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
CommentAuthorInDreamland
Most ladies on here manage to stick to their budgets, some even come in under budget, it all depends on how strict your budget really is in the first place. Some set a budget knowing its okay to blow it and others set their budgets knowing they really can't afford to go a penny over it.
Budgets range from just a couple of grand up to around £30k on here I reckon.
If you have to be strict with your budget then everyone on here can give you ideas on how to get a dream wedding for less like picking an off season/peak mid week wedding. Getting a sample sale dress, making things yourself and cutting out all the things that at the end of the day are nice to haves but you and your guests on the day won't miss them if you decide not to bother with them xx
Married the love of my life on Saturday 11th May 2013 xxx
Had our dream perfect honeymoon in Hawaii!
CommentAuthorMrsThomson2B
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
CommentAuthorLauraY27
We decided the night we got engaged how much we wanted to spend. We decided on £8000 but budgeted about £3000 for our venue, in actual fact we fell in love with most prestigious venue in our area which has cost us £5300 (in April, on a Monday). However, we are still sticking to our original budget by making everything, compromising with my dress. I fell in love with a £1600 enzoani but could not and will not justify it, so am now looking places like kitty and dulcie, checking ebay regularly and sample sales. I found my bridesmaids dresses in the h&m summer sale for £17 each, and we have a friend who knows someone with a daimler, so we're having that for £100, h2bs friend at work is a photographer and has offered us full day coverage for £200. Two of our closest friends are hairdresser and make up artist so we'll be getting mates rates.
The only downside to not increasing the budget is that we are limited to 40 day guests for wedding breakfast after our church ceremony, so only immediate family and close friends, but that doesn't bother us too much. Like Cathryn our wedding package includes all that hers does plus flower arrangements on the tables, cake and dj.
You can do anything with any budget so long as you shop around x
CommentAuthorWhovianbride
will bump the budget bride thread which gives you a break down of cost of each area for weddings costing 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!
For favours, if you want to keep costs down print a little poem, find one about family and friends and print at home and tie with a ribbon inyour colour scheme.
CommentAuthorMrs Adshead to be!!
Thank you lana2BMrsHands, it's like a minefield to start with isn't it!!!xx
CommentAuthorElliekitty
Overall we thought are wedding would cost about 3 grand (budget wedding) but in the end it cost us more about 6.5k x
---Winter 2013 Bride ---
CommentAuthorSusie
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!!
CommentAuthorprincesspixie
congrats on your engagement there's plenty of tips and ideas on here on how to keep to a budget and if your budget is small then you can always have a diy wedding sometimes thats where the special touches come from xx
Officially married my best friend 2/5/2015 (secretly)
Big wedding 18/06/2016
CommentAuthorMrsMaherToBe
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
2009 met my boy.
2011 had our baby girl.
2013 had our baby boy.
2016 we'll live happily ever after.
CommentAuthorChanelP
Congrats on your engagement. It can be daunting when thinking of how much a wedding is going to cost and I find that anything with the label wedding on it tends to have an extra 0 on the end. H2B and I are planning our wedding and have set a budget of £10,000 not including a honeymoon and are set to stay on budget (fingers crossed). It really depends on how big you want your day to be and whether you want to DIY any bits for your day. Keep an eye out for bargains :) hope this helps. x
XxX
CommentAuthorGlitterfairy
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.
Our wedding day - 6 October 2012
CommentAuthorclairenina
We didn't set a budget. We're not spending like crazy and letting it get out of hand. We just created a spreadsheet of what we want and want to buy, and have stuck to it. They key for us is, to know what we want, and don't let people/companies (especially at wedding fayres) convince us into thinking we need something they are trying to sell.
CommentAuthorGlitterfairy
edited
I agree. I never let anyone push me into something I never wanted or necessarily needed
Our wedding day - 6 October 2012
CommentAuthorWhovianbride
Its mental, we aiming for under 8, 9 max with a band
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!
CommentAuthorStephanieM71
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 :(
CommentAuthoralmost a year wife!!
weddings are as expensive or cheaP as you wanna make it... we budgeted 5k by the time were over and done we will have spent 10k... most expensive thing is our catering at 3k... this does include 4 full course silver service and hot evening buffet with waiting on staff and he supplies all linens and cutlery x
Ill marry my hero
CommentAuthorKirsty
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!
CommentAuthorFernP61
Before you plan you ideally need to set a realistic budget ours was 3k but ended up just over 5k were yet to go on our honeymoon were doing it hopefully this may x
CommentAuthorDanielleR153
edited
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
CommentAuthorShelleyM46
it all depends on what sort of wedding you are wanting mine is a budget wedding at just over 3k but its been hard to keep it at that and when i first started planning as in everything i did want it was well over 10k so reality kicked in we could hold on and have the day i have dreamed of in about 10 years lol or a wedding on a tight budget i chose to not wait as long as with having the kids and a house there will be always something to knock us back anyway. it was only when i started ringing round and booking stuff that i realized how expensive it can easily add up to. the way we have done it is do as much as we can our self's as in invites , ask friends and family to help were they can without been to cheeky : ) good luck and happy planning x
cant wait to marry the love of my life
my soul mate and my best friend