What is/was your budget for your wedding?

CompBunny

Just thought it could be interesting to do a quick poll for MSE-ers and their wedding budgets

How much will you/did you spend on your wedding? What about your honeymoon if you are having one?

We are looking at £5000 for everything from rings to reception, excluding a honeymoon. This is for a church ceremony and a hotel reception. Higher than what I originally planned, a £2000 wedding! Mum kindly offered us some money and we eventually caved in and accepted.

RobynLouise_2

I'm finding it really hard to budget. The wedding ceremony and breakfast, plus evening do will all be in one place, this is costing us £4000 exluding the registrar. So it's extras I need to come up with a budget for, ie outfits, photographer, room decorations etc. At least we save on transport! I am hoping that excluding honeymoon we will be able to do it for 8k but I think I might be being a bit ambitious!

punkpink

Were just doing a small wedding for closest friends, budget of £2000 including the ceremony, champagne and canapes, a 3 course meal, a 'honeymoon' cottage for Oh and i plus accommodation for bridal party (3 double rooms) for 3 nights.
Then a budget of £1000 for all attire (2 suits with tails, wedding dress/veil/shoes, 2 adult bridesmaids dresses and shoes, one flower girl dress with shoes and a page boy suit with shoes)
Also included in that budget somewhere is a photographer, cake and flowers.
Then were planning a honeymoon to the south of france (not sure on the budget for that yet) about a week after were married

Idiophreak

Might be proved wrong, but I'd have thought you'd have been better off breaking the £12k plus category down a little more. Statistically, I think quite a lot of weddings are over £12k - although MSE weddings are more likely to cost less, obviously

lettice

For everything excluding a honeymoon our absolute maximum is £12000 but we hope to spend closer to £10000 if we can.

minerva_windsong

Oh I feel awful typing this, but I think mine is going to top out at around £15k (though I'm hoping to keep it to less if possible). That is mainly because we have picked a fairly pricey venue - we were lucky enough to get £500 off as they offered it at this year's prices, and it is exactly what we wanted, but at the same time it's not cheap, mainly because it has to take quite a lot of people (we both have big families and quite a lot of friends who we wanted there). Likewise their attached caterer isn't the cheapest either, although we're hoping to reduce that by only having two courses not three and a fairly cheap evening buffet. But we had quite a strong idea of the kind of venue we wanted, and decent food was important to us, so it's worth it. And there are plenty of other areas I'm hoping to cut back on as well - for instance, I'm not bothered about a pricey dress, and am thinking of having silk flowers and not that many floral decorations or something that can be used in the ceremony and the reception.

LEJC

I have to admit I dont like these sorts of threads where its about comparing how much you spent...dont shoot me down yet let me explain!!!!

Our wedding cost probably £15k, a reasonable amount I hear you say until perhaps I mention it was 20 years ago....however for that I had the wedding of my dreams,didnt get into debt for it haggled very hard to get the best prices...and yes am still married now.

To me its not a case of what you spend its more about getting the best for the money that you have...and thats why to me its not about physically what you spend,but how you spend it to achieve the result you want.

Your budget in my mind is up to you,and in honesty if you have the wedding of your choice on a small budget or a large budget hopefully the end result is a lifetime of happy memories of a very special day.

Very often the type of question posed by the OP generates back lash and condemnation of those who do spend a large amount on their wedding,but if thats your choice and you have the means to do that then theres nothing wrong in your decision...its about having the day you want....

A lot also depends on your numbers of guests ...we had 56 for the day and then 250 in the evening.

Whatever your budget,dont forget to haggle,spend some time researching options,prioritise the important things to you and choose wisely...

Idiophreak

minerva_windsong wrote: »

Oh I feel awful typing this, but I think mine is going to top out at around £15k (though I'm hoping to keep it to less if possible).

I wouldn't feel bad about it at all...Different people have different priorities, that's all.

Personally, I spent more than £15k just on our honeymoon, but don't feel in the slightest bad about it - we had an awesome time

CompBunny

Sorry guys, I'd just kinda assumed on MSE we probably wouldn't have many over £12k I should learn not to assume! Does anyone know how to edit a poll on a thread?

CompBunny

Forgot to say the intention of the thread wasn't comparison for condemnation sake - a £800 day and a £20k day are just as valid as each other in my eyes, as you say moneysavingexpert is about spending the money that you have wisely. I hope people remain supportive of each others budgets

[Deleted User]

We called in several favours and did a fair bit of stuff ourselves but we brought in an 'informal' big wedding for 120+ at just under £3000! Including day and evening food too! :money: