How do you work out how much everything should be? I'm struggling with it. Xx
Shona I Reid
Douglas S Smart
CommentAuthorbarbie86
I would start by working out what your total budget is, and going from there, as ultimately, everything needs to come within that figure. I would then draw up a list of priorities, ideally dividing it into 'essential' (this would be things like registrar fees for eg, as well as food and drink; ie things you absolutely can't go without) and 'desirable' ( for example, things like cars, which while nice, might not be essential; or bridesmaid's dresses (you could not have bridesmaids, or you could ask them to wear, say, a black dress which most people own)).
Typically the biggest costs tend to be the catering, venue hire, bride's outfit, and the photography. The flowers and cake can also be pricey. Wedding magazines often have average breakdowns; but your priorities might lie in different places. As a guide, our breakdown is as follows:
Food and drink: £9175
Bride's outfit (inc hair and make-up): £2700
Photography: £2500
Engagement ring: £1770
Wedding rings: £1400
Music (string quartet for 3.5 hours; band for 3.5 hours; DJ for 2 hours): £1660
Bridesmaid's dresses: £900
Flowers: £700
Groom's outfit: £600
Venue hire fees (ceremony): £575
Venue hire fees (reception): £600
Registrar's fee inc marriage license: £470
Cake: £400
Stationery: £400 (approx)
Chair sashes (bought them and selling them after): £90
Transport: N/A
Total: £24k
CommentAuthorminnie11061990
thanks Barbie98, But thats a litte more than we can afford. Xxx
Shona I Reid
Douglas S Smart
CommentAuthorminnie11061990
Shona I Reid
Douglas S Smart
CommentAuthorAna40
Your prices dont have to be the same, so dont worry. Theres loads of DIY that you can do with regards to wedding preparation and that will save you loads. I think sometimes its about thinking outside of the box. Do you have a budget? X
about 12k and thats the most we can afford. We can not afford to go over that. I was thinking about certain things that can be done by our selves. Xxxx
Shona I Reid
Douglas S Smart
CommentAuthorAna40
I think you will be able to manage something on that budget. Like barbie said now you have your main figure start trying to prioritise and give each one a price. thats at least a starting point. then i would go through each one and try and think how i could reduce the price. we are paying a lot for our photography because i want lots of memories, but im hoping to make other bits like invites, centre pieces etc (as our many of the ladies). i think there is actually a thread on DIY that some ladies have done. Maybe have a look on there for ideas. X
CommentAuthorbarbie86
edited
Ours is a larger budget; I was posting more to give you a rough idea of how things break down the percentage-wise as ours is pretty typical in that respect. £12k is a VERY decent budget, and you should get a great day for that kind of money. As far as ours goes, the major areas for savings would be food and drink; photography; rings; music; bride's putfit; bridesmaids dresses. By making savings there you should come in at under £12k.
CommentAuthorHappyBunny
Our budget is only 5k lol but 12k could get you a brilliant day without really having to scrimp on anything you need to decide what items are more important to you xx
CommentAuthormillz090
You need to see how much money you already have, and then how much you can afford to save and that should give you a budget.... our inital budget was £8k but now £12k but the extra money was a tax refund and my mum upgraded our photogrpagier so she is paying so we didnt have to save any more xx
Finally marrying the love of my life !!
10th August 2013 - 9 years to the day we met !
CommentAuthor*The NewMrsMalin*
We are on quite a tight budget too; around the same as yours. It's definitely a good idea to separate things into desirable and essential like someone said on here. I'd look around and try and get bargains on thing like I did on my wedding shoes (Ceremony and evening) and my bridesmaid dresses. I saved £159.80 just by getting them at sale price :)
Met in 2009
Got together on12th May 2011, proposed on the 12th May 2013
When you get knocked down; smile and pick yourself up again!
Fight for what you believe in!
CommentAuthorMrsH-2B
12K is our budget too.. Hoping with H2B's loan ending next year and hopefully the usual £500-£1000 xmas money his dad gives us that it will increase a bit :-) That extra money will mean we get a honeymoon.. We can afford the flights and accomodation on our budget, but no spends lol.. We want a private villa and all that jazz though..
