How much would you spend/did you spend on your wedding?

BugglyB

It makes me laugh when people crow about how little their wedding cost and they 'can't believe' people spend £7k or £15k or more.

I think really the only people entitled to do that are people who actually spent the absolute minimum - whatever the registry fees are.

Even if you do a 'cheap wedding' at one or two thousand pounds, thats still enough to feed and house a family for a year in some parts of the world. So we all have people who would look at us and call us crazy! £100 on a dress is an extravagance for most people in the world, not something to be sanctimonious about.

It honestly doesn't bother me when I see people spending a hundred thousand pounds on a wedding. Some people spend that on an hours shopping, or a night out.

BugglyB

johannalf88 wrote: »

I think the average spend is actually the mean spend- not the mode or median, which may actually be a better indicator. The 3 people a yet who spend a million etc probably weigh out the 10 that (somehow manage to) do it for £200 (Think is Leicester that does it that cheap!)

I would be interested to see the different averages... But that may just be my inner geek coming through...

Johanna makes an excellent point.

Its very often said that the average wedding costs £20k.

Its worth pointing out that using the same method if Bill Gates walks into a bar, 'on average' everyone in that bar is a multi-millionaire.

zcrat41

turbokez wrote: »

My function band played a wedding at the weekend, and must have spent a fortune - marquee, several hundred guests, fantastic food, free bar etc etc.

.

This sounds very similar to my wedding. We spent 25k for a traditional church/marquee job at my parents farm. Parents very generously paid for it all Didn't include honeymoon (10k - trip of a lifetime) which DH paid for or family meal night before the wedding and make up and hair or presents for BM and Mum's which I paid for (about 2k, most of which was pre wedding meal)

I'd love to know what my friends thought we spent - I would never tell them. I wouldn't be surprised if they thought it was 30k plus. My dress was only £150 for example which meant we could spend more money on unlimited champagne at the reception (my mum had a thing that the caterers couldn't leave people with empty glasses) and a free bar. I even wanted Strawberry daiquiri's which the bar staff made up with the ingredients I'd bought in Lidl's for less that £40 but they looked amazing.

We had the wedding of our dreams and I expect to do the same one day for any daughters we have. Or sons!

Thriftygifty

We are aiming for 5K which is a comfortable amount for us, but we are finding it tight with everything we want it's turning into a headache and we go round in circles.

To top it off OH just came back from seeing friends and told me their dress was £1000 :eek: which is fine that they spent that much but I thought it was like £400/£500, which now i'm worried how much mine is going to cost, I thought £400 was a reasonable amount to pay, am I stupid for thinking that amount?

jtr2803

Thriftygifty wrote: »

We are aiming for 5K which is a comfortable amount for us, but we are finding it tight with everything we want it's turning into a headache and we go round in circles.

To top it off OH just came back from seeing friends and told me their dress was £1000 :eek: which is fine that they spent that much but I thought it was like £400/£500, which now i'm worried how much mine is going to cost, I thought £400 was a reasonable amount to pay, am I stupid for thinking that amount?

If you were looking to just walk into a bridal dress shop and buy one then yes, it's going to be more like £1,000 than £400...BUT...you might be able to find a sample or preloved one on Ebay for less than half of the price. I bought my dress brand new for £300 from a wedding fair, the original price was £900, it was just a previous season.

It would be 100% possible to get a lovely dress for less than £500

stir_crazy

Thriftygifty wrote: »

We are aiming for 5K which is a comfortable amount for us, but we are finding it tight with everything we want it's turning into a headache and we go round in circles.

To top it off OH just came back from seeing friends and told me their dress was £1000 :eek: which is fine that they spent that much but I thought it was like £400/£500, which now i'm worried how much mine is going to cost, I thought £400 was a reasonable amount to pay, am I stupid for thinking that amount?

You can also be quite lucky in the bridal shop sales. One of my friends got her dress for £250 because she waited until sale time.

sj999

There are plenty of websites giving excellent money saving wedding tips, for example you get buy a dress from Barnado's which is a lot cheaper then from a wedding shop.

Try -
www.cheap-wedding.net
http://www.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/
www.the-broke-bride.co.uk/

cats2012

Thriftygifty wrote: »

We are aiming for 5K which is a comfortable amount for us, but we are finding it tight with everything we want it's turning into a headache and we go round in circles.

To top it off OH just came back from seeing friends and told me their dress was £1000 :eek: which is fine that they spent that much but I thought it was like £400/£500, which now i'm worried how much mine is going to cost, I thought £400 was a reasonable amount to pay, am I stupid for thinking that amount?

My other tip is don't always go for typical "designers".

My dress is from a small designer who only really makes for my shop and a few others, not a big name, and the base dress was about £650. I'm having tons of stuff done to it to customise and all of it, including standard alterations, will be around £800.

Obviously this is still over your particular budget, but there were other dresses by the same people around the £500 mark

daisiegg

Thriftygifty wrote: »

We are aiming for 5K which is a comfortable amount for us, but we are finding it tight with everything we want it's turning into a headache and we go round in circles.

To top it off OH just came back from seeing friends and told me their dress was £1000 :eek: which is fine that they spent that much but I thought it was like £400/£500, which now i'm worried how much mine is going to cost, I thought £400 was a reasonable amount to pay, am I stupid for thinking that amount?

My dress was £810 (not including alterations) and that was one of the cheapest in the shop. I went into (and speedily exited!) a couple of other bridal shops that didn't seem to have anything less than £2000. However, I am reliably informed on this board that, as others have said, you can get dresses for cheaper if you are willing to buy preloved, eBay, etc. Also, if you go for something like Monsoon or BHS or places like that, they are a lot cheaper.

Good luck!

Thriftygifty

Thank you everyone for your replies i'm feeling alittle carmer today, this wedding planning is a rollercoaster ride.

I kinda had it in my head that I would give myself until Christmas to get down to the weight I would like to be and then in Jan go dress shopping, my mum has been saying we should go and have a look at some but i'm not wanting to until i've lost 2 Stone min.

We are getting married in May next year which hopefully will be enough time from start of next year to find my dress.

I've been looking in Monsoon as thats where our bridesmaids dresses are from but I look awful in them all lumpy bumpy as they arent structured enough for my shape.

I think I will probably go down the second hand route or sample as suggested, a few hotels round here has sample sales so might go to them and have a look. It's abit like how long is a piece of string.

Thank you for your help X