Cheeky Post....What blew ur budget?

We've been pretty realistic with our costs, we checked stuff out before we decided upon a rough budget. However, it appears that Rome has recently drastically increased their ceremony fees and now for a 20 minute service in a (admittedly beautiful) town hall by a registrar will now be costing us Euro2500 instead of Euro1500 which we already thought was pretty steep?!!!

I don't know if this counts since we didn't specifically set a budget for it but we did spend a fair amount on our venue... £2500 JUST to hire the place.

The main things that have blown the budget are all the little added extras that I hadn't thought about... they add up FAST. Silly things like toiletries baskets for the loos, pearlised paper for stationery... I forgot to budget for stamps... I bought confetti...

Oh and also the booze budget, but that's what you get for having a free bar (we are buying it in though, it's not hotel prices or anything).

Wow that is steep!

Bet that the most expensive 20 mins of ur life!

I'm too tight wi money 4 that kind of price! Bet it will be beautiful tho!

x

OMG a free bar i'd never take my OH to a wedding with a free bar! Haha

I'm glad that my venue has everything in it and im not paying for venue bar food etc seperately i'd prob 4get the caterers and have to get a burger van or sumthing stupid like that!

x

Thinking that 8 bridesmaids and 8 ushers was a good idea AND insisting we paid for them all with alterations, shoes etc......most stupid idea i have ever had ☹️

LOL the most expensive 20 mins indeed unless you count OH buying his car LOL ?

It better has be nice for that price, we're heading over in August to check it out though so we shall soon see if it will all be worth it. We're expecting about 20 guests and OH wants a v fancy meal on a rooftop terrace restaurant with 3 michelin stars for about Euro200/300 a head at least. He's groomzilla I tell you!!!!

If it doesn't live up to our expectations in August I feel I may well have more weight behind my preference to elope!!

We never had a budget as such but just used our wits if u know what I mean. The things I said I was just having regardless (after venue &dress) was my room decor - sparkly table cloths. Chair covers, uplighters, martini glasses filled with flowers....and an LED Dancefloor. I can't wait for me &oh first dance on it, just us. Our tog & vog are stayin for it so it will just be class to look back on. The wee things really add up! Ie postbox, sweetie tables, piper etc but I don't want to look back & wish for anything else.

Chattygirl!

That is some expense!

Im have 1 Bridesmaid, 1 best man and 3 pageboys ( my 2 boys and my nephew)

Best man owns his own kilt outfit and hiring kids outfits (bout £50) each.

OMG Jenny!

Groomzilla is an understatement!

Hope uz r saving hard or planning on winning the lottery this weekend!

x

Oh Mrs Henderson, i know! so so so silly! but i had my sister and daughter, added on H2B 2 sisters, my best friend, and i just kept feeling bad about people and ended up with 8! the alterations alone were just short of £300, Dresses at £149 each, i so regret it! But hey its done now! ?

OUCH ?

So far, nothing particularly - my b2b spent more than she intended on her dress but that was balanced out by the bridesmaids outfits being cheaper than budgeted.

I don't think anything is massively over budget, but everything is slightly over budget and it all adds up, if that makes sense?

Our venue blew our budget. But once we'd seen it we just couldnt imagine having our wedding anywhere else. We're trying to keep other costs down to make up for it

Nothing yet but then again I haven't picked my shoes...............................?

We're actually on target (mostly). We did spend a bit more on the honeymoon than we had intended, but my mum chipped in with a generous 'wedding present' to cover the extra.

And I added an extra bridesmaid and had to double the budget allowance.

Ours is going to be rings and photography.

Rings - We budgeted about £500 for the two, assuming OH would have something very basic, simple and cheap. It's cost us almost 3 times that, as we both have diamonds and were just perfect for us.

Photography - out initial budget was also £500, which we soon found didn't go very far, or which wouldn't get us the quality we wanted. In the end, by the time we've had the album, the coverage of the day, the CD, the extra mini-album for OH, the photobooth guest book, pics printed for the walls etc I think we will be looking somewhere between £2,000 and £2,500. Luckily i've had a gift from my Father of £1,000 which he explicitly stated was to go towards the TOG (as he didn't have one at his wedding, and regretted it, so wanted better for me/us).

While i'm not happy we've gone over budget (as I don't like spending such big sums), I am pleased with what we've got/are getting for our money and we have shopped around to ensure we are getting what we paid for in that both items are good quality (touch wood the album turns out to be so!). I also think if we had to blow our budget on anything, then this was the right thing for us, as this is what will be the tangible outcome of our day.

