How much are people budgeting for the total cost of their wedding?

At the last rough estimate our wedding was coming in at under 5k.

Hi I am hoping to spend just £10,000 then the honeymoon on top........WOW that is alot of money for 1 day but like you say everything is so expensive. I have been buyin bargain bit n bobs of ebay..........maybe do it for less. Got my dress in a sale £1000 reduced to £200 and it was 'the one' just perfect.

I have been booking suppliers to get them at this years prices so I know how much things are going to cost. I'm getting married May 2011!

Thats really good planning, and thats pretty much how I have mine - apart from venue - £8000 and my dress is £500

Have you been to moss bros hire? i think its something like if 4 men hire thier suits then the grooms is free! thats what we are doing.

xxx

We've budgeted 12000 total including 4500 for our honeymoon, that's for 80 day guests and 130 evening. There are lots of ways to save and still have the day you want. It also depends a lot on what part of the country you are in....

Im planning for 6k but i have to say it is very hard keeping the costs down. I've tried to spend money on the things that we think are important and scrimp on the things that arent so important to us. Tis very stressful though (

Unfortunatly where i live i am very limited with reception venue choices!! So i dont have the luxery of shopping around! But where i can i am making invites etc.

Blimey KAz u got a bargin on your dress, i'm hoping i may be so lucky! Yey someone else in May 2011! Feels like forever lol!

Sorry for the short post before, my boss walked in just as I was typing so I had to dash. We are only have 36 people at the ceremony and meal on the actual day but we are having a house party the following day.

I am lucky to have some v. gifted relatives who are helping me out massively. I'm at time minute trying to work out how to create my own stationery so it looks good but doesn't cost alot.

The thing you have in your advantage 1Lucie is that you will be able to scour the sales for bits and bobs. My auntie managed to get me some little chocolates with Just married on them, in cream and gold (the main colours) and they were half price from John Lewis.

We are looking at 11k, including a 2500 honeymoon. but we are trying to cut costs everywhere so heres hoping it will be less than that!! I have done all my stationary myself, and as others mentioned im a bargain hunter, bay of e comes in extremely handy!

I read in one of the bridal magazines that the average is 26k!!!! Im yet to meet anyone with that budget, but wouldnt it be nice!!

We started off with a budget of £5000 - but I think I must have picked that figure out of thin air because once we sat and did our calcs we were closer to 8K - which is now the budget and WILL NOT be changing. We got a good deal with the photography - He works for my sisters company and gave us 'Mates Rates' - We got a fantastic deal for £250... and I still cant believe it!!!

26K.....I dont think I could bring myself to spend that amount of money... even if we did have it!

someone on here has a budget of around that, but I wont name names........

My word, lucky lady...or man. Go on, give us a hint!

We have budgeted just over 20k but half of that is going on our venue - we are paying for everythinng ourselves. Im actually hoping on getting some bargains to get the cost down.

But I have accounted for everything even down to guest book, favors, table plans, hired items although im pretty sure i may have missed something somewhere down the line lol.

I have found my dress which was actually half of what I originally budgeted for I just hope this happens with everything else lol

Blimey! Average 26grand, thats alot!?

I'm hoping to save money where i can but unfortunatly our familys don't seem to have any wedding type skills other than my OH mum used to be a professional cake maker! Which is a bonus i guess!

x

We're doing our for £5000, with £5000 budget for honeymoon too. Pulling in every favour, doing tons ourselves and having a few compromises along the way too.

Mine's roughly the same as yours 1Lucie and thats with overbudgeting but no honeymoon included and its being split three ways. It may still come down as we're only beginning to firm things up. Thats for 90 during the day and 130 in the evening - H2B has a big close family and it was all or nothing! I have parents and a sister! We do have lots of friends to even it up!! Our potographer is coming in at a lot probably 1400 but we get all photos to disk and from beginning to the end plus a photographer for both of us getting ready and we're not having a video. We're big on pictures so a good spend for us - our tables will be photos of grandparents and parents on their weding days!

