Budget eeekkk !!!!

Erm well my whole wedding and I mean EVERYTHING!!! comes in at £12,000.

First, work out what you can afford comfortably and are happy to spend. Any figure under that is within your budget. Most wedding things are on a sliding scale, wedding dress could be an off-th-peg number from the high street for £100, or you could easily stick a couple of zeros on the end of that if you want to! Invites could be vistaprint freebies or handmade at £5 each, anyway you get my drift.

The venue and food will probably be the bulk of your cost, so it might be worth working out what you want from a venue and then seeing how much that will cost you? Then from there you can start piecing together a total cost. Email/research photographers that you like, again that will give you an idea on cost.

Thank you for you comment

what you described is pretty much what i have done , priced up what i want for venue then had a quick look online at other things .... this all added up has come to around 35 k which is more than we would like to pay ....

Im thinking perhaps im looking in the wrong places as estimates people have suggested are too much ..?

ill give you an example of one my friend ( the wedding planner told me i need to budget 2,000 for flowers ...? this seemed massive to me ... is it ..? or is this about right ..? i know its difficult as things vary so much

but im getting so confused ... should i just be phoning and getting exact quotes even at this early stage ..? we are not getting married until 2015 ..?

sorry if im pretty clueless

It really just depends on what you want to do with your day, where, and how many people. We are just having close family and a few closest friends... Even just those make about 85 ppl lol. We are having the full on church wedding, 2 feeds and basically exactly the type of wedding I want.... Local, relaxed, personal.... Professional muso mates providing a band, school mate is a dj, friend who is a florist, another a hair and MUA, another who is a TOG and my sister who makes wedding cakes. So I'm verrrry lucky to be surrounded by such talented people and I love bargain hunting plus we aren't bothering with a honeymoon so ours has come in at about 6k. Yep, the day of my dreams (hopefully!!!) for a relatively small amount, and cos I'm such a natural skinflint, I don't at all feel like we have had to make any compromises or cut corners. So, just do what you like but there's absolutely no reason why you can't have anincredible day for under 25k...... No need to go over your limit . Good luck with it all xxx

What kind of prices are you getting for your venue? If you tell us that, we can let you know if the remainder is a healthy budget or not.

Thanks again for you feedback

The quotes i have from 3 reception venues ive looked at roughly the following ...

16,000

12,000

11,000

obviously theres a big difference in the lowest to highest ( but ive estimated my total being the highest as i like to be quite safe)

Then the hire of the church is just under 700

We will be having around 110 guests during the day ( inc wedding breakfast ) and around 150 in the evening

someone told me that pretty much half the budget will be spent on the reception i don't really understand how this works as if i take the lowest one obviously it will be alot less than the highest one ... is this false information ..? what should i expect to pay on top my my reception budget ?

ohh and to mum wants a hat - your day sounds just like what i would like although a few more people , so im much more hopeful it will be achievable , although i dont know any one who can do anything for the wedding but nvm

Ohh and too add we are including our honeymoon in with this amount too

My budget is £5600.

I could spend ALOT more but cannot afford it.

the way we did it is first see how much do we have saved. Then we picked 3 things that were most important to us both.

A budget is there so you dont go over it in my eyes.

Good luck

Thank u MrsPetal well this was my attitude to stick with it and i thought it was a good bugdet until i started getting quotes then i went into panic mode !!!

I like the idea of picking 3 important things and im alot more confident i can stick to my budget now

thanks alot for your help everyone

Right, well even if you go with the higher figure, you won't need to spend over £25k. Does that figure include honeymoon?

You need to stop thinking about what other people say you should spend. What you spend is entirely up to you.

Price wise for the venue - those prices aren't out of this world expensive for those numbers. I had similar quotes for a similar amount of guests.

I'm going to list a few ideas of prices below. A lot of brides here have spent a lot less but you have a healthy budget so I'm assuming you don't need to look for mega bargains. So the below are average prices.

So, the next things to think about are:

Dress - if you're not on a very tight budget you'll probably be spending between £1000 and £3000 on this. How much depends on what you're comfortable spending and the dress you fall in love with.

