WOW! Were you surprised by the cost of EVERYTHING!!??

We've found the smaller things, ie chair covers/invites/favours etc do all quickly add up.

Theres a couple of threads lately about ways to save money where it isnt a neccessity. What have you got on your list for it to be that much?

xx

It's called the W-tax - prices mysteriously double as soon as you say the word 'wedding'.

Yes, weddings are expensive, but you can cut costs if you look hard enough. The little things all add up - try dispensing with some of the unecessary junk.

Not surprised because they often report that the average wedding costs £15k+ However i was surprised at how difficult it can be to keep it below a certain number. We really wanted to keep it to about £5k but in the end we're spending about £8.5k because the venue was a grand more than we wanted to pay and my dress was triple the price i'd wanted to pay (but i do love both so i'm justifying it that way... ) I'm also astounded at how much some things cost, when they're blatantly not worth that much money.

You can have a fantastic day on £2,000 sometimes more than you can with £20,000 to spend - it all depends what's important to you both and what you're prepared to trim back on or do without.

We're managing for about £8500 all in, and we thought we'd done quite well, and have cut out on things like chair covers which we think are a waste of time (and in a nice venue like ours, unnecessary anyway).

I think we just had the basics but here goes! We're only at the very early planning stage so we'll see!!!

Bridesmaid/page boys outfits - 400

Favours - 50 - 100

Cake - 100

Invitations - 20

Suits - 100

Rings - 500

Ceremony and registrar - 300

Brides accessories - 100

Hair and Make-up - 100

Photographer - 500

Entertainment - 250

Flowers - 100

guestbook - 30

Master of Ceremonies - 300

Feel free to point out things that are ridiculously under-estimated!!! I know there are some things we could cut down on.....first draft!

I couldn't agree more Dilly.

I was thinking maybe 4k for the venue/food etc. H2B thinks 3. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

We're managing our venue and catering for about £4000 which was one of the best deals we found. By comparison my cousin was having almost the same food as us but at a different venue and paying £2500 more (so nearly £7000 in total for venue and food)

Meggiemoo, how many people are coming to your Wedding/ evening do and when is it?

Yes very. I had an idea that if you put wedding in front of things it would go up but I have found the price of wedding cakes to be ridiculous.

Why can someone make a fab decorated birthday cake and charge under £100 but when you put the word wedding in front it can triple.

I looked at the english cheescake company for a wedding cheescake and for 4 teirs its almost £500 yet I could make the same for under £100 - for me its just greed.

I obv dont know the ins and outs of who what where etc, but il give you my input anyway...

Hi,

We think 52 adults, 17 kids for the day and maybe 10-15 more for the night. We've only just started planning but hoping for a wedding in September/October next year.

Yes, it's expensive and yes, once you mention the W word, they stick a 0 on the cost! However, you don't need everything you have listed.

Favours - what about getting personalised chocolates to double as place markers (did this on first wedding and cost about £60). Or forget favours, they're not necessary. BM outfits - ask them to contribute or go high-street. Hair etc - get your usual stylist to do your hair and do your own makeup. MC - you don't need one - delegate to an usher or the venue will have someone. Guest book - a modern trend, never used to exist, not necessary. If you are very stuck for money you can get rings from H Samuel, Argos, Tesco etc for a lot less than £500 - go for 9ct gold or a more unusual metal like titanium.

I do think though, that you have underestimated on flowers and cake unless you do your own. Unless you use M&S or supermarket iced fruit cake and stack them, you're looking at at least £150 for cake. Flowers will also cost more if you're having bouquet, buttonholes and table flowers. Inviations - again unless you're doing your own, £20 is optimisitc. In fact I did my own for my first wedding and it cost a lot more once I'd bought all the craft materials. And don't forget postage costs.

If I were you I'd figure out a rough budget and see what you can get for that, before you start fretting!

"Where" also makes a big difference. We are London/Surrey, and settled on a venue in the New Forest - half way between here/her family and where my family live in Somerset. The prices there are about half per head than what we were finding for similar packages in the South East.

I forgot about postage. Thanks for that!! I thought more but my OH did some of the costing! ;-)

Hair and make-up would just be for me I think. I may just have little bridesmaids and page boys so won't need to get their hair and make-up done!

Master of Ceremonies - my OH really wants this particular Master of Ceremnoies as he was the Master of Ceremonies at his brother's wedding and was absolutely fantastic. I guess we'll see!!! I think it is pretty important to him though.

I agree with the rings and flowers etc (I didn't do those costings ;-)). I think we could get much cheaper rings. I think the outfits will be cheaper as I will spend the year searching sales, and I love hunting for bargains!! Perhaps cutting favours out completely wouldn't be such a bad thing.

You're definately underestimating the Invites. I bought packs of 6 Simon Elvin ones for GBP1.50 a pack. Then you've got postage on top. 30p each second class. Tog can be done for GBP500..... Ours is 450 for 2 hours on the day with a 30 print ivory album and online gallery for guests to purchase prints from from as little as GBP3 a print (6*4 inch).