Ours is about 14k including the hooneymoon. we are lucky as my mum and dad are paying for the venue including the food and drinks.

i've had some bargains so far like my dress and have bought loads off ebay so hope to bring that figure down

Ours is likely to be 13-14k including honeymoon- a figure that scares me to death!!

We've budgeted for 12K but I have a feeling it is gonna be more than that, which is indeed a huge sum. We are paying for it all ourselves so I'm trying to save £500 a month (& my H2B is too - I hope!) so it doesn't seem so bad. Luckily my mum has offered to pay for half of my dress & H2B's parents are apparently gonna pay for the honeymoon. I know its a lot of money for 1 day but we really loved the venue we choose far more than anything else we saw & we're having 100 guests as I want all my friends there so I'm ok with spending it (month by month).

Hopefully I can keep costs down elsewhere

I'm one of the odd people who never set a budget! I want my day without costing crazy amounts! I'm a bit of a tight ar5e when it comes to spending money if i know i can get it cheaper elsewhere! My OH's mum is paying for our honeymoon, his step dad is paying for after party, his dad paid for wedding package (getting married abroad so it's all in one job!), my parents gave us a cash lump sum to spend however, and my grandma paid for my dress (i tried some at ££££ and some at ££ and went for my the one rather than the price which was nice). It's working out pretty cheap for us as everyone has been so generous. Any left overs will go towards our future (house, babies, bride needs new shoes).

We're the same Karen. budget 6k.

Dress was a bargain at £100 for fabric (and my friend is making it)

Tog - a friend, again

All stationary and favours - me

Cakes - me with some help (I hope!)

Music - OH making playlist at this stage... could change though!

etc etc.

The most expensive thing for us obviously was the food & drinks.

I never really had a budget.... we were very lucky and made use of our friend's talents and offerings. my dad took me to the hotel in his car (a renault gordini), my uncle made all the on the day stationery, H's aunt did the men's favours, we had a friend do our photos. our best man/H's twin insisted on paying for the kilt hire, my parents insisted on paying for the venue, so we were very very lucky indeed.

the biggest portions of the budget went on venue (8k), honeymoon (3k inc spending money), flowers (1.5k ?) and my outfit ?.

it's each to their own though, isn't it? i would never criticise anyone for choosing to spend £100k or £1k on their wedding because it's their day, their way.<shudder> i hate using that expression <shudder>

Hi,

Ours is definitely more than I'd like to spend but we both have large families and in order to have everyone we want there, we are going to have to spend quite a lot on the venue charges and then look to try and cut back on other areas. Our rough breakdown is:

Venue package for 120 people (which includes ceremony, welcome drinks, wedding breakfast + drinks, DJ, bridal suite) - around £9600

Dress - £995 (minus alterations, which will probably be a fair bit - but my mum has kindly offered to pay for those!)

Flowers - total of about £750 (but OH's mum and dad have kindly offered to pay for these)

Cake - looking at M&S, ideally don't want to spend much more than £250 (but OH's mum has said she'd like to pay for this too)

Mens suit hire - have no idea on this one, we've provisionally budgeted £150 per suit but not sure if it's realistic or whether we can get them cheaper - this is OH's area though!

Bridesmaid dresses - having 2 adults, 1 teen and a flower girl. Have budgeted £400 for the whole lot and am hoping to come under that

My shoes - have budgeted for £65 but have seen a gorgeous pair for £50 so could be under that

Hair/make up for me - £100 (rough idea)

Hair bridesmaids - no clue on this one!

Registrar £450

Gifts £200-ish (for best man, 3 bridesmaids, 1 flower girl, 4 ushers, parents and also 2 friends who have helped out!)

Favours no idea on this - as little as possible hopefully!

Room for night - comes with the wedding package

DJ - comes with the wedding package

Photographer - £695

Videographer - £625

Invitations - friend has made them

Bridal jewellery - friend has made them

Honeymoon - around £3-3.5k in total

Well we are comin in at around £15,500.

