££ - are you happy...

I wish my wedding was costing less lol! But i will be getting a day very close to what i have always dreamed of.

I got married back in 1996 and we had a huge budget but looking back, I didn't enjoy my day at all. The wedding was far too big, we had the full works but it was full of people I hardly knew and never saw since.

I've divorced and now realise that the most important thing on your day (apart from your dress!) is making sure you have the right groom :-) and have the ones you care about with you on your day. We're getting married abroad, it'll be a small wedding but will be fun and we're spending quarter of what I spent on my first wedding. I'm marrying my soulmate, the cheeky little shortie who sat next to me in school and we met up 20 years later and both felt 'butterflies' hence my butterfly theme at the wedding (just a little on the invites and some on the name cards) nothing too overboard x

I'm happy with our budget, We got a good chunk of it included in the venue, wedding breakfast, DJ, bedrooms, evening buffet ect so quite happy with that,

I'd like to think if i won say the lottery i wouldn't change anything but i probably would just because i could lol x

I'm quite happy at the moment, although to be fair we haven't yet handed over any huuuge amounts of money, only deposits so I don't think we have a realistic idea of what the total cost will be!

Interestingly, I was pondering this the other day and I thought if someone gave me a million pounds would i actually change anything we've decided on so far for the wedding? And my answer was a resounding no! Wouldn't go out and buy a more expensive dress, wouldn't get a bigger venue etc etc. Only possible thing I might do would be get one of our favourite bands to play at the reception ? Would be nice to maybe extend the day list and not have to worry about costs though...

I'm very happy with the budget we have - but I'm unhappy with costs of weddings in Cambridge.

I'm trying to decide if we are happy with what we have spent or if we are just too tight to spend more IYSWIM? We've worked hard to save for a house and wedding at the same time and it looks like we won't be buying a house for a few years anyway now due to economy conditions, so we could in theory spend double knowing we can easily re-save for the deposit once married, but I don't have the desire to.

My I wish I could have's are 2 things, one is a Was never going to happen castle wedding for all my family simply because I am too tight to spend £20k on food/venue, and secondly was a horse and carriage which I can't have as Dad is allergic, rather than a financial issue.

I'd also love longer on HM but OH is going off to Afghan and apparently a HM isn't a good enough reason to be late, so we'll have a second one when he returns.

So in summary - I think I am happy, but def too tight to spend anymore! ?.

I'm happy with my budget at the moment, doing really well with my savings and would be scrimping if the budget was more. I wish it didn't cost what it is going to but on the other hand I don't want to compromise my dream day - I've done that once before.

As I've said before, my best friend has got double the budget that we have and although I wasn't bothered by that (he's getting a loan out for his), just recently I have been bothered as he keeps mentioning the amount of money that he's spending and I keep wondering if I should do fancy things

I couldnt have done my wedding for any less as I wasnt prepared to compromise on the amount of guests, but I wish it was costing less as that money could be going on our mortgage! We didnt have a budget as such - we just decided what we wanted and thats how much it cost! We havent had everything we wanted as we didnt want the cost to spiral out of control.

I would have liked a few extra luxurys but I can do without them so I'm not that bothered. I probably wouldnt have done so much DIY stuff if I had a bigger budget as well.

We increased our budget initially from 10k to 13k , but overall are pretty happy with what we've chosen. There isn't anything we would change as such maybe just have more money for a honeymoon, though we haven't decided on a final budget for that yet.

We are spending between £5-6K and having everything i wanted (apart from like kayl said the dream wedding in scotland in a scottish castle with paying for everything and everyone) I would like to do a bit less DIY but essentially my day will be lovely because i have put so much effort into it. The one thing i really would love and fingers crossed might have is a on the day coordinator as village hall wedding with suppliers etc etc

Happy with what we're spending and what we're getting, although of course like most of us we'd like it if some of the things had been cheaper.

At the end of the day, ending up as Mr & Mrs is what really matters, with the people around us that care about us, whether we'd spent £3000 or £300,000.

Some really interesting comments, ladies.

Of course that's the case, aj, but that wasn't what the thread was about!

Our wedding is going to come in around the 12-13k mark, including the Honeymoon which I think is pretty reasonable. I also think a lot of it has to do with logistics and where you live in the Country, my wedding as I have said will be around 10k without the HM and that gives us a pretty big wedding but thats because we live in a relatively "cheap" area in the Country whereas someone who gets married in Central London would find getting married on that budget a challenge perhaps..

Its all swings and roundabouts but in answer to the OP question.

Yes I am happy with our budget, if I had more money? then yes I would probably go for more "posher" cars and a more expensive Hm but thats about it really, I wouldnt change the venue, dress or indeed Husband to Be lol..