Our venue - food drink decoration room hire is £6000
Budget for the rest is:
Flowers £250 Rings £1200 Registrar £520 (at this years prices) Cake £400 Suits £550 Photographer £731 left to pay TY Gifts £100
So that leaves £2249 for honeymoon... Flights and villa at is about that.. So just need an extra £2000 from somewhere for spends haha.. I know I've missed stuff off but thats stuff we're paying out of our wages bit by bit.. And our transport is free cause it's FiL's 1969 MG and my mum is paying for my dress.. xxx
I can't wait to become his Wife :-) <3
4th July 2015 <3
CommentAuthorThe-Future-Mrs-B
Our budget is 3.5k excluding the honeymoon and my mum is paying for the dress and rings, and we have been savvy with venue we have got a marquee at a golfclub for free, we just need to pay for the food and the bar will be a paying bar. I'm doing loads of DIY projects myself ie invites, wishing tree, centre pieces.
CommentAuthorLittleMissWorry
Ours is about £14000, we're having 80 days guests and another 20 evening guests. I've just read through what I've written, and we seem to have splashed on rather a lot...however, for each thing I'm happy with the reasons we've spent more than we needed to.
Registrar and giving notice £710 Could have done this cheaper, but we really wanted a Saturday 2pm ceremony
Venue/food/drink £5500 Having the whole day at a hotel. Includes our room for the night, and our own coordinator for the day.
Photographer £1300 We did splash out a bit with this, having two photographers for the whole day, a very nice album, plus 4xparents albums
Venue dresser £600 This includes chair covers and sashes, centre pieces, table crystals, top table flower arrangement
Stationary £200 Includes invites, order of services, menus for tables, table plan - we're making them all ourselves This is one item I don't think we've splashed on.
Hair and makeup £500 (1xbride inc trial, 2xbridesmaids, 2xmothers, 1xaunt) Could have done this cheaper
Rings £1500 Could have been a lot cheaper, but we've gone for platinum rings
Cake £600 (really splashed out on this)
My dress, shoes, jewelery etc £1000
Bridesmaids dresses x2 £360 This is quite expensive, but we needed the convenience. They're sorting their own shoes.
Music £900 Multi-talented lady - violinist for ceremony and drinks reception, DJ/singing in evening This really isn't all needed, eg a CD for the ceremony would be fine.
Suit hire £328 (groom plus 3 others)
Gifts £200 Includes necklaces for bridesmaids,
CommentAuthorGemmaP11
our budget is 10k. I'm doing quite a lot of things myself. I've made my centerpieces (fishbowls with water beads and floating candles on round mirrors which ive stuck diamante crystals round the edges). I'm just starting to make the flowers myself. Fake flowers are an amazing money saver, and an ever bigger save if you make them yourself. I've got a friend whos good at designing things on a computer so shes made my save the dates and is going to make all my other stationery so all i have to do is buy the card and get them printed. Another friend is amazing at making cakes, so shes doing mine for me, only charging me for the ingredients. I also have one of my bm who is a hair dresser, so shes doing my hair along with the other bm's.
The best way to plan your budget is research prices for everything you want and write it all down. Then you can see how much you have for the bits and bobs you need, and how much you have for what you want as extras. Yhen whatever you do, do not go over what you have budgeted, if you go under budget, you can always add something else to the day that you want :)
DIY is a big help on budgeting though, and i'm sure if you ask around your friends/family, they'll be happy to help with the diy-ing x
CommentAuthorNatashaM5
Hi ladies new to this. My budget is between 6-10 thousand. I have been looking on eBay and stuff for some bits. Really nice dresses cheap for bridesmaids. Finding it harder to get a venue and food cheap enough round my area as we have 180 day guests and 250+ evening guests.
CommentAuthorHappyBunny
That it is a lot of guests hun? Have you thought of a marqee? Or however you spell it lol ebay is great hun lots of great bargains xx
CommentAuthorWhovianbride
have a look at the budget bride thread! lots of budgets there for under 10K
Met June 2009 on my Birthday,Met again July 2009 and got
together, May 2010 Moved in,Jan 2011 got pregnant,
August 2011 Got our own place, 2011 Had our Baby Girl,
Dec 2011 Got engaged, July 2015 Getting married! Yay!
