Wedding budgets ? How much

Buzzybee90

Paulaviki wrote: »

We had 130 people to the day at our wedding. 60 odd of those were just my side of the family before we'd invited his family and our friends! Some people do have big families and lots of friends!

But this was few family, I'm not disputing the number but seems a lot for mainly friends

guardiangirl

Totally agree with everyone else. I think traditions have changed and parents shouldn't be "expected" to pay anything, even though lots of parents still will. I would 100% tell her what you are prepared to pay / can afford to pay and then she can figure out what she can then afford to do.

My parents gave me money in dribs and drabs, which has amounted to around 1/3 of my total (expected!!) wedding cost. MUCH more than I expected and I even feel a bit guilty taking it from them. They obviously have insisited, but I genuinely didn't expect it. If they had offered (or I had expected) them to pay a proportion of it - i.e half - I would have then felt cheeky all of the time when chosing things or adding people on etc as it would be other peoples money adding up!

guardiangirl

Also regards to numbers, I do feel 125 for mainly friends for the day is a lot! But each to their own and as long as the discussion is had about how much you are prepared to contribute, then it is up to her if she wants to stick to these numbers.

We've got 60 for the day (mostly family) with probably an additional 70 for the evening.

Ruby_Roo

Paulaviki wrote: »

We had 130 people to the day at our wedding. 60 odd of those were just my side of the family before we'd invited his family and our friends! Some people do have big families and lots of friends!

But your 130 people weren't friends with very few family, which is the position with the original poster's daughter.

We have got a lot of family coming to ours along with godparents and a few of our parents' friends - but I can honestly say I know everyone invited from my side really well, and the same with OH and his side.

We decided to limit friends - we've invited our close friends and their partners but that's it - because I want to spend the day with the people who mean the most rather than spending a lot of time mingling with people who are acquaintances rather than friends. But maybe we just don't have a lot of friends

redfragglebiker

We are getting married next year and have around 70 for the day with the numbers doubling for the evening do. As soon as we started planning our wedding we budgeted on the fact that we would be paying for the entire lot ourselves. The price per head you have quoted isn't overly excessive IMO but the fact that you're being hinted at to contribute I actually find rather rude. We have been offered some help from both mine and my OH's family which we have gratefully accepted but at no point was it ever expected of anyone to contribute in any way.
If you would like/are able to contribute something towards the wedding then I would suggest you tell them I would like to contribute £X towards your big day. If they can't make that work within their budget/expectations then sorry to be harsh but that's not your problem. I know you want to give your daughter her dream wedding but you shouldn't be made to feel like ther is a minimum contribution that you should meet towards it. Besides too many people confuse a wedding and a marriage. The wedding is one day, the marriage lasts a lifetime.

Andy_89

Ours is £130/ head and we are having 60 (I thought that was too many)

Personally I would encourage one or the other - I moved in with my OH in Feb '14 with the intention of getting married in 2016 - A good deal later and we are getting married in June '15. I wouldn't be oing this if I couldn't afford it myself, and its really hard having no money. I wouldn't 'expect' my parents to pay for anything - it shows ppor financial management on my own side.

It appears the couple are losing sight of the importance of the occaision and relationships could quickly turn south because of money.

minerva_windsong

I agree with everyone else - contribute what you want to and what you can afford. If that's less than will cover the number of people they want then that's their problem not yours (though personally I think 175 guests is loads! We're having 80-100 and I though that was a big wedding by modern standards).

amywalsh1985 wrote: »

Totally agree with everyone else. I think traditions have changed and parents shouldn't be "expected" to pay anything, even though lots of parents still will. I would 100% tell her what you are prepared to pay / can afford to pay and then she can figure out what she can then afford to do.

My parents gave me money in dribs and drabs, which has amounted to around 1/3 of my total (expected!!) wedding cost. MUCH more than I expected and I even feel a bit guilty taking it from them. They obviously have insisited, but I genuinely didn't expect it. If they had offered (or I had expected) them to pay a proportion of it - i.e half - I would have then felt cheeky all of the time when chosing things or adding people on etc as it would be other peoples money adding up!

Yes I agree. My parents very kindly offered to pay for the wedding (plus OH's parents are also contributing and we are paying for some of the smaller things ourselves) but I do admit to feeling guilty for wasting their money so have been trying to keep costs down wherever possible. If they hadn't offered to pay we would have done it ourselves though - we'd certainly never have asked for contributions or expected them to pay!

Spidernick

From my experience there seems to be an inverse ratio between the amount spent on a wedding and how long that wedding lasts!

I imagine that the Facebook generation's idea of what constitutes a 'friend' is very different to mine, and perhaps I am old-fashioned, but I only wanted really close family and friends at my wedding and didn't expect anyone to pay for it but me and my wife-to-be. It seems to me these days that people will invite many guests that they're no longer in contact with five years later.

Each to their own, I suppose!

ajdj

When my partner and I got engaged we spend a few days discussing what we wanted out of the day, what was important and how much we were prepared to spend on this one day.

We agreed on a budget of £5,000 all in and agreed that we would find ways to achieve what we want within the budget. We wanted a Saturday wedding in July for 50 daytime guests and a further 30 in the evening.

In typical MSE fashion we researched, researched and researched some more until we found the right venues. It took a few weekends until we found the right place but it is doable and I think most people will assume we've spent an awful lot more!

The trouble with most places is as soon as you mention 'wedding' the price triples. There seems to be a strange acceptance that weddings should be expensive, personally I find it absurd.

Whether you've got £1000, £5,000 or £25,000 set the budget first, stick to it and then make that money work as hard as it can for you! Never accept the first deal and continue to ask yourself if you are getting good value for money.

NoGoodNamesLeft

Our budget is around £5000 for everything with my parents paying for a lot of it. I think it's generous of you to contribute anything and I would have been grateful to my parents however much they offered us.
Just decide what you want to pay (and what you can afford!) and offer that.