After looking around lots of venues I'm starting to think that spending £15,000 on a wedding is just silly really. I would love to spend this amount but im getting to the point where i just thing we should do something pretty simple and much less expensive.
What type of venue have you gone for? affordable and freindly or all out....just need another perspective xx


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We were trying for affordable but it is looking like it is going to be about £10,000 but that is because of the amount of guests we want. We have a really nice venue though and it is costing us £4,500 for a wedding breakfast for 90, and evening buffet for 200 and that includes drink and venue hire too aswell as centerpieces. We found that the small individual venues that werent part of a big chain were the best ones to look at, as you can speak with the actual owner and sort out prices etc with them :) xxx

We booked all our things directly and separately, it was much less expensive. Our wedding is with 18 guests. We booked gretna green but didn't go for any package deals, we booked and paid for our venue directly with them and then booked our hotel, photographer, wedding breakfast etc ourselves. I have made all our stationary and decorations and loved every minute of it. We are well on course to stay within our £3,500 budget.

weve gone for a church wedding then reception at a social club, its costing £250 for the room. we liked a hotel near by but it was £2,500 just for the room hire. we couldnt justify spending that much on just one day. we didnt want to save for years so were on a budget of about 5k and so far its at about 3k

my venue is £3200 (ish) in total and includes
ceremony room
venue for whole day
wedding breakfast 3 course meal for 43 people
drink package for 43 people
buffet for 90 people
3 comp bedrooms
plus a few other bits
but yeh I think thats a really good package :)

That is good Jordan A.

We've sort of mixed and matched.

We have a dearer day venue - an independent Georgian townhouse hotel which is stunning inside, which is going to cost about four grand for the ceromony and wedding breakfast for fifty guests...

But we wanted a good old knees up on the night so are going to our local sports club function room, which is actually nicer than it sounds but not exactly stunning. However, it's cheaper beer, has space for a band etc and I just tout would have more of a 'party' atmosphere than the posh hotel xx

We're having the ceremony in a Catholic church but the reception will be at a gorgeous Queen Anne Manor House in Hunton Bridge, Hertfordshire. The reception is costing us £14k for 100 guests including venue hire (exclusive use), welcome drinks and plenty of drink for wedding breakfast, canapes, 3 course wedding breakfast, evening buffet, table linen, crockery, cutlery and glassware, menu tasting, wedding coordinator and room for the night for me and H2B at the venue plus breakfast the next morning. Decorating the venue and chair covers is costing us more. It's worth it though but we're lucky that with the entire wedding budget H2B and I combined are paying a third, my parents a third and FIL2B a third.
xx

We've booked for a civil ceremony then sit down meal for 60 at a local independant hotel. Evening buffet for 120. That with 7 rooms for guests has come to a total of £3 1/2k we're paying the venue. edding intotal is around £8k. we've not booked a honeymoon though as having that next year x

I am getting married in a school.. I know it's very usual. Think hogwarts lol!
£3,600 for all day including ceremony for 60 guests & wedding breakfast for 100 guests :)

We have a castle, 50 day and 70 night guests. With food and decoration it comes to £3250, our total budget is about 6k x

We got married at Gretna Green and used the bureau for some of the package (venue, minister, fees and photographer). That worked out better value in the long run - and we then booked other things separately (reception venue, flowers, cake, transport etc).

We picked Gretna Hall for our wedding because we loved the history behind it, and decided on Solway Lodge hotel for our reception as we'd already tried their restaurant on a trip there and were very impressed with them. They were reasonably priced and even gave us a good choice of meals (9 choices per course then we had to limit that down to 5 choices per course for the guests).

There were just 19 of us in the wedding party, and we spent around £3500 altogether which was less than we expected really as this also included accommodation for two nights for both of us and also my son (and gave us nearly £3k to spend on our honeymoon in the end).

