How much was your wedding?

vicki2221

We got married in July and it cost £16k excluding honeymoon. Honeymoon was another 4k. We had 60 guests.

My dad paid £1500 deposit for the venue. My father-in-law paid £800 for half of the photographer costs. The rest we paid for ourselves. We were engaged for 18 months and I put money away every month and my husband had some savings he used, and he also paid for our honeymoon with a bonus he got.
Nothing went on credit cards but I did end up getting a 2k overdraft right at the end but paid it off within 2 months.

Our photographer and videographer was the most expensive at 3k but well worth it. My dress was second hand. My husband and best men wore suits from River Island. We had a band, a pianist and I spent probably way too much on flowers.

Although it is just one day, I think it will be a day I will treasure forever. I have never felt the way I felt on my wedding day. It was out of this world and I have no regrets about how much I spent.

Have a fabulous wedding!!

Mischiefmanaged

We already had a holiday booked to New York so decided to get married there at the Town Hall. Cost about $60 x

PrettyKittyKat

23k not including honeymoon which was 10k. The wedding itself was all paid for by us bar £1k towards my dress from my Dad. The honeymoon was some money gofted from my parents, our wedding gifts as spending money/activities paid for, and some we paid too. Worth every single penny.

anto164

Ours worked out to around £14,500, all paid in part cash, and in part a credit card (then there was a £4k honeymoon on top + £1,500 spends). My family gave £1500 towards, Wife's family gave the same, and we stumped up the difference. Was a financially hard year as we also bought a house 3 months before, which was over budget by £20k and which we had to find the shortfall in our deposit from somewhere!

It took us a year to pay it all off. Do we regret what we have done? No, but if we planned it again, we would definitely go cheaper. The costs spiralled even though we tried to keep a close eye on it, and most people wanted BACS payments (venues, photographers, caterers etc...) which meant we really really had to budget well.

My advice, don't get into debt, spend what you can afford, and you'll have just a good time if it was down the local manor house, as if it was at the local pub.

jemb

£16k in 2012 including honeymoon. My parents were very generous at gave us £10k. My parents in law gave us nothing

EmmyLou30

First off I'll just say how impressed I am with all the MSE out there spending under £3k on a wedding, hats off to you all!

Personally we had no set budget but I always said that if I ever got married I'm not spending stupid amounts on pointless crap like chocolate fountains, way too many flowers etc etc and as for the venues that want £1500 to hire a room with £5 a chair to stick a bow on it they can stick it where the sun don't shine!

So we did a mid range venue, basic rooms at £35pp B&B (as I don't think guests should be expected to pay extortionate prices for a night in an overpriced hotel you chose), tab at the bar to allow a welcome drink a piece, flowers kept to a minimum and hired some rose trees for the ceremony room, photos by my sister in law, video by my brother, photo booth by my sister in law and brother (wouldn't have done this otherwise but it's their own business so was our gift from them along with the wedding photos), dress was £600, hired all the suits, one bridesmaid, gifts for those who helped, cake was a present from my auntie, did all the invites myself and the post box/table settings/favours and all in a grand total of £10k.

We bought fairly expensive wedding bands at £650 each and 2 week honeymoon in Vegas for about £4.5k...this was included in the £10k overtall figure.

Parents gave us £3k and we funded the rest so no debt.

What I would say is loads of spreadsheets to detail every penny spent, and don't try and buy a house at the same time as planning it all like I did ;-)

Tammykitty

pearl123 wrote: »

I really don't understand why people spend so much on one day. If I had that amount of money to spend I'd rather spend it on a round the world tour at least then one could have memories of all the places and different cultures one experienced.
Each to their own!

Personally - the memories of our wedding top any memories of any holiday or tour we have ever gone on.


Family flew home from Australia and New Zealand, others just across the Irish the sea, and other travelled a few hundred miles from the north to the south of Ireland.


Our guests went to a lot of hassle and expense to be there for us, so we wanted to make it a good day for them - so I don't regret spending a significant amount of money on a good meal, good wine, punch, canap!s, entertainment.


Our wedding day was, to date, the best day of my life, and not simply because I was marrying my best friend - that part of it would have been fantastic, even in a cheap church wedding, but because it will probably be the only day in my life when mine and my husbands friends and family will all be together, being surrounded by friends and family who care about us and wanted to celebrate with us, was worth more to us, than any amount of money.


I think our wedding cost about £14k and the honeymoon was £5k, we had about 120 guests.


We didn't waste money, and spending on things other than the reception and entertainment was kept quite low - flowers, cars etc weren't worth spending £1000's on, but getting a few extra bits of entertainment for the reception were!

beautiful_ravens

We didnt have too many guests, so our wedding cost about £1500, possibly a few hundred more but not by much. Definitely less than 2K.

These are the costs I remember-

registrar [MIL paid] - £500
wedding venue & small reception £150
village hall hire [main reception] - £50
PA & speaker hire £55
local mobile bar - £100/150
handmade wedding dress £150
food [discount through mother] - £130
groom /bridesmaids clothes - £80
I did flowers/lapels for around £50
I did tableware/decor for about £30
Taxis £50
Cake incl delivery £45
other stuff around £200 [probably the rings]

We managed to get a lot of discounts and money off things by hunting about and doing things ourselves/having our friends help out. Most of our friends camped/caravanned in our gardens so that was free for them, everyone else found somewhere to stay in their price range nearby.
It was fairly minimalist, but looking back Im so glad it didnt cost much, we paid for it with money we actually had and didnt start off together with a debt.

teddysmum

Our wedding was in 1972 and I can't remember the total but couldn't have been much as we were determined to pay off the mortgage which was only £2000, but at 17% and wages were much lower then.


My husband's suit was a gift from his parents and I made the two bridesmaids' and page boy's outfits. My dress was £5. (I tried on a lovely plain one at £25but thought it a waste of money,so bought the shop soiled £5 one,removed a frill on the neck and had the dress cleaned by a bridal dress specialist.


The flowers were a silly price and the reception for about 50 was in the British Legion club (father-in-law was a member) and catered by a local mobile caterer. The three tiered cake was made by mother-in-law's friend who had his own small bakery shop. The cost of these was equally shared by parents. My husband paid (about £2? ) for the invitations ,bought from a wholesaler that the in-laws used for their shop and then hand written.


Our honeymoon was 6 days in a guest house in Llandudno and was ruined after a local dropped his trailered boat onto my husband's brand new car, then dragged it off, as he reversed into too small a space. Lots of people must have seen, including police, but all swore they'd seen nothing and the offender had disappeared.

Martinslovechild

£7000 including the flights to Australia, wedding ceremony, evening do, flowers & photographer, 3 weeks' hotels & internal flights to the Great Barrier Reef. Also included stopovers in Bangkok on the way out and Singapore on return.