'Over £1bn worth of Wedding loans this year… not good' Blog discussion

MSE_Jenny

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's "Over £1bn worth of Wedding loans this year… not good” blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's 'Over £1bn worth of Wedding loans this year… not good' Blog.

Click reply to discuss below.

lesley1960

My son is planning on getting married next year and is worrying about how much it will cost . I have told it it will cost what you want it to cost

beer_tins

I'm getting married later this year. We budgetted for what we will have been able to save up by then. If it's a fair bit more, it may mean a bit of debt, but nothing we can't pay off in a few months.

demonrat

Everything revolving around marriage is overpriced in this country. Its seemed when I got married everywhere was geared to ripping us off. We had a fairly tight budget for a wedding £5k and we pretty much stuck to it, but it required a lot of shopping around and a lucky break with the venue. The venue which should really have been well out of our price range were desperate to fill their bookings as they had only just got their licence.

Weddings can be done on a small budget, but if you don't want to comprimise (most women don't, most men don't care!), it will require some extensive research to do. We were quite lucky in getting a wedding my wife was happy with at a price I was happy with

Sue1803

It seems that as soon as the word wedding is mentioned the price just doubles, even for 'fixed' costs like hall hire. I run a website where people can find students to do one-off jobs and we have the most amazingly talented students on there. One of the most popular jobs has been wedding photography because the cost of professional photographers is very high, but students charge much less. The feedback has been brilliant. Have a look at https://www.studentgems.com if you want some more info.

Dinah93

A work colleague is spending upwards of £28,000 on her wedding :eek:. Personally I'd rather do it on £5,000 and have an intimate event but she's always been the type who has to have the best of everything, but I think spending what is a year and a half of her salary is bleeding mad. Personally, I think a wedding should be a special event, and if you have it and are comfortable spending it, then go mad, but I would rather have a great marriage than a great wedding, and starting off hugely in debt would (for me) cause a lot of stress.

BoingBoing_2

When planning your wedding, never EVER mention the word wedding when enquiring about prices, you can actually see the £ signs light up in the vendors eyes!!!!

Our budget is 3K and my wonderful OH is working his socks off to earn enough to pay for it all.

As was pointed out above, IT'S JUST 1 DAY! Ok 1 of the most important days of your life, but believe me, you'll hardly remember a thing about it once you get back from honeymoon and have to rely on photos lol - been there, done that

kopicbloodaxe

My long suffering partner and I were on holiday in Colorado visiting friends. One day we visited "The Cave of The Winds" at Manitou Springs (highest cave in the world or something, halfway up a mountain) and the guide just mentioned that they "also hold wedding services" in the caves... A week later we were married :rotfl: - total cost of our wedding was around $500 and that included rings, flowers (silk so we could keep them), outfits (I only needed to buy a shirt), cave, minister and license. We were already on holiday anyway so that was our honeymoon and our friends paid for the four of us to stay at a hotel on our wedding night as a wedding present.

Now THAT'S a MoneySaving wedding!

gb57

I totally agree with Martin - spending a fortune on a wedding is MAD. It has not always been that way, seems to be something that has grown up over the last 20 years or so, and is getting worse.

My nephew got married last year - they did not want to spend a a fortune and have a huge fuss. They had a lovely day, which everyone enjoyed, and them most of all, of course, which is the point, and it was all done without spending a lot of money. I could weep buckets when I hear that someone has spent £thousands on a wedding - totally unnecessary. As for getting into debt to pay for it, or expecting your old dad to cash in his pension or insurance policies......:mad:

V_tricky

It's very very sad when you hear about people whose wedding debt lasts longer than their marriage.

Mathsgeek

When we got married we spoke to friends and family and shopped around .
We already had a flat so didn't need housey wedding gifts and asked for wedding day presents instead .

My Father-in-law paid for the village hall hire and the drinks .
Our extended family bought enough buffet food to keep us going all day and night .
A friend arranged the cake and paid for it .
A friend in the motor trade arranged and paid for the wedding car .
A friend who was a DJ provided his services free of charge .
An uncle did the wedding photos .
We shopped around and haggled on the price of invitations and orders of service .
Wedding dress and morning suits were all hired (When are you ever going to wear them again?)
My brothers-in-law paid for our wedding night in a posh hotel .
Our honeymoon was our summer holiday .
Church fees , rings and stationary were all budgeted for in advance .

We had a wonderful day surrounded by family and friends and didn't bankrupt ourselves to impress people who knew how much we earned anyway .