££££££££££££

And if your keeping within the budgets you set??

It's about £8500 for 120 ceremony and evening, and 55 for the wedding breakfast.

Just managed to keep within our budget but only by cutting out other things we decided we didn't absolutely need, like a toastmaster.

I don't mind saying. We started off aiming to spend around 8k but sadly it has more or less doubled - but that's inc a 4k honeymoon. Sorry just realised that answer is like a maths question at school! The total spent without honeymoon is roughly 13k. So far we are within our budget, but not had to do any major spends yet, only smallish deposits.

We set a loose budget pf £10k at the beginning before we realised how much weddings cost but we ended up spending £16k; that's not including the honeymoon.

Started at 10k but will end up approx 15k.

This is the hot topic in my household as we were battering the budget at the weekend! We are budgeting to spend around £8000 not including honeymoon, but come back to me in 10 months and I'm sure that will have gone out the window! We've managed to save a bit on wedding rings as we bought my H2Bs in Turkey otherwise you could add another £500+ on to that! Also our flowers are being done by family so saving on those too. Apart from that we'll just be shopping around and hoping to get good deals! I never understood how people could spend £10,000+ on their wedding until I started planning mine and then I realised that it would be pretty easy to reach that figure.

We started off saying that we would spend 3.5k based on estimates before we got quotes on anything but have upped it a tad, and hope to have change out of 5k.

The reason we upped it is that we forgot about wedding car and photographer (doh!) the car I want is £350 although have a plan to find it cheaper. Also, we have added an extra table of 8 people at the day doo. A friend is a pro photographer and is doing our photos for £200 as we don't want many, can't think of anything worse than having my photo taken and then looking at them tbh.

We are having a church wedding with sit down meal for 60 (ish) and 100 (ish) at the night. Think we are getting a lot for that

Hoping ours to be between £5 and £6k! xx

We had a budget of £10k to start with but we fell in love with our venue which for 80 sit down and 140 in the evening with the normal package type thing came in just under £11k, so that blew it out of the water. But we couldnt resist it.

How much do you reckon you've spend on everything else, Im hoping to spend no more than £16k in total (excluding the honeymoon!), do you think I can do the rest for £5k?? Dresses, hair, cars etc etc!

We set a budget of £10k as to spend anything over that on a wedding seemed like utter madness (for us personally in our situation). We stuck to that and came in just under £10k. That was for 65 guests during the day and 110 in the evening.

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Can you do it? Almost certainly. Will you do it, given that you have already started throwing caution to the wind with things you "can't resist"? Well, that's different The most important question is: can you afford it?*

*This is rhetorical, I don't want details of your financial comings and goings.

Funny you should ask as I have just re-run through my anticipated spend list and I should hopefully be spending £7340.00 not including honeymoon.

Here is the breakdown (hope i havent missed anything)

Costs: Anticipated spend Reception £3,900.00 Chuch costs £500.00 Wedding Rings £600.00 Flowers £200.00 DJ/Band £350.00 Dress FOC Shoes £50.00 Tiara FOC Grooms suit hire & best men ties £250.00 Bridesmaid £200.00 Photographer £500.00 Hair & Makeup £50.00 Car/Transportation £20.00 Cake FOC Wedding night venue £370.00 Wedding insurance £50.00 Favours £100.00 Thank you gifts Stationary £200.00 Total £7,340.00

Hi Moonpie1985 are you saying your dress and tiara are Free??

Im glad you've given me this breakdown - its make me ensure that I dont forget anything!! :-)

The venue and reception are the most expensive, so Im really budgeting for the rest!!

How do you insurance your wedding?? Ive never heard of this? Make sense to do it though!

We set a budget of £10K plus honeymoon, and we're coming in just under at the moment.

Thanks - Exactly - I wouldnt spend it if I couldnt afford it. I dont have any children (yet!!!) and we have bought our house, so of course you spend what you can afford. its funny how you manage to find the money!

I probably should have said Im in the SouthEast!!

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Me too and everywhere and everything is so bloody expensive.

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My dress is a present from my mum, and my mums friend is letting me borrow her lovely Halo & Co Tiara.

I feel like I am cutting costs left right and centre, and by having those two things free, and the cake free, I expected that my overall spend would be less considering I didn't think my venue was expensive at all. In actual fact, I could hardly find anywhere cheaper than that, and could have easily spent more.

I keep hearing about friends who are spending £1500+ on photographer alone, and £600 on flowers. But i just can't justify it.

