The cost of marriage!

adom_thomas

adom_thomas wrote: »

My point of view is we should not spend too much on weddings! A small wedding party is fine and save the money for future!

As you said, you just bought house. Just organise small dinner party there!

Sorry! I forgot to congrats before! Many many congratulations to you Sophscottx! Good Luck!

Deano777

I bought my wedding through groupon and it was fantastic.


For just under 2 grand it included the wedding ceremony, drinks on arrival, 3 course sit down meal with bottles of wine included, night do with disco and buffet and an overnight stay in the honeymoon suite.


Was at a lovely hotel and the wedding organiser was fab.


Was for 50 people.


Bought my cake from marks and spencers, my dress was from a bridal shop for £250, bridesmaid dresses were from Debenhams.


Also got my photographer from groupon for £250.


Everyone said it was the best wedding they had been to and I was so glad I hadn't spent thousands and thousands because it is all over so fast. We spent about £3500 but tbh family gave us cash gifts so didn't spend much really.


A lot of groupon deals are loads cheaper than that if you can get married mon to fri

Calluna

We asked everyone we invited to the wedding to pick 3 songs that reminded them of us or they loved - along with our own songs we would have had enough to play for all night weekender!:rotfl:We found a DJ who would take our suggestions and play a suitable selection, with about 12 that must be played and a list of 'over my dead body' songs. he cost us £150 and we spent £200 on a band that we both loved, as real live music is very important to us. The funniest thing was when we asked if the band would play our wedding - they replied " have you heard us play? we're not really a 'wedding band'" I said if you were a wedding band we wouldn't be asking you to play

Calluna

Congrats Soph. We just got married (September) and I reckon we spent £4000 max, we didn't have a budget as such cos I'd never organised a wedding before. LOL. Luckily, as we have been together for 28 years and our very much our own people we didn't have to invite anyone we didn't want incase we upset family and could have the wedding we wanted.
I'm sure I'll forget some cost but I think we spent -
Trip home in May to meet suppliers, check out locations, price stuff - £200
Invites & postage £60 My BiL let us use an original painting as the design and my OH did the layout. We used Moo.com and got A5 flyers.
Dress- £220 (Ghost, highly recommend them)
Hairband - Accessorise £7
New bra, knickers (£45 Bravissimo)
magic knickers £20 John Lewis
Haircut - £25 (short so basically I just washed it on the day and added hairband)
Eyebrows threaded £4
Pedicure & manicure, gel nails & shellac varnish £ 40
Friend did make up cos I rarely use it - new mascara £ 10 (checked out bridal make-up would have cost about £70 including practice run.
Used shoes I already had
Bridegrooms suit £700
Shirt/tie/socks approx £100
Registering at our local Office £70
Registrar (in an approved venue in my home town, not registration office) £415
Hire of Approved venue (town hall/guildhall)- £75 This was for 25 close family and friends
Hire of second venue - £150 ( we had a Cornish ceremony outside, at a beautiful defunct chapel, which the townhall offer as an extra location (probably cos it makes ace photos) A friend did the whole ceremony in Cornish and we had another 25 - 30 people) Another friend read the translation and they produced some lovely orders of service as a pressie. My Maid of Honour wrote a poem - I cried.
Flowers £20 practice flowers & £60 for the day. Friend made my 2 boquets (one for me and one for MoH & to throw) and 4 of us made 10 buttonholes
Hire of a indoor room incase of rain - £200. This was firstly booked as a precaution, but in the end we used it as a pre-2nd ceremomy meeting point, tea hut, and food venue. It is a community building that I found by accident and had never been used for this sort of thing. It was a building site when I first saw it and I had lots of naysayers. However it is run as a club house for a girls surf group and the family who run it were fab. It's well worth checking out somewhere out of the ordinary.
Photographer - £500 2 people 12 -4 and 1 in the evening for 2 hours. Local people I found through a local FB page who did lovely candid shots and had just started doing weddings - no set shots just followed us about like a storyboard of the day. I would say make sure you get them to do pics of anyone you specifically want included. I lost my Aunt today and it is only by luck I think we have pics of her at the do. We got all the shots on a memory stick and are getting about 70 physical images in 2 sizes, some for us and some as gifts.
Food - Fish and chips (75 portions) £350 ? about (totally overordered and we ended up giving them out to passing tourists which was hilarious)
Cream teas & buns £150 (Any left got taken to evening do)
Tea etc £5
Evening venue hire - Local pub - £100 (we had a pay bar)
Prosecco for toast - £120 - ended up bringing 5 bottles home :-)
DJ -£150
Band - £200
Evening Food - £100 - 100 pasties (again totally over ordered and ended sending people home with a weeks worth of food and trawling the local pub to give them away
6 days accomodation for us and best man & mate from abroad - £650
Train ticket - one way London/Cornwall £35 (I arrived 3 days early)
Car Hire - 6days - £250 inc petrol
Rings - 2 for £90 - handmade silver

