How much did you spend on your wedding?

First thing you need to decide is your guests list. Your two biggest expense will be venue hire and food. You will have to research to get an idea of how much you need to save, but as a guideline.

Venue

Having the ceremony at the Registry Office is the cheapest option. The reception could be anything from a couple of hundred pounds for a village hall to £10,000 for a stately home. We are paying £2,000 for a old building with on-site accommodation, nice grounds and exclusive use in the home counties. If the ceremony and reception are in different places, you may need to pay for transport between the two.

Food

If you have a traditional three-course sit-down meal, it will costs £30 - £60 per person for professional caterers. It is usually cheaper if you have a buffet. Also consider the costs of providing alcohol, having snacks between ceremony and reception for a cocktail hour, having a late-evening buffet. The cheapest way to do it is to just have one meal e.g. get married at 11am, serve lunch, then everyone goes home before you have to feed them again! You could even get married at 3pm and just have tea and cake afterwards. In my opinion, the further guests have to travel, the more effort you have to put into looking after them. A lot of our guests are coming from abroad, so we feel like we have to give them a proper sit-down meal and wine. If it was in my home town with everyone local, I would happily give them afternoon tea and then get could pop home.

Other costs - optional!

Clothing for you and groom (you dress could be from £100 to £5000)

Clothing for bridesmaids, groomsmen

Hair and make-up

DJ

Photographer (good ones will cost from £1000) - cheaper the fewer hours they are there

Decorations

Cake

Hello,

I know this can all be overwhelming.

The previous post has pretty much covered it. Only other thing that comes to mind is that you have to pay to give notice at your local register office which is £35.00 per person and then you have to pay for the ceremony which highly varies from register office to register office and more importantly depends on the weekday (Saturday/Sunday usually the most expensive). We have our wedding on a Monday and paid about £150.00 for the ceremony (now £204.00 after I checked their website). The same register office takes £350.00 on a Sunday. And it's going to be even more expensive if you want the registrar to come to your venue. From £477.00 at Bedford Register office where we are getting married. Also the venue might charge extra for the room needed for the ceremony. You see this can already make a major difference to your budget. However as pointed out in the previous post it makes sense to see how much more you have to pay for transport if you choose to get married at the register office vs at the venue. Might actually work out cheaper in the end to do it at the venue.

Second thing that generally makes a massive difference to prices is time of year and week. As said we are getting married on a Monday in March and were able to strike some really good deals just because of the timing. Saturday in July would have probably cost us at least twice as much.

I would recommend to think about what time of year, day of week (are you fussed about a weekday wedding?), how many guest you want there and what type of venue. Just google a bit or have a look on here for venues. Some have package prices on their website to give you a rough idea. Then just contact a few suppliers for quotes to get a feeling for the costs.

And....it will probably cost more than you first budgeted. Unless you are really strict with yourself. I noticed that the longer I planned and looked around the more ideas I got. Also things might turn out more expensive than first thought. I for example budgeted £150.00 for dress alterations because that is what the lady at the bridal shop told me. Turns out the seamstress wants £225.00. It's "only" £75.00 more but it adds up. I also realized too late that our venue doesn't provide chair covers (and they don't have nice chairs). Another £80.00 for chair covers gone...and so it goes on.

My advise is to add an "emergency fund" to your budget.

This was an awfully long post but I hope it helps with your planning.

Good luck,

Sandra

We spent far too much even though went for a very cheap venue (£300 boat club) and buffet. The small details do creep up, so think about what is important for you and prioritise accordingly. Want to have a grand venue, make sure you put more budget for it, but may need to opt for a buffet rather than silver service. Get the family and friends to help as much as you can. I've been to a wedding where the cake, entertainment, flowers, stationary, all were done by the family, so the major cost only went into dress, venue, and photography.

We have gone a little overboard, we have definitely gone over budget for our do.