Marriage Costs

pollypenny

lika_86 wrote: »

If someone visits your home for a party or dinner they aren't normally forking out for accommodation and a present, plus drinks when that bottle runs out as well though.

The weddings I have been to in the last few years have been those of friends' children. We have had a lovely meal, wine on the table and more for the toast, but then a pay bar if more drink is wanted.


I did not consider my present was, in effect, buying me a free day's entertainment.

Going back to DS' wedding, the cocktail hour was free. I can!!!8217;t remember what else, but America pun functions tend to have specific end times,

consumers_revenge

My best friends wedding cost over 10k

Was a great day but it was just one day. Said later he regrets spending so much when it could have been used much wiser over the next few years.

His misses planned the wedding and her special day and to be honest she loved it. But even my wife suggested that he may as well not have been there it was her special day and she was going to make sure it was perfect.

No one can tell you how much to spend but just make sure you have a reality check along the way.

Pollycat

John-K wrote: »

It is a ludicrous amount. I suppose, if it is her savings, and she really has nothing else to spend them on then you cannot really tell her what to do...

Seriously?

It's a wedding between the OP and his bride-to-be.
Shouldn't he have any say in the planning?

Doesn't bode well for their future together (imho).

LilElvis

74jax wrote: »

I'm with you on the free bar, I'm Irish and it was just how I was brought up. I've been to weddings with free bars and one without.

We only had friends and family we wanted at our wedding - no aunty we didn't talk to etc, so knew itf wouldn't cause problems, none of our friends would take the Mick and get unruly with it.

I also think that it can be cultural. My husband's family live in Germany and the weddings, anniversaries and (significant) birthday parties we have attended there have always had 100% of the food and drink provided by the hosts. Given that every alternate drink seemed to be a spirit, there were lots of drinking games/dances and one of the parties ran from 5pm til 5am the bills must have been horrendous, especially as they all had triple digits of guests there.

jackieblack

My daughter's getting married in 6 weeks and tbh I think the amount it's costing is a bit silly just for one day, and it would have been more sensible to have a less expensive wedding and put the rest towards a house deposit.

But:
- It's what they want - we looked at different venues, in different price brackets, and they decided that this was what they wanted. They compared venues and prices and know exactly what they're getting for the extra cost and decided that, to them, it's worth it.

- They are paying for most of the cost themselves. Her Dad gave her an amount of money (the amount he could afford) that would have been enough to pay for a wedding at a less expensive venue, and they're paying the rest.

- They've made alot of the 'extras' themselves (invitations, table decorations etc) and got some really good deals on things like bridesmaids dresses, bridegroom's suit etc. The wedding cake is being paid for by groom's father, evening disco provided by an uncle (professional DJ), and my daughter found her dream dress very reasonably priced (for a wedding dress) in one of those 'buy the one on the rail and take it away today' wedding dress shops (less than half the price of the cheapest dress in the 'order from a sample and we'll make your dress to order' wedding dress shops).

No free bar (and I've never been to a wedding that did have one)
Guests will be greeted with drinks on arrival, have wine on the tables during the meal and champagne for the toast. After that, anything they want they can buy at the bar, but it's not the kind of 'do' where the object of the evening is to drink as much as possible before throwing up/passing out and it's a country manor house so about half the people attending will be driving anyway.

SingleSue

My now ex and late father in law was horrified when he discovered we were not having a free bar and took us to task for it. I told him that if he wanted a free bar he could have one....if he paid for it as we were already covering a welcome drink, drinks to accompany the meal and bubbly for the toasts.

He put money behind the bar in the end rather than have a completely free bar and once that was gone, everyone needed to start paying. It lasted a surprising amount of time to be honest as no-one wanted to be the one to take the pee.

Recent wedding experience (not mine), registry office wedding, back to my parent's house for the reception (really quite surprising how many people will fit into a 3 bed semi, the stairs were utilised as chairs!), home cooked buffet, home decorated wedding cake, charity shop dress, old suit out of storage, supermarket flowers made into a bouquet and table displays and the old a bring a bottle or 3 ..all in it cost a lot less than £500 and a whole lot of fun was had by all with many sore heads on Christmas morning (they got married Christmas Eve!)

Pollycat

jackieblack wrote: »

My daughter's getting married in 6 weeks and tbh I think the amount it's costing is a bit silly just for one day, and it would have been more sensible to have a less expensive wedding and put the rest towards a house deposit.

But:
- It's what they want - we looked at different venues, in different price brackets, and they decided that this was what they wanted. They compared venues and prices and know exactly what they're getting for the extra cost and decided that, to them, it's worth it.

Emphasis on 'they'.

It sounds very different to the OP:

emperorstevee wrote: »

Hello everyone,

Myself and my partner are planning on getting married. My partner has been doing the planning and she tells me that it is going to cost £17k. We make less than £20k/yr combined. I know that weddings cost a lot, but £17k seems an awful lot?

ceb1995

that seems a lot compared to your income, we had a combined income of around 27k when we got married and had a 6k wedding and honeymoon in october.
You should figure out how much you can afford to save comfortably each month and how long you're willing to wait to get married then figure out a budget from there. There's lots of things you can do to cut costs such as getting married out of season, cheaper food, getting rings online etc.

Pollycat

SingleSue wrote: »

Recent wedding experience (not mine), registry office wedding, back to my parent's house for the reception (really quite surprising how many people will fit into a 3 bed semi, the stairs were utilised as chairs!), home cooked buffet, home decorated wedding cake, charity shop dress, old suit out of storage, supermarket flowers made into a bouquet and table displays and the old a bring a bottle or 3 ..all in it cost a lot less than £500 and a whole lot of fun was had by all with many sore heads on Christmas morning (they got married Christmas Eve!)

This ^^^^ sounds lovely.

Doom_and_Gloom

It does sound like a lot compared to the income but also a lot for what in the end is one day.

OH and I got married near the beginning of this year. We only had a town hall wedding little affair (36 People capacity though we didn't have that many people it was lovely for the £155).
Before we went to a little place to have coffee and food, a kind of wedding brunch due to the time of day.
We then went out to eat where we paid for the food and drink.
My dress was £25, my OHs shirt cost more :rotfl: .

All in I believe that the wedding day cost us less than £400, certainly less than £500.

The bit that took our budget was the honeymoon in Japan including spending and travel money . This pushed our price to close to what I earn in 3/4 of a year in my part time job. However we had been engaged for over 9 years so plenty of time to save up :rotfl:. We felt a honeymoon was worth the money more than on a wedding of just one day.

Just to say my sister's big day cost about the same as my wedding and honeymoon combined, she had a very turbulent marriage and is separated from her husband. I think she put too much emphasis and thought to the wedding and forgot it is about the relationship.