Flowers- £750 for what are basically 9 bunches of flowers in Martini glasses- madness!!

I also haven't set a shoe budget- pointless as I know once I find the style I want it won't matter how much they are I'll have them

Our original budget 4 our rings was only bout £300 for both as i didn't want something so expensive that i couldn't wear it everyday!

Now we have looked at the bigger picture and realised that when all is said and done with the wedding then everything else will just be momories except for our rings and photo's, we will have them forever so we have decided to buy whateva ring we love when we go shopping.

Our TOG was under our budget, we getting a storybook album with 40 pages and CD of all our photo's with no copyright on the disk for £675. Our TOG is in his 30's and really laid back and listened to what style we wanted and said he was really looking forward to shooting it as it was slightly different. That made us feel so at ease as other TOGs were charging at least double that and thought they knew best and told us what they thought we wanted!

We are paying it all ourselves and refusing to get into debt for it so we hoping that we can do it all for approx £8000

x

Nothing! We were quite sensible when setting our budget. Then again I didn't want any "extras" or "fancy trimmings" so everything was pretty bog-standard (obviously very tasteful and elegant though ?)

We worked out what was important to us and had the day that matched - small wedding (60 guests) with a fancy 4 course meal and nice wines.

Yeah, it's been rings for us too. OH saw one he loved, and it is fabulous, but on the website it said FROM £220, but in his size and thickness it is a LOT more. It's still amazin though, and SO perfect for him.

Mine was about £200 more than I expected to pay, but again, it's beautiful and fits with my E ring perfectly.

Hire of Men's suits was also a lot more than I expected.

Our venue provide the centre piece flowers for the tables. We just tell them our colour scheme and if there is any specific flowers we want.

I'm glad bout this as i deff wouldnt have spent a fortune on this as i see it as a waste of money that i could spend else where as they will prob get binned the next day and even if people took them home they would be dead in a few days!

All we have ordered flowerwise is my bouquet, bridesmaid bouquet, 3 Thank u bouquets and 7 button holes.

x

Everything and nothing!

We didn't set a budget at any stage as we wanted to chose the things that were important to us. It ended up more expensive that we both thought, mainly because we'd woefully underestimated the cost of some things. Our booze prediction was pretty spot on though ?

We went over budget on rings and the tog.

Originally, we'd budgeted to spend around £1,000 on our rings. This actually worked out at about £1,600 as the price of metal is soring at the moment (plus I went for diamonds!). For a tog, we'd originally budgeted for £800, but found that wouldn't get us the quality we wanted or coverage of the whole day. Our tog is costing us about £1,400 for an image only package.

These are the only areas (so far!) that we have over spent on. But we consider them to be important as they are the only things that we will be left with, apart from memories, after the day.

Um, everything!

Our venue started it. We fell in love with it, and the hire cost alone was almost our entire original budget (!). BUT we've saved our proverbials off for two years and have managed to afford it in the end. Our original budget was probably quite naive anyway.

We're not cake-lovers either.. in fact we don't even see the point in it, we don't get the whole tradition of it.. so we're not even having a cake. As we're having the breakfast on the patio outside, we would need to make everyone stand up and go inside to watch us pointlessly pose and cut a cake, take pics, go back outside to sit down. It just didn't fit-in and we really begrudged budgeting it in so instead we're having some cupcakes so there will actually be cake there. They'll be served with the desserts on the table where people will go for their BBQ food.

I would have to agree with you, we have 8 bridesmaids, 3 flowergirls, 4 ushers, 3 page boys and we're paying for all of their outfits...most stupid idea i have ever had too!!!

The only thing I spent a bit more on was my dress.. it was £800 and I'd hoped to get one for about £500. Everything else came in under budget and I've finally put the figures together and it came to £4500 for the day including our £1000 honeymoon - We'd budgeted £5000 + honeymoon so I'm feeling rather pleased with my restraint!

I have gone way over on flowers, almost double what we budgeted for ?

Oh and my shoes.... oops!

x

Went miles over on my dress and on BM dresses. But not because I am extravagant, you understand, I simply underestimated the cost of what I truly wanted But didn't have a strict budget so couldn't legitimately say I blew it...

From seeing your flash, whatever it cost was so worth it, in my opinion.

Ahh, thanks.

We're about £500 under our estimate at the moment, but it's early days for us (only venue, TOG, band, booked plus have bought bridesmaid dresses). I have a feeling that it's going to be the little extras that I will no doubt want closer to the time that will push us over. That and my OHs stag do and my dress!