We've got a budget of £6500. We are not having a wedding breakfast as its not our type of thing so we will be having a late ceremony followed by drinks and photographs then evening reception. This has saved us quite a bit of money without even realising. When I jotted down my list I put the highest estimates of what everything will cost so if you get things cheaper that's a bonus :) x
CommentAuthorThe-Future-Mrs-B
We also are not having a wedding breakfast we are having buffet style, burgers, pork tenderloin etc and because we don't get married till 2pm we won't be eating till about 4pm so we aren't having more food for the evening, this is saving us loads.
CommentAuthorMrs T. 2 Be
We originally sat down and worked out what we could save between the time until our Wedding month. We worked out a budget not including our Honeymoon of £12000. However, we were lucky enough due to a few circumstances changing to again sit down and speak about our budget. We decided that as we were only going to do this once (we hope lol!) we would do it without the original compromises and would mean a slightly better Honeymoon so we now have a Wedding budget of around £18000.
Our breakdown is as follows:
Venue: £10,945 This includes; Exclusive hire for all day (ceremony and reception), ALL 13 En-Suite bedrooms including a Family Attic Suite, Private/Secluded Bridal Suite, Breakfast the following morning for all guests that stay at the venue or the on site Spa, 80 (we think it will now be around 77) day guests for Wedding Breakfast that we can give choices for, An event team to help us organise the day, Wedding co-ordinator, linen, cutlery, glasses and crockery, Evening buffet for around 150 guests, drinks package (Glass of bucks fizz or Pimms after ceremony, 2 glasses of wine during wedding breakfast and glass of champers for toasting), a selection of canapés for after the ceremony, in house flowers that they change to match our colour scheme and dance floor hire.
Cake: £260 Waiting for official invoice but been told it will be no more than £260 for a 3 tiered cake with 3 different flavoured layers.
DJ: £0 A very good friend of ours is a DJ and has offered to DJ for us for nothing. In return we have informed him that he and his wife will have accommodation at the venue for nothing.
Make Up: £150 Someone that I worked with, her daughter is a make-up artist and has agreed to do make up for me and my 6 BM's
Hair: £200 My sister is a hairdresser so shall be washing and blow drying etc everyone's hair the night before so the hairdresser that has been my hairdresser since a child has agreed to come and style everyone's hair
Photographer £700 This is a someone that my Dad knows and we have 3 photographers for the whole day including all of the reception.
Registrar £550 This is for a bank Holiday Sunday in May.
Flowers: £400 My Mums best friend is a florist so is doing our flowers for cost rather than retail and labour. This is for 7x buttonholes, 5x corsages, Table decoration, Bride bouquet, 6x bridesmaids bouquets , 3x thank you bouquets.
Photo Booth £349 This is for 3 members of staff, props included with back drop from 7pm to the end of the night. We get all photos from the night on a disc, an online gallery, copyrights and all photos are edited for us too.
Chair Covers £200 We haven't looked around too much yet but this is the kind of price we are looking at for a quote of 80.
Bridesmaid dresses £460 Didn't think that this was a bad price for 6 adult Bridesmaids dresses. They are one shoulder made to measure maxi dresses. There is a photo in my album.
Suits £600 This is for the hire of 7 suits.
My Ring £1400 Tiff@ny Wedding ring. H2b's suggestion - I wasn't going to disagree lol!
H2b Ring £800
Table Decs £270 Have got all the bits I need from the bay and other similar places. Shall be making them myself. This includes centre pieces and Sweet Trees for the evening.
Invites and stationary £150 this includes 90 invites, place cards, table numbers, bits for the table plan, printer ink, Save The Dates, glue, card, gems, etc, favour bags and ribbon
Favors £200 We are getting personalised m&MS. Haven't yet decided how many bags we need yet so have over budgeted for this.
Bridesmaid Gifts £110 Have managed to get 6 x pearl/sw@r0vski jewellery set (ear rings, necklace and bracelet), 6x BM photo frame, 6 x personalised wine glasses, 6 x bracelet BM charms.
