How much is a reasonable amount?

lucy_w86

I am looking into reception venues and we wont have loads of money to spend on the wedding itself, but we also have not discussed finances with our parents.

Many places are quoting about £300 up to £1000 for the hire of a hotel / manor house etc...then £30+ pp for the meal itself. Then you need to have welcome drinks and a buffet in the evening.

How much were you willing to spend on this? What is a reasonable price? I dont want to be drawn in and then pay too much.

Rachie_B

How much is reasonable to YOU ( and H2B ?) or whoevers is paying for it?!!!

whats reasonable for some couples would be life savings for others !

You really need to sit down and set a budget !

newlywed

A tip I was told was to work out what is important to you.

If it's a specific dress or flowers, or a specific venue then decide for yourself what will make your day what you want. Then everything else can compromise on.

What will be left over in years to come is the rings and the photo's. What is the most important bits for you?

For me it was specific flowers for my bouquet, the whole wedding colour scheme was planned round that. Venue wasn't as important to me as long as we could fit everyone in and there was available parking nearby (one place had a maximum two hour parking limit in the surrounding streets).

We also decided that we would rather have a honeymoon than a posh hotel reception.

summerday

Hi Lucy,

If you read through the very long thread that Mrs Thrift started, you will see that many people have posted about what they did on their wedding day. It really depends what you want. We kew we wanted a later wedding when guests would already have eaten lunch, then we will have a light afternoon tea of sandwiches and cakes where we will do the speeches, and later on have a buffet for the evening do. By not having a formal 'wedding breakfast' traditional 3 course meal we have saved ourselves £1k. But to some people they would not be willing to sacrifice a traditional wedding breakfast.

You need to ensure you are comparing different venues on a level playing field, so get the full costs for each one. Beware of hidden charges for corkage etc. Hotels will often only let you have their own food and drink (understandably) and prices may be high, but if you are hiring out a hall etc you need to look at the hire fee plus all extra costs of caterers, supplying your own drink etc.

Like others have said, decide on what are the few most important things to you on your day, then you can cut costs in other areas.

cupid_s

Hi lucy
The venue we went with didn't charge any room hire for the reception provided we had the wedding breakfast which cost £23 per head (this was 3 years ago so prices will obviously have increased, but not by all that much and we went for the most expensive menu at the time). A drinks package was compulsory, obviously, but we chose the basic which was £6 per head and included a glass of bucks fizz on arrival, two glasses of wine with dinner and a glass of sparkling wine for the toast. Then because we were having the wedding breakfast and an evening buffet we got £5 off the normal cost of the evening buffet per head. So paid only £7 per head for it!

What you mention seems expensive but a lot depends on the area of the country I imagine. If you get quotes from several venues and compare everything you can ensure you're not paying over the odds.

aukinfo

We nearly got married in Ireland and they wanted to charge £15 corkage on a bottle of South African plonk.

I dont think there is a reasonable price, its more about value for money. The prices you suggest dont sound outrages to em assuming the food is of good quality.

The average UK wedding costs 16K apparently, so its up to you how you divvy this up.