Room hire 500, wedding breakfast is coming out at approx 1800 to feed 52 adults and 9 kids. Corkage for our wine for the toasts and reception bucks fizz is 6 per bottle, (20 bottles to open).

I'm getting fabric flowers made, but my friend is a flower man and is getting me Freesias for the tables at cost price.

I think you need to look around for more information. We're doing ours for about 5k of which the rings were 750.

happy bargain hunting.

Have a think also about what style of wedding you want/can afford. A tiny budget in a grand venue won't work since you'll be cutting corners everywhere and won't be able to afford to decorate it or feed your guests a menu to match the surroundings. I had a hideously expensive first wedding, 10yrs ago. Stately home venue, posh food, coach and horses, flowers everywhere etc, but all that was necessary to fit in with the venue.

This time I want a more relaxed feel. We are having this place

And it's costing £3500 for venue hire, welcome drinks, champagne toast, hog roast buffet for 70, extra heated gazebo for a bit more space, and a ceilidh band. We'll add a bit more (flowers, cake, decoration, upgraded buffet etc) but it's still good value and works with the style I'm trying to create. I couldn't spend the £20k of my first wedding there if I wanted to, it just wouldn't work!

Once you've thought about the style you can afford and have found a good venue, the rest should click into place and become affordable

Bridesmaid/page boys outfits - 400 I managed to get 2 Dessy BM dresses off ebay for £50! so shop around!

Favours - 50 - 100 our are working out at about £1.25 each and apart from the box, are hand made. Good idea if your creative

Cake - 100 i think you'd struggle to even get a plain M & s cake for £100. Our's is £390 and isnt exactly OTT

Invitations - 20 when we did out budget the at the begining i only budgeted £50 for invertations which would have been do-able had i made them my self, but if your going to buy them in i think it might be quite a bit more than £20

Suits - 100 Ours are £85 each to hire

Rings - 500 havnt looked yet so cant comment

Ceremony and registrar - 300 Ours is £390 but varies depending where you live

Brides accessories - 100 Havnt looked yet so not sure

Hair and Make-up - 100 I was quoted £240 for this

Photographer - 500 The most reasonable package we found was £875 and that dosnt include an album! just the disk so you could do your own

Entertainment - 250 Our venue price includes this

Flowers - 100 Ive budgeted £400 for my boquet, 2 x BM bouguet's, 1 FG wand and 2 buttonholes

guestbook - 30 Paperchase have them for £20

Master of Ceremonies - 300 our venue price includes this

Thought id give you some idea on what our wedding is costing

kelly x

The cost of getting married here is ridiculous, and as we all know shoots up the minute you mention the word wedding. A friend of mine decided to test the theory when they got married recently, and got all her quotes for venue, photographer, catering etc without mentioning that it was a wedding, just said a large family reunion. Prices came in, in writing, very reasonable. She left it a couple of weeks, rang all the same suppliers and got verbal quotes for the same again, this time saying it was for a wedding, the prices all at least doubled, and in some cases more than double.

Because she had them in writing from the first time around, but she argued the case that the service and level of work she was requesting was no different from her first requests just because it was a wedding and most of the suppliers honoured those quotes, no doubt some weren't happy but thats their fault for inflating prices just because they think they can.

We are getting married in Greece and I am amazed at how much cheaper it is, we have saved loads and will hopefully be garanteed the weather too!

There are sensible ways to cut costs and some not so smart. I try and cut unnecessary stuff and invest more in a TOG.

Everyones weddings are going to be different because we've all got different venues, area's and must haves! Our wedding is costing about £8500 but 4 of that is our venue.

I agree with this. I think this is the big secret to having a beautiful wedding, without spending a fortune.

Also I'm now of the opinion that doing a lot of personal touches myself is going to give me amuch more personal feel to my wedding while still keeping costs down.

My best advise would be to shop around, get several quotes and BARTER. I got my flowers knocked down from 450 to 282 just by saying I had a cheaper quote and they wanted to beat it. Remember there is a recession on and alot of people really want the work. They would rather do it slightly discounted than not at all. Use ebay for the small things (place name cards, favour bits etc) and most of all use hitched because these girls really know what they are talking about and it's the best place for advice and support :-)

I was very lucky to have parents contributions so didn't worry about money too much although didn't go crazy....our expense that we covered was the rings but mine is platinum and OH had paladium so not the cheapest metal, depends what your engagement ring is made of as you have to put platinum with platinum (or so they say!!) ?

Our rough costings so far are;

Dress £1200

Wedding ring for me £1500

Venue hire £1800

Wedding breakfast for 70 £3000

Evening food £500

DJ £300

Honeymoon suite £200

Photographer £600

Bridesmaid dresses £300 (bridesmaids are helping with cost)

There are other things such as mens suits, cake etc that I haven't looked at yet that need adding on. Its a ridiculous amount of money!