Photographer - Again, this will probably range from £1200 to £2500

Flowers - I reckon you should budget around £1000 if you want flowers for your centrepieces and some flowers in the church.

Cars - Do you need these? If so, about £600

Cake - anything from £400 to £800 if you don't have ridiculously extravagant taste

Suits - normally about £100 or less to hire per suit

Bridesmaids - how many are you having? Bridal shop bridesmaid dresses are normally about £200 each but you can get them cheaper than this from the high street or by getting a seamstress to make them

Stationery - If you want to buy your stationery rather than make it yourself I would budget about £400

Veil - You can get these made for you online for about £30 or you can spend about £150 from a bridal shop

Shoes - how long is a piece of string? What ever you'd like to spend!

Band or DJ - between £300 and £1000 depending on what you're after

Hair and makeup - about £200 for you plus extra for bridesmaids if you're paying for them (maybe budget about £50 per bm?)

Wedding rings - This really could be anything. We spent £500 on two palladium bands.

Wedding insurance - about £100 for your costs

Please note - you can spend much more or much less but these should give you an idea

hope that helps.

Thank you thats been very helpful

Was going to reply, but I see that Kharv has pretty much covered everything for you....which is why she got this last night: https://www.hitched.co.uk/chat/forums/t/363489.aspx

Ahh Kharv lives up to her awards with her great guide.

Your budget is great as it means you shouldnt have to scrimp or leave anything which is fab.

Which venues are you looking at?

Bravo Kharv living up to your most helpful HIB award!

Nothing more to add!

Yes she has indeed been very helpful , everyone has really I certainly feel alot more confident that we can achieve a budget we will be happy with so cheers for that

I am looking at Ripley castle , rudding park and also swinton castle in N Yorks , where has everyone else looked at or got married at ?

Kharv has been amazing and spot on!

If it helps I have an offer on Photography for Hitched brides ?

That's fab, even helped me!!

Ive stayed at Swinton Park and it is incredible! Especially their turrett room, sheer romance.

As far as the budget goes when I was a Wedding Co-ordinator I would (as a very rough guide) estimate a very nice wedding on £50 per head (thats total number of guests and I think you mentioned around 260?), a more extravagant wedding for £100 a head (hence your figure of around £25k) or an out of this world wedding for £150 per head. That figure was not just food but was the total for everything divided by the number of guests.

When I got married for the 2nd time myself I had 40 guests and in total our bill came to just over £4000 and we had the most amazing day. Dont forget its not about how much money you spend though, its who you share it with that is special.

Your more than welcome

and Kharv you are a font of knowledge, ive taken note of what you said too, thanks!

It's 150 in total so just 40 extra in the evening , yeh swinton is my fab at the moment it's exclusive use for 2 nights aswell but we would look at charging our guests 100 per room per night which for there would be a bargain and a fantastic weekend!! But we will see very early days its all so exciting though

Happy to help! ?

Oh, I've been to a wedding at Rudding. Lovely venue.

My friend actually got a fantastic deal by getting married on a Friday in early March.

Hi Lauren,

25k - 30k would be about right with your estimated venue costs. Our venue with food and drink is costing 11k and we've budgeted for 25k max including a honeymoon to Bali. Flowers are the only costs I'm not sure about yet and have budgeted 700. If it looks like it will be more than this I'll just have less flowers and find cheaper decoration alternatives!

Once you start looking around more you'll find there are lots of little tweaks you can make to bring down costs.

Those venues you mention look amazing. Also in that area is Allerton Castle - I don't know if you've looked at that? My cousin got married there a few years back and it's incredible, just stunning

Hi Faye , thanks for you comment

Yeh I have looked at Allerton Castle and your right it is beautiful , the only downside was it doesn't look to have any bedrooms ..? I know Ripley castle doesn't ethier but it has a country inn close by with 25 bedrooms and its close to where my family are from so plenty other houses for extra guests to bunk up with too, it's a pretty big consideration for us as alot of our close friends will be travelling, but il will certainly consider it if I don't fall in love with the others

Which venue are you having ?

Kharv I so wish I had spoken to you before I started planning! I have spent a ridiculous amount and I don't know how it's happened! You are definitely living up to your award!