Wedding Forum - Budget!!...

Hi everyone,

Got engaged in November so haven't planned or thought much about our big day as still up on cloud 9, but all our married friends and family keep telling us how expensive weddings are.

If people don't mind discussing how much they have paid in comparison to how much they budgeted for?

People have told us to set a budget and double it..?xx

hi and congratulations on getting engaged. I would suggest firstly that you and your OH, if you hav enot already, sit down and talk honestly about your financial situation. Look at how much is paid in to the bank every month from each of your wages and how much is paid out every month. If you have an item such as car tax that you pay once a year then divide that up by 12 and use the monthly installment into your outgoings total. I would suggest opening a second cash account for those items and put thatmonthly installment away each month so you kno that you won't be looking for it unexpectedly one month.

Once you work out how much is left over you can then decide how much money that you want to keep by for treats every month such as takeaways, a dinner out, night at the pub, going to the cinema etc. what is left is what you can afford to put away every month.

Next step is to think about what you really want for your wedding. Do you want a wedding in a castle with exclusive use? Do you want a package wedding from a chain hotel? Do you want a stately home to be your venue with bespoke catering? Are you happy with a village hall or community centre and asking family and friends to bring a dish instead of a wedding gift?

The type of wedding you want is largely going to determine your budget. My aim is to keep our budget under £12k. We have spent £5k on our venue. This includes for 80 guests:
sparkling wine reception
canapes
3 course meal
teas and coffee
2 glasses of wine with meal
sparkling wine for speeches
buffet
bridal suite night before wedding
bridal suite night of wedding
ceremony room hire
wedding co-ordinator
menu tasting

My brothers whole wedding was done onless than £1k. registry office wedding with buffet reception in my parents back garden and then a funtion suite at the local pub at night with buffet. car borrowed from friend and done up with ribbons. It can be done what ever you want if you need help just message me xx

will bump the budget bride thread which gives you a break down of cost of each area for weddings costing under 10k

Thank you lana2BMrsHands, it's like a minefield to start with isn't it!!!xx

Our wedding is coming under budget with everything from ceremony to reception, decorations and meal coming to under £5000. Dave is arranging our honeymoon for under £1000, so I reckon in the end we will have spent £5800 in total :)

Congratulations on your engagement!!

Congratulations on your engagement :) we planned around £5000 for our wedding, I hate spending money so am quite tight. Our venue came to around £2500 that's 50 day time and 100 evening. But fingers crossed I'm doing a lot of DIY jobs, there are plenty of tips and people to help you on here as well everyone's really friendly x

I never set a budget as I was able to purchase things from the very start, I had around £5k in my mind but probably cost around 7/8 in reality.

I agree. I never let anyone push me into something I never wanted or necessarily needed

We started out with 8k in mind but we seriously underestimated the cost of things and once we had seen the price of venues in our area we realised it wouldn't cut it and its now 10k. It has to be that as there is no more money, and we've had to sacrifice the honeymoon I think :(

We decided our top budget was 10k, and I sat down and did the sums to figure out what we could afford etc. We blew the budget on honeymoon but came under on everything else. Saying that the venue was 6.5k alone! We fell in love with the most expensive venue in the area which has won awards 2 years running so not cheap!

I agree it can be as cheap or expensive as you want it to be, we got engaged in September and our wedding is booked for the 15th May, we are on a tight budget but have chosen to spend more on things that are more important to us, it's all down to personal taste, we have managed to get quite a few things cheaper through people who know people! Our venue which we wouldn't of been able to usually afford we spoke to a friend who new the owner and got a mega discount! Also the photographer is doing a half price rate as we sort of know her! We are aiming at spending under 4k which I think will be very possible, that's a wedding breakfast for around 40 people and a night reception for about 80, we will hopefully go on a honeymoon afterwards depending on wedding gifts as we are asking guests not for a gift but for holiday vouchers, good luck x