Wedding budgets ? How much

Dozey_crow

How much to spend on a wedding is a personal thing as others have said but in this day and age people should arrange the day around what THEY can afford independently.

I would present then with the maximum you are prepared to contribute and remind them that the wedding is only a day, whereas marriage and buying a house are longer lasting and ask if they are prioritizing correctly.

Fuzzy_Duck

SisterAct wrote: »

I really appreciate the comments , I haven't been sleeping because this has been really worrying me. It's helped me realise I am reasonable in my concerns.
Thankyou everyone

It's terrible you've been so stressed over this I totally agree with other posters- it is THEIR wedding, so THEY should pay for it. If they can't afford it they either need to scale back or save for longer. To be honest it seems a very short engagement- we'll have been engaged for two years before we get married, and even then we'll only have £5k saved.

I find it a bit unusual that 125 are invited to the day and an extra 30 to the evening. Are they honestly that close to 125 people? We've invited 70 to ours (really hoping that many don't come though!) and that's just friends and immediate family. I just couldn't comprehend inviting our huge extended families when other their our parents and siblings, we're just not that close to them.

If you want to contribute, be clear about how much. I wouldn't offer to pay for a certain item as you don't know how expensive that item will be. You'd be better off offering x amount of money instead. Personally though, I wouldn't pay for anything after they rudely assumed and put you through all this stress!

tinkerbellkirst

Our budget is around 6K. We have budgeted for this ourselves. My mum has given us what she can afford already and the in laws are helping out as we go along and have told us not to worry about money. But our plan was always to ensure we can fund it as much ourselves as possible. I don't want to assume that anyone is going to give us anything toward it and I certainly wouldn't expect it from them.

I think you need to chat with her ASAP explain what you are prepared to contribute and they will have to budget accordingly.

CreditCrunchie

There is no normal, everyone does things differently. Some people want only their very closest friends there, while others want the entire extended family, work colleagues, the lot. If they're going for a bigger guest list though, and you're footing half the bill then they really need to be considerate and look at cheaper options for catering. Catering is where half the budget usually ends up, it's ridiculously expensive!!

Where are they getting married? if the venue will allow they could get outside caterers to do a hog roast, hire a chip van, paella or big pan 'street food' stalls etc at a much lower cost, and that way be able to have more guests without breaking the bank. If the venue has a fully equipped kitchen and would allow, they could also self or part self-cater.

Idiophreak

Seriously, just have a conversation where you say "we'll give you X much" and leave it at that.

Don't expect anything for that money.

Dont' get involved.

Just leave them to do what they want.

Otherwise, it's simply not worth the stress it will put on your relationship.

DigForVictory

Hurrah the dear girl wants to marry.
If that joyful occasion is costing you a single night's sleep, deduct £150 from the amount you can afford to give them towards it. Per night.
Unless it's you dragging your feet at the Essential Talk. Even by phone - as they may be making expensive plans & non-refundable deposits.

Talk! Then sleep, peacefully.

Idiophreak

DigForVictory wrote: »

If that joyful occasion is costing you a single night's sleep, deduct £150 from the amount you can afford to give them towards it. Per night.

To be fair, it's not entirely the happy couple's fault that OP's losing sleep. If she'd had a clear conversation with them on day 1, there would be no stress.

7roland8

Don't worry about number of people coming - its THEIR wedding.


Things have changed and parents are no longer expected to pay anything - unless they want to.


Have a chat and say you will contribute X amount - whatever you want to and can reasonably afford. Then say it can be for cake or flowers or whatever.


Then they can budget themselves for whatever they want.


Unless you have wires crossed your daughter sounds completely unreasonable.


With people working these days the youngsters often have much more money than the parents.

cascaid

I got married six months ago and we NEVER would have dreamed of expecting our parents to pay for any of it! It was our decision to get married, also I felt I had more freedom with decisions for the wedding itself as my parents had no financial stake in it.

Just a rough idea though, we had only 50 people for ours (very very close friends and both our small families) and we spent around £13-14000 - it all depends on how you want to do it. If she wants an extravagant wedding that is up to her but if you're not happy forking out for half of it, set her straight at the beginning before she gets any expensive ideas in her head that she won't be able to afford.

Also, congratulations! I'm sure it will be a wonderful day no matter what!

F1F93

My OH and I are having 35ish to the breakfast (immediate family only) and the rest (about 120 or so in total) to the evening do. For the wedding breakfast, they won't be able to talk to all 125 people (I'm gonna struggle to say hello to 35 people while eating!) so what difference does it make if they're not there? Fair play, invite everyone to the evening do where you can speak to everyone, but paying £50+ a head when you won't even realise they're there is a bit much IMO. (Apologies if this seems rather blunt, it wasn't meant that way).

We're paying about £10K, but we've seriously skimped on some things and splurged on others. For example, rings will be worn forever, so we've spent £2000 on those getting them hand made. My suit can also be re-worn afterwards so I've got one tailor made instead of hiring one. But the car journey will only be for an hour in total (30 mins for my fiancee to get to the church, 30 mins for us to get to the hotel) so we can't justify paying £500 for a rolls royce. The MOHs Dad has a nice car and offered to drive us for free! Also save the dates, invites etc we're doing ourselves. They may not be as good as professionally made ones, but they're good enough and a fraction of the price (and lets be honest, people are only gonna look at it a couple of times, and it'll likely be thrown away after the wedding anyway).


You most definitely shouldn't be paying half the wedding if you don't want to. My Fiancee's grandparents have offered to pay for our cake, and my parents offered to contribute to my suit but thats it, and even that wasn't expected.