I recon we will have spent £4,000 by the time we are done. I am having a separate weekend long wedding celebration (there will be 19 of us including kids) and then the following week having a 'night do'... I inquired at party venues as I know 'wedding' venues' are expensive.... I told some that it was a 'party' they gave me one price and then when I spoke to them they asked if it was a wedding as no one tends to organise parties this far in advance - they doubled it or more.

In the end I found a lovely little quirky venue that is fiberglass caves and costs a mere £280! We can do the catering, they will do specialty ale if we have ale drinkers and the corkage is just £3.50 per bottle. It over looks the river and just couldn't be more suitable.

I am glad we are not getting into debt or having to save for years to get married as at the end of the day it is just one day and I think our wedding is going to be 'different' and people will remember it. I spend my life saving money both in my job (accountant) and hunting for bargains out of my job, I shop in charity shops and eat 'value' foods - if we have a posh traditional wedding it wouldn't suit us and I wouldn't feel comfortable either.

I wouldn't change anything we have planned so far :)

xx

We did alot of looking into varies venues and decided that for us having our own marquee and alot of DIY and alternative catering is for us. Even getting a bouncy castle. Probably sounds crap to most people but we're all about family and fun and that's the way to go when 30% of your guest list are kids.

When it comes down to it you weigh up what you think is important to you, what part of your day means the most to you? How you would feel if x was missing?
In hindsight we can all look back and review what we may have done differently, but for now we go with our hearts and purse strings!

I suggest visiting some wedding fayres and searching for wedding reports online to get other ideas on what may suit you and your H2B as partners, dont be afraid to do things selfishly either.

When we first started looking our essential criteria were:

Exclusive use
No time limit
Good photo opportunities
Good 'flow', and good usable space; some we looked at would have made the evening reception really disjointed eg one was upstairs, so smokers would have to traipse down two flights of stairs which would have affected the atmosphere); another very expensive venue didn't have a proper bar, and I didn't like the idea of drinks being in ice buckets, I thought it was ridiculous at the prices they were charging.

Desirable:

'Wow' factor

We're getting married at a luxury 5* boutique hotel. We have completely exclusive use inc of the 23 bedrooms and the cinema. It's cost us £600 in room hire, plus a minimum spend of £6k on food and drink, plus all bedrooms must be booked (so any which don't get booked by our guests we'll have to pay for; I think they'll all get booked though). I thought this was a very good price for what we're getting; and the food and drink spend isn't an issue as it's currently at about £7-8k (which includes £2k behind the bar). We should get some amazing photos too as the interior is really amazing; every time I visit I'm just blown away. We also have no cut-off time; we can party until 2am if we want :-)

We are getting married and having the whole do at my favourite restaurant which is big and right on the seaside. really classy and you're guaranteed good food!
for 100guests, 50evenings, 4 course meal, half btl wine each, 2grand behind the bar, staff , wedding planner etc its about£12,000 if we were getting married on a saturday it would easily be double that but we are getting married on a thurs and the next day is good friday :)Xxxxxxxxx

Ours is a hotel which doesn't look like much from the outside but we completely fell in love with it.were there for ceremony and evening reception for the cost of 4500. That includes table decks, food and drink for 80 day and 100 evening x

We wanted a registrar ceremony and hotel reception and the best deal we found was mun stone house, it comes to just under £7k for everything on the day plus I'm staying there the night before so that will save on transport. My friend recently got married in weobley and had the reception in the village hall. I don't know how much it cost them but the had the inside dressed by a marquee company and it looked gorgeous. From the pictures you would think they had a really lavish venue. Since booking ours I've heard loads of stories of people having great deals on packages around Hereford but I wouldn't change my venue. My sister got married there 18 years ago and they are still happily married and I only ever hear good things about it.

Jillian my friend had just a small party in the garden as well. No marquee, just milling around in the house/garden and it looked fabulous.

Like Sarahh said, if you mention the w-word, prices will rocket. I've been saying its a party for my dads retirement and as guests are coming from overseas it's being planned early so they can save/book flights appropriately ;-)