My dress, alterations, veil, tiara and shoes my Mum has kindly purchased for me :) Which I feel very lucky about!!
TOTAL: £17,744
Started Dating: 25th September 2005
Engaged: 26th September 2012
Getting Married: 25th May 2014
CommentAuthorMrsX2b
I worked out the ceremony fees first then what i wanted to spend on a venue appox £80 a head dj £300 hmsuite £100 = £6000. my dress amount £1200 then my transport £1200 then sorted ring amount out as we are having a ring melted into 2 so no cost there. Then my flowers homemade appox £150 then my diy cake cost in total appox £200 Then suit hire £750 for 10. Then bridemaids dress cost,I will either get them in the sale or hire them appox £180 for 3 dresses. Over 2 years iv brought all the little bits guest book etc, Favours table plan invites etc will all be made by myself. My photographer is £500. Best way to work out what you want to spend is start with whats most important to both of you Mine was my venue dress and transport. My honeymoon cost is not included as we have started having 2 holidays a year anyway, One is always long haul so will just have it in august instead of may.
CommentAuthorMon
Well we have a small budget wedding as well: around £6000
1800 venue 395 registrar fees 650 photographer 120 car
dont really want to spend more than 6.5k and honeymoon is costing 2.2k its already booked. H2b has lost his job thou so really hoping we dont have the move the wedding back and he gets a new job xx
CommentAuthorFernP61
Wow I wouldn't know what to do with 25k let alone 12k were having ours for just 6k maybe a bit less then buying our first home x. Church/ 400. Venue 1000 including 2 buffets and choc fountain. My wedding dress 950. Veil 60 on sale Richard designs! Tiara 25-90! Amanda wyatt. Suits to hire £400 x5. X3 bridesmaid dresses 410. Flower girl dresses x3 120. Flowers 300 approx. car Bentley- free! Photographer 300 half price ! Hair x4 100. Boudoir shoot searching... Gifts 150. Shoes 40. Fg shows accessories x3 60. Honey moon looking.... 1 k budget. Dj 100. Chair covers/ decorations by company 200. Budget for invites and order if services 100. Wedding ring cushion and garter 15. Jupon underskirt free from shop! Think that's all?? Ps favours 50 x if I've added up correctly £5,615 approx we saved money by having a church wedding in our home town and our venue up the road I'm very happy xx
CommentAuthorclive
edited
Here's ours, which is more in line with your budget:
The above was for 48 guests at the wedding, and 51 at the reception. My mum and dad supplied the drink,. We paid the cost per head. My outfit cost twice as much as Lizzie's. I had to get a MTM suit, as I could not find one that fitted off the peg.You will almsot certainly improve here. Shoes were £275 (well you girls can, so why can't I? lol) Areas we scrimped on? no seat covers at the ceremony. we didnt see the point in forking out £150+ for half an hours use. Flowers were kept to an absolute minimum (nine corsages/buttonholes and three bouquets for the bridal party). Ring pillow, i basically fvcked up on lol- i ordered the wrong one :-) it should have been half the price. The price for lizzie's outfit is for the whole shooting match. Alterations, tiara, veil, shoes.
CommentAuthorFernP61
Hi Clive yours is a good amount I did forget to put my cake down a three tier 300, if I had my own way would if had a pair of Benjamin Adams but at 250 I couldn't justify it plus I need flat shoes if I had a cheaper dress then I would have, like you we are not going over board with flowers just mine my x3 bms and something little for the flower girls oh and the blokes were lucky with the church it's harvester time so he told us not to worry about flowers x
CommentAuthorValentinaK
We had a budget of around £12,000 but we haven't been too strict as I would never pay ridiculous amounts for any part. The photography and dress have been the most expensive parts so far at £1400 each (£2800!) Catering for 120-150 guests is going to cost a lot...but we got the venue for free. The church isn't as expensive as i though at around £300.
I've saved a lot on the flowers by making artificial ones myself and in advance to save stress. The only ones that will be real are the big ones that the church do, my bouquet and the top tables.
