of church, moreman or Cof E so that your marriage is recognised under UK law (i.e you can get joint accounts and mortgage).

I would suggest if you have a friend or family member who is a registrar ask them for advice and tips as they tend to know which venues are best in your area and also within your budget. Some places hear the 'W' word and hike up prices for the same room they would have a 40th birthday party in!

Hope this was helpful, i know lots of your messages have helped me.

Aggie_3

Hi,

My wedding 3 years ago - no evening do! (If you don't need them there for the ceremony, you don't need them there!)

Church was free as was a regular member
Organist cost 2 pints of beer (my uncle!)
My dress was £100 (should have been £1000 but bought it in a sample sale, as the boutiques near you if they do one!)
My bridesmaids offered to pay for their own dresses
Shoes - mine and three bridesmaids - £60 in BHS sale
4 Bouquets, 2corsages for my and his mum, six button holes and the ones in church - £136 as lady in church did them
my aunt baked cake and my Godmother decorated it
My mum's friend drove a white beamer and picked me up it all decorated up
DH bought kilt out fit - a whopping £650 but wears for all weddings and formal dinners since!
Ceilidh band - £400
Food for 150 guests - £1200 (fork buffet)
Venue hire free as I worked there
Register fees - £60
Invitations - £50 from online retailer
Service sheet I made myself
Photos £200 as just got the prints and no mounting or albums
Total - £2556 with 150 guests!!

Good luck with yours
Aggie

newlywed

Agree with the comment about the time of the wedding.

If you go for an afternoon time, then people will have eaten lunch already. We had a 3pm wedding and by the time we'd had photo's etc everyone sat down for the buffet meal about 5 pm ish. Didn't invite any extra for the evening so no worries about putting out extra food later on!