On reflection, I am happy, yes. I did really want a boat cruise but at the end of the day it was a lot of money and so I've resigned myself to not having it. Because of the size of our families, and the fact that we wanted them all there to share our day, we couldn't really have done it much cheaper unless we'd gone very very budget and then we'd have ended up spending less than the amount our parents gave us for the wedding... which would have felt wrong, they gave us that money to have a nice day and to enable us to have everyone there if that makes sense. (Really hope I haven't worded this in an offensive way, it isn't meant to be!)

It is a lot of money for one day but I think if you break it down and see what I've spent it on, I've really not done badly... we've got a lot for what we've spent, taking everything (location, number of guests etc) into consideration.

I'm very happy with my budget, which is £2k. I'm getting everything at bargain prices as I have to so it is helping me scrutinise every purchase we are making. I never wanted a big white wedding and as we have limited are budget to so little, I'm able to make sure that I don't get carried away with the hype of it all.

I have actually reduced my budget - my wedding will be under £6000 but happy with everything I am getting getting married in a castle and having wedding breakfast etc, so very happy

Whether I'm happy with my budget or not I will confirm on Friday, after I find out whether I've got a job or not.

As it stands, there's not much I would change about my wedding and what we've spent.

We initially thought we'd be spending about 5K, but quickly revised that to 8K. It's looking like it'll be nearer to 9K at the moment which is a huge amount to me and it shocks me that we're spending that much on one day, but we're both pretty sensible with money and can afford it, plus we'll only do this once so why not push the boat out a little. Having said that, I'll be going over our budget with a finetooth comb working out how to get it back down to 8K!!

Sometimes I wish we had a bigger budget so that we could treat our guests more (pay for their accommodation etc) but I think we'd still keep the wedding essentially the same because what we have planned is very 'us'.

I am happy , i am fairly flexible with our budget and just enjoying it at the moment. I think it is all about spending money in the right places. And yeh i agree if my income suddenly doubled there would be some things i would spend more , but some i would definately keep the same, like my venue which is exactly what i wanted.

If money was no object then yes my day would have been different in some respects because my lifestyle would probably be different to match the salary ?.

However earnings/lottery win would have needed to be vastly vastly different for me to have changed anything. My wedding didn't cost the earth and I was happy with that, very content in fact. I don't understand spending £16k on a wedding but if I had £16k to spend without it meaning I was in debt then I would have.

Oh does that make sense? When I tell people what our wedding cost roughly they are amazed but some of it was total luck as we got the venue cheaper than it should have.

No.

I wish we could just elope and spend the money on a new kitchen and conservatory. I resent having to invite my old relatives, they're only coming for a free feed. I'd rather nip down to the register office and get the legals done, take parents out for dinner, then have a few friends for a little shindig after the honeymoon.

I could find a dozen better things to do with the money. But my OH wants a proper wedding, and I love him, so we're having as near to a proper wedding as we can stomach!

We're happy with what we're spending, which is as little as possible.

We were planning a "big do", but then OH lost his job. Had a big discussion about whether to delay,or decrease,and we went with decrease. Then OH got a bigger, better job, which meant we could go with our original plans. After talking about it, we came to the conclusion that we were both happier with our smaller plans.

Alot of my friends were mortified by this. They're of the opinion "if you've got it, spend it". They don't get how we can afford about £15K, but are choosing to spend under £1K. (they're also disgusted my dress cost £30,as apparantly, if it's not over a grand, then it's not "worth it")

We're more than happy with this. Although it has made me question why i'm friends with so many materialistic people who think it's their job to tell me what is acceptable to spend on my wedding.

Tbh I wanted our wedding budget to be less but h2b was adamant that he didn't want us to compromise on this that we really wanted. He sees it as we only plan on doing it once so we will do it how we want without having to worry about the budget. I'm being a lot more cautious that him at the moment though, I tend to shop around and negotiate prices whereas he would quite happily go with the first thing! x

We wanted to do if for between 10-11k but then it crept upto 13k plus 5k honeymoon. but due to my OH having serious anxiety over the wedding we had planned and then us splitting up and cancelling the wedding, now we are on the mend we are makin some serious changes. reduced day number from 90to 60 and we want every one of those people there (we wernt bothered for the other 30 and resented paying £65 per head for people we felt we had to invite) and not having a wedding breakfast, just afternoon tea then onto the night do, we have more than halved our venue cost, taking wedding down to **** plus the 5k honeymoon. and im so thrilled with that and so so so glad we have made those changes. i thought it was 'us' before but it wasnt. now it really is 'us'!!!!

If you were a millionaire though would you still negotiate? As much as I like a bargain if money was no object then I'd save myself a lot of time and hassle and not spend months searching for something in budget.

