How much would you pay.....

[angiemum2b]

on your wedding.

A civil ceremony with reception after and hotel for to stay is what I'm looking for, but don't know on how much to budget myself for

How much would you budget yourself to ? ?

All comments very very welcome!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[chezzabell]

i would say £5000 for a small wedding not sure to be honest hun

how much can u afford??

 

[nicki]

I guess that really depends on what the hotel is like, how many guests come, will you have welcome drinks, what sort of meal you want (sit down/buffet) etc etc but I would agree with Sophie it would probably be around that sort of mark, including the marriage fees.

I think the cost of our reception (we didn't get married there though) would have been around the £5000 mark for about 80 people for a sit down 3 course meal with a welcome drink. We then had a professional toastmaster,harpist, magician, fireworks, photographer, videographer, dress, suits, favours, table decorations, cake, presents etc on top of all that
Also we didn't have a buffet in the evening like alot of people do, no one noticed and were all to drunk to care!

 

[angiemum2b]

how much is the marriage fees ?I didn't even think of that I totally forgot!

 

[Xena]

my wedding was a traditional church wedding with 40 people followed by 3 course reception dinner - all traditional.

total cost was £2000 - we shopped around and budgeted.

ETA: i had a brand new traditional white dress
we hired a really fancy old fashioned car
we had a professional photographer
we had a dj for the evening
we had a cake made
we had 2 bridesmaids dresses (for little kids)
we had a bouquet made up, with 2 bridesmaids bouquets, and several button hole pins
DH hired a suit
we had welcome drinks, plus a few bottles of wine for the tables.
we had decorative flower arrangements for the tables made up

 

[gingerpig]

Ours was about a grand but then we went really small and cheap!

I think the registry office was about £90,
The 8 or so cakes (all gluten free) which I made the day before the wedding would have cost about £10 or so in ingredients,
Ian hired a suit for about £70 and bought a waistcoat for about £40,
We donated about £100 to the place where we had the religious part of our wedding done (we're buddhist, so it was a small buddhist temple),
I bought my wedding dress off ebay for about £40 - it was an Indian lengha outfit and made over there to my measurements,
I made some chocolates at the same time as the cakes as gifts for people involved in the wedding, ingredients for those, plus nice boxes to give them in would have cost about £20,
Friends took photo's (but received chocolate in return lol),
We took about 40 guests to a local curry house for an evening meal (everyone ended up giving eberyone else lifts between venues, so we canceled the taxi's we'd booked) and that cost about £800,
I didn't have flowers as in my husbands tradition cut flowers represent being cut off the teachings - plus we had to carry candles into the ceremony to light a wedding candle, so flowers would have got in the way lol.

So the wedding itself was just over 1k, but we did buy rings well in advance and I think they cost about £500, plus my engagement ring which had cost the same, although we'd obviously bought that a long time before.

I reckon it can be done cheaper than I did it, I could have made food for the evening meal myself, but I would still have had to hire a place. The main thing is to plan something that you will enjoy and that will be meaningful to you

 

[missac]

mine was over the top (well I say that, I don't think it was but having read a previous thread on this I think I may get shouted at!I did have the day I wanted though!) but I think it is possible to do it for under £5000.

I think the most important thing is that you have the day tat you want, if you want a lovely white dress get it from somewhere like debenhams as they have some beautiful ones.

You could have the ceremony at the hotel and then they may be able to offer you a wedding package and that might include quite a lot. It is always handy to get a hotel who do quite a lot of weddings as they can reccommend bands or discos and photographers who know all the best spots!

Don't be persuaded to do things to keep others happy, if you want a spaghetti for your main course you have spaghetti, if you want a bouncy castle have a bouncy castle, in my experience friends and family all tend to have an opinion and it isn't their day its yours and you blummin well enjoy it xxx

 

[Xena]

if you want a lovely white dress get it from somewhere like debenhams as they have some beautiful ones.

you know how you get proper shops sometimes on ebay? well i ordered my dress from one of those.
it was made for me, brand new, according to the measurements i sent, and was shipped from hong kong, and i only paid £99 for it.
well impressed

 

[angiemum2b]

xena I 've just had a look at the shops on ebay, but according to my measurements I'm a 16 on thehips an waist but 12 on the bust !?!

so how the hell am i meant to get one

 

[missac]

that sounds great xena! I never find things like that!!!!

 

[missac]

will they not just go according to the measurements you send in?

 

[K X]

One of my closest friends got married back in September, and it was beautiful. It was at a fancy hotel, beautiful vintage cars, toastmaster, 5 glasses of wine at the meal etc.

But I was astonished to find out it cost £21k That's a bloody deposit on a house.

My maximum to spend would be 10k (even then I would grudge that!) I think a reasonablew amount is 5k altho you can do it for a lot less.

 

[Lyn_no3]

hi, i got married 18months ago in march we had a registry office marriage, a reception for 200 ppl including food and the wedding cake with a beautiful car and amazing disco/caberet ettertainment then stayed in a hotel for 4 days after

and we spent 2300 which i was really pleased with that included absolutely everything

 

[sophie]

We had no budget we have just gone along with it heres what its cost so far

Reg office £60 notice then £43 on the day
My dress £250 this includes shoes tiara and wrap!
DH/DS suit £160 hired
Flowers £80
Bridesmaids x2 £44
cake (we are gettin ready made from m&s big tier £28 middle £18 bottom £12 approx) all in all around £70 with decs
Hotel having a meal for 13 people then reception at night disco buffet and 3 rooms to stay over cost £1020
Im sure we've forgotten things......
oh yeah the rings we are having them engraved on the inside we have seen the ones we want for £300 for the two!
so a little over £2000!
I bet we have forgot loads!
This is the 1st time ive seen it all written down and worked out hope OH dont see this!
x

 

[PyscoFalcon]

Ours was only going to cost £300 until parents took over then it cost about 2k.

Wedding in registry office - £100
Pure Gelderlander geldings pulling a wedding cart decked out with flowers - £350
Wedding dress in olde worlde style £160
Thick winter Cape £110
Reception for gawd knows how many (too many) with 3 course meal £1k
Evening dance and buffet/Dj hire £500

And we only wanted us 2 and a best friend each and parents. That's it
But nooooooo so do NOT let your parents get together and take over!

When we can afford it we'll renew our vows and have a nice honeymoon abroad somewhere instead of 4 days in a caravan in Wales where it rained solid for 3 days!