The rings are important to us, so that is something we won't scrimp on. Anything else can be 'looked at'!

Church £600

meal (60people) £1000

wine(about 40 bottles) £600

eve buffet £600

my dress £400 (70% off and stunning!)

moh using her prom dress

fgs £100

cake £100

not having flowers, going to have a go at doing my own bouquet with tied fresh lillies,

hair £20 wash and blow (would be paying for colour wedding or not!)

make up £30 on new bits as niece is a MUA

stationary £30

DJ £275

Room decoration £200 (will all be on ebay on the sunday night!)

car £350 (want to reduce this if poss!)

photog £200

favours £100

suit, h2b wants to spend a couple of hundred in the sales on a decent one but he wears them anyway so not totally a wedding expense

rings, not a clue, but again, not really an expense and you keep them, hoping they're less than £300 for both

We're trying to make savings as we're going along but im confident we will stay within the 5k. No choice really as we have no more!

We set a budget of around £5-£6k, but we went over by about 2k. Our honeymoon is looking at about £6k, ouch!

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Me three!

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Yep and yep!

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Not only that but they are telling me that they are doing it on a 'budget'!

A really huge budget by the sounds of it though.

I was quite embarressed the other day as one of my close friends came round for dinner. She is getting married this September and it is in a wonderful venue that I couldnt even dream of affording. I asked her about her photographer as I am starting to think about that next. Her response was 'oh I found a wonderful photographer, and he was so cheap!' So me being intrigued, thinking that I might have found a perfect candidate asks her (hopefuly not too rudely) 'how much is he?' - She says '£1500, but we got a bargain as he is usually £2000+) I was shocked to say the least.

There is no way we can afford to blow that sort of money on photo's. Especially when my sister used my OH for their wedding photo's earlier this year, and they were lovely (ok, so I can't use my OH as photographer) but still!.

We moved house last year, and are still trying to afford to do little bits like get built in wardrobes.

Then a few months ago FBIL gets engaged and is getting married in America. So thats £1500 minimum down for flights and accomodation for later on this year, and our holiday re-arranged as it was booked for the very same week!

Somehow I keep thinking that maybe Fate is telling me not to get married at all.

We went out spur of the moment this weekend and put a deposit down on a car (ok, so it's not expensive, but it's something I have always wanted). So I now need to sell our other car to pay for that.

I am really not getting into the whole 'wedding' thing, and am so far doing very badly about reigning in the spending, and saving up towards it.

I think I just had a little mini panic attack

We've aimed for about £8k, and we're pretty much on budget, and that includes having about a grands worth of fireworks!

think our final total comes in at £8230

I've heard of someone being quoted £6k on just the TOG and actually nearly booked them despite that! :-O

Ours is coming in at about £15k but as we're getting married abroad it includes spending money, a week's accomodation, flights, food and an open bar for 40 guests, and a 'proper' reception when we get home for approx. 175 people.

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This was one area that I wasnt willing to skimp on. They are the only lasting memory of your day (if your not having a vog) and it was the best money I have ever spent. Our photos and album were stunning.

OMG I'm looking at all your budgets and how well your doing with staying within them. Last time I totted up our wedding it came in at £20,000 and thats without the honeymoon!!!!!!

When O/H asked me to marry him I wish to god we had of elopped now (SP??) as it would have been a damn site cheaper ?.

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This is exactly what my OH says. He really doesnt want to skimp on them, as photography is really important to him and he wants some really lovely pictures.

I really don't like my picture being taken, so I would be fine with just having someone there snapping a few snaps at the church and be done with it.

It's definitly going to be the OH's job to find the tog, but even he won't be spending £2k on one.

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I see you are quite near me so can I recommend you to my tog? She was amazing!

www.studiorouge.co.uk

My original budget was just under £8k but looks like it might be £8.5k now. That's with a honeymoon but my mum and stepdad have given us the money for that. I think we've done really well on that but I have spent a lot of time looking for good suppliers and good prices!

Interesting to see the cost breakdowns and where people prioritise their spending x

I'm getting married abroad with about 35 guests ( Including bridal party). It looks like our wedding costs are coming to around 22 k with rings. ( about 15 k without). But we are playing for rehearsal dinner too and my bridesmaids flights and few other people too. Seems to be so much cheaper abroad compared to the UK. For example 100 euros for 5 course dinner with drinks. Amazing! Compared to the quotes I got in the UK: £75 for 3 courses without drinks!