Ceremony venue and drinks reception = £4000 www.wintonhouse.co.uk

Wedding breakfast and evening venue = £7000 www.thecavesedinburgh.com

They are the biggies but so totally worth it.

The rest I'm hoping to save some pennies on.

Oooo well i hate budgeting and i don't really have an exact figure (luckily i'm marrying an accountant so he's much better at being sensible than me!!!

I think the day is going to come in at around the £16/17K mark and we have just booked the honeymoon which is £8k. Scary figures really but we are very lucky in that both sets of parents are contributing very generously.

Our day is also coming in at around £17K and our honeymoon is £5,500.

I know to some that may seem like a lot of money but to H2B and I it will be the best money ever spent! ?

Our budget looks like it will be a total spend of just over £11,000 - not including honeymoon (looking around £4,000+spends) - still trying to find ways to cut it down!!

It's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than I wanted to spend - it's ONE day!!! - but things cost what they cost and most of that is on our venue, ceremony, food & drinks.

And that includes us not having / not spending on any of the following:

Wedding cars (using OH's and a friends landrovers) - Favours (no point - waste of money) - Photographer (friend is doing for us) - Cake (our Mam's are making a tier each) - Expensive dress (buying from Ebay/friend making it)

I have to admit I had NO IDEA how much wedding costs and was shocked at people who spent like £10,000 on one day - thinking I could get it for so much cheaper....yea thats gone out the window! The main cost seems to be catering and the only way to reduce is keep numbers small which sometimes isnt do-able!

Ours will probably cost around £8000 and we are having it in a castle, fantastic venue with ceremony for around 80 people sit down dinner and then buffet for around 100. We are skimping on invites - I have a mac and am designing and printing these myself! - Also photographer on wedding list, cheap cake decorate with flowers, bridesmaid dresses paid for themselves, friend doing wedding make up and no favours - im paying for them to eat/drink - they want presents too?!! Lol

This DOES NOT include dress - my mum is kindly getting this for me or honeymoon - but we're going backpacking around Italy so keeping it cheap just like a normal holiday :-)

PS - OMG NEVER though i would get married cant believe im engaged!! :-)

Im doing a budget wedding and still managing to spend around 5K!

Church ceremony - £440 including flowers and organist

Wedding breakfast (for 40) and evening reception inc DJ (for 90) - £2500

Photographer - £400

Rings - £500

Cars - £300

Dress - £500

Suits & Dresses - £400

Flowers, cake, accessories etc - £700

We're getting almost £1000 from my parents and paying the rest ourselves. I doubt we'll get anything from h2b's father but thats a rant for another day!

We havent set a budget, we are just hoping to spend as little as possible. Neither of us have credit cards etc so we are literally saving like mad (Ive got myself a weekend job)and paying as we go along. So far, ceremony/reception are all in one place and looking to be about £1500. Thats all we've booked and deffo the biggest expenditure. Im hoping to come in at around £4k, and seeing as venue and catering is normally about 50% of total cost Im hoping to be close!!!

We are paying for the whole thing ourselves as neither of out parents have any money to spare on frivolous things such as weddings!!! lol

My bil's dad is a could-be-professional tog so we're asking him or my step sister who has a degree in togginess to do the photos.

Making my own jewellery and bouquets and step mum making decorations.

I have the week off work next week so me and my sister (cb) are going wedding sale shopping!! Loadsa bridal stores round here have got sales on atm so am hoping to find a bargain!!!

My budget is £2000 and I'm hoping to come in under that. My nan is paying for the church so I don't have to worry about the and I've managed to get my venue for free. Me and a friend are making the invites. My dress cost just under £70 and tomorrow we are looking at hiring the suits at £25 each. But I still have a lot to get so we will just have to wait and see.

Glad i'm not the only one who doesn't like favours! ?

I love favours - but I think its just because I like making things so it would be fun for me to do... I don't think they are necessary at all though, haha