Saved loads on things that people like to have for the same effect... I have a tablet with good touch screen photobooth software, my own props and background for next to nothing. I paid about 69p to upgrade the app for a slightly better version...but I already owned the tablet. Plus I paid for it by buying my google play voucher from m*orrison*s and getting 1p off a litre so it practically paid for itself and I bought more music for the playlist! Done my own sweety station by buying paper bags online and some scoops, decorated loads of jars and sweets are so inexpensive, I can't see why anybody would pay somebody to do a sweet stand for them when it took me less than a day in my planning so far to organise!
Cake is fruit cake laden with booze, made by my aunty. We're e-mailing save the dates and mum works for a printing supply company and is negotiating with a client for a hefty discount on printing our invites and with expertise in the family in the field and contacts, we can go for amazing paper and styles!
Need to sort a band, we'll probs pay up to £1500 for them and we're using our own play list in between.
Whatever your budget, prioritise and just barter and think of cheaper but as effective/beautiful ways of achieving the same thing. Haggle, barter and ask favours! Borrow things and get creative, especially if you have a year or more to plan!
And we lived happily ever after!
CommentAuthorkrissy905
we started out with a 10k budget and are paying for everything ourselves, but have gone way over lol mostly because we added extras along the way like fireworks, chocolate, videographer plus we are going on a honeymoon which we didn't originally plan for, I have made my own invites, flowers, table centres and necklace so that saved money. I agree with the other ladies make a list of what's most important and what can be extras if you have money left over shop around for bargains and don't make any impulse purchases take a day or 2 to think things through and sleep on it. I have lost count on the things have bought and changed my mind on.
Thank you everyone. You have all been very helpful. I can not believe how much a wedding can cost. Its absolutely bonkers. How did things ever get so expensive. X X
Shona I Reid
Douglas S Smart
CommentAuthorWhovianbride
theres a budget wedding thread will bump it for you(under 10k but very often under 6/7k!)
mine is generaly Venue (wedding breakfast, evening reception, DJ) £4000 *Special offer from our local hotel for midweek* Decorations: £100 (diying ever other centre piece to fit in with our theme) othe decs included in price) Flowers: £200 Photography: £450 max no books just cd of pics Registrar fees: £520 Invites: £110 max Gifts: £100 Shoes: £30 Suits: £350- ushers/bm paying for own Wedding dress: £upto 1000, paid for by mum Cake: £250max Wedding reings: £150max (only want really simple) Hair and make-up: £250
Met June 2009 on my Birthday,Met again July 2009 and got
together, May 2010 Moved in,Jan 2011 got pregnant,
August 2011 Got our own place, 2011 Had our Baby Girl,
Dec 2011 Got engaged, July 2015 Getting married! Yay!
CommentAuthorKATG
Hi Copying someone elses buget isnt really going to work for you. Now you know what you can afford, sit down and work out the cost of the essentials. Then ring around for prices of the other things you would like and decide what you can and cant afford to have. Speak to parents ect and see if they are going to help you or if they can buy anything specific. My mum gave us £1000 that shed saved. MIL and FIL2b have paid for the band and the flowers.Once you know what, if any contributions you will get from family and friends its a matter of having the money available to pay the deposits on everything and then saving the rest of the money to pay the balances. Most services request the full balance 4 weeks before the wedding so that is how long you have to save it all up.
1. Pay essentials 2 Pay other non essential things in the oder of importance
We asked close family to look for bargains. Also when dress shopping set a budget and dont go over it because i know a couple of brides who have really regreted that. Theres lots of sales on for wedding dresses so it shouldnt be too hard.
Good luck hun x
Mrs Wilson2B
Need to loose 5 stones and 2lbs
3 Stones 2 lbs lost so far!!!
Getting Married 3rd August 2013
CommentAuthor*The NewMrsMalin*
:)
Met in 2009
Got together on12th May 2011, proposed on the 12th May 2013
When you get knocked down; smile and pick yourself up again!
Fight for what you believe in!
