Getting married is so expensive!

I know what you mean.

I rang the registrar earlier and was shocked to find out the legal costs. ... H2B wasn't very impressed either ☹️

I've felt like this the whole way through! Just gotta roll with it...

Such is the way it is - it upped my budget so now everything's a squeeze, but its the one you just have to swallow isn't it. I cut back in other unneccessary areas to cover it a little.

I know. I knew that everything gets bumped up as soon as you say wedding (a few thousand pounds to hire an empty room for a few hours suddenly becomes reasonable) but I didn't think I'd be getting stung by my council! Argh x

Yikes!!!

Our ceremony was around £125, and certificates were £3.50.

It is the most important part of the day though!!!!

I wrote an article about ways to save money that might be helpful http://ww2.ollievision.co.uk/wp/index.php/save-money-on-your-wedding/

One issue with registrars is that it costs a lot more to have them to the hotel than if you marry at their office. For example, at Leeds Town Hall you can marry on a Weds for £75. One way of saving if you're truly skint is to do the legal bit on the cheap at the register office then book a wedding celebrant to hold the ceremony at the venue.

We didn't realise how much it costs until you add all the little things up, at least with the big suppliers you know how much they are.

Ugh I know what you mean... we went for a humanist ceremony in the hotel we are getting married in. Just shy of £500. Of REAL money.

I really wasn't that bothered about having the actual ceremony in the place, but my h2b said it was important to him... so...

The whole thing is coming to over £8000. This is £3000 more than we actually budgeted for. This is me taking away the honeymoon, getting a less expensive dress at under £150, economising on bridesmaids and only having two and my h2b only having 2 groomsmen... it doesn't help that we decided that getting married in less than 10 months was a good idea.

Our humanist celebrant is costing us £680 so your £500 sounds like a steal! ? We're not having the legal bit at the same time, we'll be doing that separately; the humanist ceremony will be the real thing as far as our family and friends are concerned.

Both being second-timers, we had a good idea of budget for different elements before we started and have actually come under on a few things. I remember being shocked at the cost of the photographer first time round and paying three times what had been budgeted. That hurt!

Almost 700????? I am in the wrong job. The photographer well be expensive but not too bad for us because I'm only really bothering about getting a couple of hours for during the ceremony and immediately afterwards so it will be under 400 apparently.

Our local registry office do something they call a "early bird special" where we go into the registrars office with 2 witnesses and sign the paperwork, and hey presto.....we'll be married! All for the bargain price of £45. Obviously well have to pay for certificates. Our main day will be a couple of days later when we have our Handfasting, so this will purely be for legal reasons. My cousin is getting married at the same registry off a couple of months before our big day and it's costing her £380 just to hire a room!

Hence why we're going abroadm £430 for everything!!! Including flowers, cake etc

We're doing the 15 min micro ceremony at the office for the price of £45! Then having out 'wedding' later in the day at our venue.

As a friend is performing this ceremony it's FREE!!

Our registry office part is only costing us £45 but we are only allowed to say the bare minimum vows and have 2 guests. We are then hiring an independant celebrant to conduct our 'real ceremony' 2 days later at our venue for £200.

If we hired a registrar to come to our venue it would have been at least £700 and we would have to get married inside the building. This way we save a ton of money and can be married in the woods like we want to.

I think £35 each is crazy money to give notice, I've heard the appointments are only a few minutes long

Yep. People hear the word wedding and want to rob you blind!

No, it takes a good while. You have an interview together where you show your documents, then you're interviewed separately and asked questions about each other. Then you are both brought in together again. Allow at least 30 minutes when you go. We were there an hour, including waiting time.

I agree and think it's ridiculous the amount of money people will charge as soon as you mention the 'W' word, all they see is pound signs. It pays to ask around locally for suppliers, instead of relying on the web and wedding fairs. And no, I don't understand why the legal fees/ ceremony costs are that much either, but that's the main part without which there wouldn't be a marriage!!! Just have to smile & wave

Fab. Think I'm just going to smile about it and not worry too much! Just be careful about where the rest of our cash goes

Ooh I was in for all of fifteen minutes. And ten of those were me trying to find the copy of H2B's passport I had taken with me. I wonder if its different when you are giving notice separately - we had to give notice in our separate home towns and pay £35 EACH? They didn't aske me anything about H2B other than how to spell his middle name and his job. If I'd known how to spell Geoffrey I'd have been in and out in 5 mins.

Maybe it depends on what local authorities it is how stringent they really are? If they have a problem with people applying illegally for bigamy etc in an authority area they might just interview everyone?

It depends on your district. OH and I had the whole thing together and were in there about 10-15 mins.

I feel your pain! Registry office is £414, giving notice £35 each and £10 for the marriage certificate!

All I can say is thank god our reception venue was such a good deal!

I made the mistake of thinking the odd few pounds here and there wouldn't make much of a difference to the budget... I was wrong! Them little bits have added up to almost £500 that I did not budget. I haven't told my OH yet, as I control the banking he has no idea! So I'm going to wait until he sees how beautiful our wedding is then fess up a few days later because I know he'll see it was worth if for the day but before hand he'll say it's an unneeded expense, but he left most of it down to me so it's my vision I'm following and it's only me who knows what it takes to bring that to life.