Setting a wedding budget

gothrockchic1

Hi everyone, my OH and I got engaged last weekend.We are trying to set a wedding budget. I know the average cost is £!2000 but I can't justify spending that much.

We estimate we will have 60-100 guests as OH has a large family.

What is a reasonable amount to budget?

I know this is an open ended question.

lippy1923

Congrats on your engagement!

Really depends on what you want. If you want a 3/4 course meal with wine/ champaign, flowing bar, designer dress, prof photographer/videographer etc then you will pay far more than a quick buffet style meal, ebay/china replica dress and guests buy their own drinks etc.

To answer your budget question, a reasonable amount is a sum that you can afford to pay in cash, without getting yourself into debt! So however much you want to save.

I get married this summer and have picked a nice hotel but it costs about £100 pp, to give you a rough idea. Includes 4 course meal, wine, champaign toast, BBQ, DJ, Honeymoon suite etc. - £100pp may seem a lot, but we didn't have to pay a seperate venue fee like a lot of other places, it's included in the £100pp price. One Hotel I went to wanted £10k just for the venue, then about £45pp for food!

Including honeymoon is going to cost us around £20k but it's what we have saved for, will put us in no debt and we really want a posh luxury honeymoon lol.

daivid

Surely the budget is a combination what you can afford and what you are prepared to spend, I accept this may not be clear to begin with.

Do you have anything in mind? Venues, styles, catering arrangements? date/ day of the week?... What you can get for your money will vary greatly by location too - your profile says Edinburgh, I'd imagine the city to be pricey and the surrounding areas slighly more reasonable.

If its any use we will be marrying in cheshire with 100 day guests, 50 more for the evening, our budget is £10 000 for the whole day all in. Currently we are below but may well go over by up to 20%. We will have a 3 course reception in a beautifull country hotel, live musicians and a few other luxuries.

firebird082

First things first - write down your guest list and work on maximum numbers (hopefully the actual numbers will be slightly lower). Decide what sort of thing you want and check out prices. It may turn out for you (as for us) that the sort of venues I was initially really keen on cost a b****y fortune. There are good (free) wedding budget planners out there which can be a useful starting point - you can delete things you won't be having, but it will cover lots of stuff that you doubtless won't have thought of

Oh, and don't take any notice of what anyone else spends - it's your day, and the important thing is that it's fun!

Good luck, and congratulations :beer:

paddyrg

There are two ways to manage the finances - you either start with what you want, and count it up, or you start with how much cash you have and start slicing it up. You need to pin something down to give you a starting point.

If you say you don't want to spend £12k then decide what you do want to pay. If it's say £3k, then take out the core costs (license, officiant, dress, suit, etc). If there's a grand left, and 100 people to sort, it's a tenner each, roughly, all-in and you're looking at chips in the park scout hut.

RachRubyD

our budget is about 10,000 for everything. Having 65 day and 100 night. Only able to have a fancy venue as my dad paying £4,500 but thats everything all in.

We made plans just incase we didn't get any help and the best method to do it cheapish but look good is to hire somewhere that isn't a wedding venue. Your local town hall or social club, cricket clubs etc and sometimes they may make you use their cateres but they are a lot less than proper venues. A hog roast is normally cheaper than a full sit down meal or even a afternoon tea with sandwiches and cakes. You can find companies in your area that will dress any venue for you. Might cost a few hundred but they can make a drab social club look like a beautiful marquee.

If you have any Britannia Hotels near you then they do a really good package offer.
Enjoy affordable luxury and fine food at Britannia Hotels, from only £999*

• Bucks Fizz welcome & 3 Course Wedding breakfast for 50 guests
• Evening Buffet Reception for 100 guests
• Room Hire
• Red Carpet

Andy_89

We had a deal with the hotel 50 people for £5,500.


From there we worked out who we wanted and the associated
costs.


We then listed out what we wanted and how much it would be, before we looked at the total.


All in all I think ours comes to 21k all saved in just over 12 months, without borrowing a single penny.

Leanne200

I think you need to consider more than venue really, what do you want exactly? The finer details are usually what adds up in my experience. So far, for example to give you an idea of what we are paying out for:

Marriage licence: £550 (giving notice is an extra £70ish and a requirement - prices go up every January and even if you have already paid deposit you are required to pay the new price. Also marriage certificates are £4 a pop)

Venue which is a lovely rural manor house/hotel (inc ceremony, wedding breakfast for 50 people, reception and evening food, chair covers/sashes, bridal suite and some free rooms thrown in - remember to negotiate extras, if they want your business they will give more) £3000
* we need to pay for children on top of this and any adults above the 50 covered in the contract.

Drapes, ceiling swags etc: £600

Photographer: £375 (found on wowcher, and looks great! Look around for special offers)

Flowers: £300-£500

Cake: £150

Make-up/hair: Not booked yet, but remember most want to do trials first. Can obviously cut costs by DIY'ing it.

Bridesmaid dresses/shoes (x4 for us): £300

Suits (x4 adults 2x children for us) £600

Wedding dress: £1100 (but as others say replicas are cheaper, however I was worried I would get what I paid for and didn't want to risk it)

Wedding favours: £110

Nice to haves, magician (£500), sweet tower (£120)

Remember your wedding stationary, place cards, table numbers, table plan, guest book, of course the invitations and thank you cards, and other little things like gifts for your wedding party, post box, centrepieces.

Alot of these things you can cut back on, for example friends and family may want to contribute, so my partners brother wants to pay for the suits, my dad naturally wanted to pay for my dress. A family friend has made all of evening invites, signs to go by the post box and guest book and table plan, thank you cards etc free of charge.

I think we are pushing almost 10k, and thats being generous!
That being said, my best friend got married 2 years ago. They had the ceremony in the register office and reception at a local social club type place. They spent about £1000-£1500. It all depends on what you want. Best of luck

gothrockchic1

Thanks everyone for the comments. I really appreciate your input. OH has a large family so we may have a large guestlist. My family isn't as large but I have a lot of friends.

We will need to discuss it in depth at a later stage.

lippy1923

I just want to add, favours are mostly a complete waste of time and money IMO. People spend hours making little crafty things to put on tables. Do you know where they end up at the end of the night? Still on the tables or in the bin!

TBH, if I was having my meal/ drinks paid for me, entertainment provided, cake to eat, etc I wouldn't feel pained if the couple didn't leave some cheap little trinket at my table. I would rather they keep their time and money as weddings are expensive enough.

Just a thought if budget is tight. Personally we are going to make a donantion to a charity instead.

teeni

I think you are looking at this the wrong way round, work out what you want to pay and go from there. My son is getting married in august and when they set the date we worked out what they could afford to save on a monthly basis before the wedding and that was the budget, the wedding is set with 130 guests, caterers , venue, church, photographer, dresses, suits, rings flowers dj all sorted and so far we have change , so it is possible