CommentAuthorminnie11061990
Thanks ladies, you have been really helpful and i am very greatful Xx
Shona I Reid
Douglas S Smart
CommentAuthorNataliesoon2bMitchel
Hi
Budget is a difficult task, I was the same just didnt know where to start. So i decided to open excel spreadsheet and list all the costs included in a wedding such as venue, wedding breakfast, hair make up. .. everything I could think of. I then started off with the venue as to me this was a top proiority. I went around and priced as many venues as I could and put the cost of the one I liked the most on the spreadsheet. Once that was done I moved on to researching other costs and noted estimates. Once I totaled them all up I worked out where we can make cuts so for example we are getting married in Cyprus but the cost was spiraling out of control so we decided to cut out the party here in UK as most of family are travelling with us so that saved £2K. I done that until the total wedding cost was within what I can afford (Divide total cost by number of months away and make sure you can afford the monthly save rate). I then made it my mission to get the items less then what I had estimated, I have now sorted the majority of the wedding and I can say we are about £3K below orginal estimate cost!
CommentAuthorMrsK2b
Hi mine is between £20-£25k :(
Also a good thing to remember some companies add on VAT and they might not quote this to you so be careful as this happened to us.
Venue hire, this includes everything, like the evening food, wedding breakfast, drinks, canapes, Train around the Zoo, security and harpist and photographer food - £9186.60 this includes VAT
My Dress, Bridesmaids dress, shoes for both and all the Grooms - £1870.96
Flowers - £1126 Chair Covers/Post Box - £298 DJ - £150 - H2B friend Wedding Rings - £770 Photographer - £1700 Registrar & giving Notice - £539 Favours Men - £90 Favours Women - £74 Giant Butterfly's for the back of the chairs - £154 Make Up x 5 - £210 Hair x 5 - £120 Giant Cupcake Plus 2 small cakes for Vegan & Gluten free - £100 Chocolate Fountain - £349 Harpist - £425 Cars - £925 - This is for 4 cars Magician - £400 My H2B wedding Present £250 Confitti - £70 Thank You presents for the Bridesmaids are from Jo Malone There are a few things that I haven't put up.
I have also got 3 Sweet Trees and a Sweet Table that has cost about £400
I did get alot of things from Ebay that have been really good.
Cant wait until I become Mrs K
CommentAuthorLeanneD39
I am really struggling with my budget! We agreed a figure, but saving it is proving to be very difficult. Unexpected bills keep popping up and neither of us have much spare cash - it just seems like the day to day grind is taking over! Our date is 11th July 2015, but I'm actually tempted to cancel it - we can't find a venue either. Does anyone else sometimes feel like the budget is a bit too scary and they'll never get there?
CommentAuthorMrsK2b
Yes I felt like this and I still feel like it now.
Im very lucky as my H2B is very good with money. We moved into our first house in February so we had to find £20k for that as well so the last 2 years have been really tight. But its worth it.
Try and save as much as you can per month and at the end of 6 months see how much you have got. Also what about getting married in off peak as this will save you some money.
Cant wait until I become Mrs K
CommentAuthorHappyBunny
our budget started off at 5k we could of done it for that but im wanting a few extra nice things so we are kind of nudged up to around 7k, venue is a massive thing with budgets, a venue can be hundreds or thousands xx
CommentAuthorMrsK2b
I agree with HappyBunny it can be between hundreds or thousands it also depends on what you both want.
Cant wait until I become Mrs K
CommentAuthorRennie1989
Wedding magazines have average budget lists, how much is spent on average on most parts of wedding planning. They're handy because you can cross things off (like dance lessons) and you have an idea how much to spend on other things.
CommentAuthorminnie11061990
i have had the magazines but they dont really make any sense to me. I have been researching online. Any good websites? Xx
Shona I Reid
Douglas S Smart
CommentAuthorGlitterfairy
I never set a budget, never went over the top on things so kept it within a reasonable amount.
Our wedding day - 6 October 2012
CommentAuthorminnie11061990
i have to set a budget as im no good with money xx
Shona I Reid
Douglas S Smart
CommentAuthorGlitterfairy
Nor am I, just that we had so long planning that I just purchased stuff whenever I sold stuff on the bay or had extra money and was able to pay my dress off in parts which helped a lot.
:)