Oops I replied to the thread as if money wasn't an object! lol So if I had mega bucks then I'd have had a paid bar, bigger menu to choose from, the best of champagne on the table etc instead of only offering wine for the cake cutting and toasts.

Happy with our budget - we could've spent more but there was no need, we had everything we wanted without any compromises.
If we hadn't of been happy with the budget - it would have been changed.

We didn't negotiate anything, but for most things, we did take the cheapest quote. I don't see the need to pay more than necessary for things like flowers and DJs.

We worked out what was important to us, and did what we wanted. For us that was having a very intimate wedding (64 guests for the whole day) in a fabulous venue where we weren't made to do what the venue wanted us to.

Our honeymoon was the same cost as our wedding, and Mr GB still says he regrets not spending a bit more on that!

Im really happy with ours. Things that we budgeted lots for [ir wedding rings] have come in a lot cheaper and things that I though would be cheaper [mrminis suit] are tons more expensive but at the end of the day we are paying for it all from our wages and some savings I had before we met.

It was more important that we had a day that was "us" and outs will really be. If I had more money I dont even know if we would have spent it tbh?

I am not happy that i have to constantly think about money but i think that i have shopped about loads to try to gain things that cost less than they look....vista print/marks and spencers etc. However i am prepared to spend money on the things that i just really really want... flowers/dress/rings/shoes/tiara. I say spend money but i guess they would all come in at about 2 grand which is not that bad. My dad is paying for the reception which hopefully won't be anymore that 5 grand and my OHs mum is paying for our mini moon and cake so we are very lucky to have those contributions,otherwise i would not be getting married this year.

Whenever we get to the point of "why are we spending all this money, why don't we use it as a house deposit??", H2B always says "I only plan on doing this once, so I don't want to wish I had done something different". It is a good reminder of why I want to marry him I think if we had more money, we could have the wedding sooner (instead of saving for it), and would pay for peoples accommodation, but otherwise, so far planning wise, I don't think we would be doing anything different.

Tricky one for me. On the one hand, I am happy with what we're spending and how we have allocated our money. We're not on a strict budget, but not totally breaking the bank either. We're lucky enough to have brought our house 5 years ago, and have reasonably well-paid jobs, so we are in a position to be able to spend a bit more on things that are important to us (e.g. photographer), but we are not spending extravagantly. While there are areas I'm happy to spend more on, I didn't spend a great deal on my dress as I couldn't justify (to myself) spending massive amounts on it.

On the other hand, to a certain extent I do wish our budget was less. The main reason for this is - whilst I am happy to be getting married - I've always been a bit scared of the idea of the wedding itself. OH has always known this, and said for years that he was happy not to get married, before admitting in August (when he proposed) that it really was important to him. At the time, he said we could just have a small wedding, but I think as we have been to so many friends’ weddings over the year, he felt a bit of pressure to "live up" to theirs. After we had paid the deposit on our venue, he asked me if I thought it was on a par with venues of various friends’ weddings we had been to, which worried me slightly.

Don't get me wrong, our venue is lovely, but we've got 70 people in the day & 90-100 in the evening, which to me isn't small, and I'm worried I'm going to be a bag of nerves all day. The venue we have chosen dictates the fact that we now have to have a formal sit down meal with speeches. Really, I would have loved something a bit more low key - getting married at the register office, followed by a meal afterwards with around 30 family/friends then maybe hiring out a room at one of the funky local cafe bars and just having a really relaxed wedding day. I suggested this to OH, he did consider it, but thought it was too few people, so hence the venue/numbers we are having. So I guess in a way I feel that if our budget was smaller it would have been easier to "justify" having a more relaxed, low-key informal wedding.

Never mind, I'm working on ways to make it more "us" so hopefully come November we'll have found a way to make it a bit more individual and personal to us.

I am happy with our budget which keeps creeping up as we go along. My 1st wedding was so low key, so this time I am having my dream wedding. I could have bought a brand new dress but didn't see the point so saved money there and am always looking out for a bargain. If we drastically increased our budget we would only end up inviting more people for the sake of it so probably wouldn't change a thing.

Our budget is going to be somewhere between £12 & £15k by the time we've paid for everything. It has crept up a bit from the £10k we originally thought it would be but I guess that happens to most people. We've kept costs down fon many things & as a stay at home mum I'm ideally placed to trawl the internet for bargains. There are going to be quite a few things which get sold on after the wedding to recoup some of the money. If money was no object we would have a free bar, pay for all guests accomodation (especially as many will have travelled a long way) & possibly have a wedding planner so I'm not having to do all the running around but other than that, I don't think there is a lot we would change. I absolutely love our venue & wouldn't change it even if I won the lottery this week.