Wedding budget

That's a bit of a how long is a piece of string question. We had £5000 expendable savings and I think that I've probably spent another £1000 on top of that on bits and bobs. We only have 30 guests but we've paid for everyone to stay overnight, so depending on what you want, how many guests are invited and how big your dress expectations are will set how much your budget will be.

I don't think that there is such thing as an average budget, it's a little immeasurable.

Thanks :-) from what you read in the press, there's an impression that people are spending tens of thousands on their wedding! We're quite frugal and have kids and are trying to get as much as possible for as little as possible (aren't we all? lol). I'm feeling a bit guilty as I've changed my mind over my dress, but I've did a lot of DIY (save the dates, invites, table centre pieces, make up etc). Trying to work out whether I can justify another dress spend or whether to just content myself and let me head rule my heart...

I think the wedding industry like to make brides think there's an average that you should "aspire" to. Realistically, I think there are huge numbers of weddings in the £5000 and under price band.

There's a lot of marketing going on! Sure, there are people with 50k budgets or more but they are not that common. I suspect that many "budget brides" don't take part in the surveys on blogs etc so the true average is never known.

I don't think there's an average price for a wedding because so many different factors come into play. We started planing with the thought that we didn't want to spend a ridiculous amount of money on one day but we also want to have a special day. We also decided we didn't want to get into debt whilst planning so we've figured out how much we can save between now and when we get married and that's how much we'll spend. We might have done it the wrong way round though - I'm sure it would have been more sensible to budget for how much it would cost and then figure out how long it would take to save that amount and book a wedding for then. Unfortunately we fell in love with a venue and booked it there and then so that's how it's happening.

Have you got a photo to flash and then we can have a look too

I wouldn't worry about what the 'average' is when it comes to deciding what you want to spend.

We initially budgeted £3,500. We've gone over that, and I haven't really been keeping a proper tally, but would be very surprised if we've spent more than £5,000 in total: for that we're managing to put on a do for 100 days guests with an extra 30-40 in the evening

Great to hear about these (more realistic) budgets! Here are the dresses:

Es

My budget began at £1000, grew to £2000 and I think we've spent a further £500 on top of that easily, but then we did have a couple of donations to help us out. I think you can make your wedding fit a small budget, but you can only judge it individually.

Both those dresses are stunning btw!

Friends of ours got married at a local hotel and did the whole thing for 14k, a year later some friends of ours got married at the same hotel, pretty much the same size wedding but did it all for 4k. A wedding will cost whatever you want it to cost.

We had a budget of 8k, but at last count ours is currently at 22k, my advice is: if you set a budget, stick to it. We didn't, kind of regretting that now! x

I agree with the other posts - the budget will be whatever you want it to be. Often that is dictated by what the most important thing to you is - we were absolutely set on a venue which really pushed our budget higher than we initially intended. However, for that reason we have done a lot of things DIY - the centre pieces, the favours, the invitations etc which have saved a lot of money.

We initially budgeted for £20k but is now more like £26k, so having a contingency is also a good idea and also doing thorough research - there are some costs that we just didn't factor into our original budget because we didn't do enough research. For example, getting married at our local church is costing nearly £1,000 and because we are in 2 venues, we then had to factor cars in which were another £500. It's really easy for costs to run away with you...

Bear in mind that a lot of the magazine averages also include the ring and honeymoon.

Our budget started at 10k excluding ring and honeymoon ( which is costing silly money for a week in majorca as we are a family of 5,inc a teen and we have to go in summer holidays). We have officially gone over by 3k but somehow my gym membership and beauty treatments have found their way into the magical "its not written down so it doesnt count" budget. We were lucky enough to be given 2k by h2bs family so were able to increase our budget. Apart from video and venue(one I loved online would cost 9k just for basic package) I do not feel we have really had to give up on anything we wanted.

Depends on the demographic, a lot like house prices I guess.

I think it would be better if polls asked what percentage of your yearly income your wedding budget is, then you could more easily apply it to yourself without knowing exact prices. Location also makes a difference, just in little things, if we had got married about 20 miles away from where we are the registrar would have been £100 cheaper.

I'm not sure you could actually set an average. I know of people that stuck to a budget of 1k and others that went over 10k. We're aiming for somewhere in the middle. I've got it just under 6k at the moment but we still have some haggling to do. We're not including the engagement ring or honeymoon as I got my engagement ring 5 years ago and we'll only be going on honeymoon if money is okay then.

I think the important thing is to not get into debt. I have heard so many stories where people have got divorced a short time after having a lavish day because they just couldn't stand the debt and argued so much.

Not sure about an average, but we expect to spend £5000 - £6000 and then a honeymoon on top of that.

Ours is a maximum of 8000, however, we should get 1600 back for the cottages we had to rent as well for guests, so 6400, but looking to save a few hundred quid with the food, so I guess our budget is around 6000! Haha!