OK - Ive just added that up and it's £5191
Still I'm so glad we did it. People came up to us and said it was the best wedding they'd ever been to. We haven't gone into debt for it, we got to spend time with people we love and who love us very much.

If I was going to pass on advice it would be get your dress from Ghost.
Make your buttonholes the night before and store them in the fridge. We had a prosecco and pizza party whilst we were doing it and it included the bridegroom and bestman.
Don't do/buy/invite anything/anybody you don't want - It's Your Day (and your husband's)

Dird

lippy1923 wrote: »

Venue/ Food/ Drink/ DJ£5,800.00
Brides Dress£1,150.00
Dress Alterations£215.00
Photographer£700.00
Photobooth£529.00
Flowers/ Centerpieces/ Buttonholes£415.00
Rings£1,850.00
Hair/Makeup Artist£430.00

Absolutely bonkers

LameWolf

We got married 13 years ago, and had to try and rein in the cost because Mr LW had been out of work til 2 weeks before the wedding, and we'd been managing on my disability money.

We chose a venue that had only just got the licence to hold weddings on the premises - I think the legal bit with the registrar plus the buffet reception, a total of 4 hours for the whole thing, was about £1000, from memory.

We had just 21 people there.

My dress: £154 and I got something I could wear again afterwards.
My shoes: £20 (and I balked at this, I have to confess)
My headdress - less than £1 for a clear plastic comb thingy, which I dressed up with seed beads, silk flowers and owl feathers which I already had.
Also spent about £1 on lilac ribbon to decorate my walking stick (I wasn't in a wheelchair back then)
My hair and make-up - nothing, did them myself
Groom's clothes - nothing, he already had them.
Photographer - a guest who was attending alone and was a keen photographer did this as our wedding present.
Flowers - didn't bother with them.
Music - we took in a stereo player and I burned the music onto writable CDs that we had kicking about unused; we didn't have dancing, because I'm disabled and I cannot dance.
Wedding favours: I made a cross-stitch drinks coaster for each guest with their name on, the acrylic coasters to put the cross stitch piece in were about £1 each; I already had aida material and thread.
Rings: £300 - we had them made by a craftsman we met at a local craft fair.
Cake: £30, made by a lady who bakes for the cafe at the local museum (I'd have made my own, but I wasn't confident enough, specially about decorating it).
Car: we went in Mr LW's ancient BMW!

So I make that about £1527; call it £1600, because I'm bound to have left something out (morphine induced brainfog!!)

I can't recall anything else; we deferred our honeymoon, as Mr LW had only just started his new job, and didn't want to immediately ask for time off, plus it gave us chance to save for it. We were married in the September, and had our honeymoon over Xmas, in Brugge.

martinnathalie9

maman wrote: »

It looks like a lovely venue and how sensible of them to market off peak weddings in that way.


I think the DIY wedding would be a step too far for me. I know it's traditional for parents to contribute but the idea that loads had chipped in would make me feel like the poor relation and spoil my day. Just my view, each to his own.

It really was lovely! I feel the same about DIY weddings - I've been to several and they are always so stunning and individual to the couple but I don't think I could deal with the stress of doing it all myself!