# Getting way ahead of myself but...



## smileyfaces

OH has hinted at proposal over the next 12 months at some point but I'm already a bit worried about how much a wedding costs?!

How much would you say your big day cost? And how "big" was your celebration for that money?

:flower:


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## modified

Including honeymoon, we spent £3k. We had 30 people there in the day and about 60-100 at night. You can see some of our photos here to get a bit of a feel for it!


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## smileyfaces

WOW!!!! Your wedding looked amazing! Can't believe you did all that for 3k! Your photographer was amazing! Got a bit choked looking at your pics :haha:


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## modified

:haha: thank you! It's amazing what you can do when you shop around and make some things yourself :)


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## Camlet

Mine is costing me just under 9k & that is for 60 guests for the day & evening. My venue is a converted barn & we will be having everything there. The biggest piece of advice I can give is to watch out for all the hidden charged as some places are really sneaky about VAT etc as I've just found out the hard way :-/ & what ever your budget is try count for a little extra just in case :) xx


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## smileyfaces

Thanks Camlet, I've been browsing venues (LOL!!!!) and some show prices with vat and some without so I will defo have to remember that! X


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## smileyfaces

modified said:


> :haha: thank you! It's amazing what you can do when you shop around and make some things yourself :)

Well it all looked amazing! Particularly liked the photos in the Diner x


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## Snow Owl

We're going for about 3k too and that's going to be 70 in the day and a 100 in the evening.

Again, we're shopping around and thinking out of the box


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## smileyfaces

Wow I just can't imagine how you can get it so cheap?!


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## modified

There are deals to be had. Our venue (same for day and evening) was £1200, would have been £1000 if we'd picked a weekday. That included the ceremony room (gorgeously decorated in modern teal and chocolate brown with floor to ceiling window views out over the quay), private bridal room (to dump junk and presents etc through the day and night or get changed, touch up make up etc), wine and orange juice for arrival and the meal, 2 course meal (we had wedding cake for dessert), evening buffet and a DJ in the evening.


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## smileyfaces

That's an absolute bargain! Every place I've looked at are around 6-7k for that (but for 50 or 60 people)


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## modified

This was for just 30 but each person after that was only an extra £8 or so (unlimited in the evening).


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## smileyfaces

That's really good, I'm gonna go all budget crazy and look for places like that! 

(Not even engaged yet though.....:rofl:)


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## Snow Owl

Our venue is costing us about £1500 which includes a sit down BBQ grill (chicken / fish and hot sides) for 65 ish in the day and a hot buffet of sides (chips, garlic bread and chicken goujons) for 100 in the eve. Also includes all room hires and corkage for the day.

We're topping the evening buffet up with dominos pizza (£150) plus all drinks (welcome drink, meals and toast) are non alcoholic as it's cheaper.

We reckon the venue, food / drink and legal costs will be about £2k


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## Snow Owl

Oh and we're having no starter and are hiring a ice cream cart (£120) for desert!


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## babynewbie

I've worked out that our total is going to be just under £7K :shock: I always said I'd never have an expensive wedding but it's just kind of happened lol we are very lucky though that family members are paying for majority of that!

Snow Owl, LOVE that you are having dominoes for your evening food! Can I come?! :haha:


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## mumandco

We haven't finished paying for ours yet but I think it will be around 3k
Which will be 30 in the day for a 3course meal and then around 60 in the night with a buffet


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## RoseArcana

I've managed to budget about 3.5k in planning stages. The venue has no hire charge for this particular day, getting married at 4pm so we can get away with feeding once :haha: Hog roast possibly. Family friend photographer, making owns invites etc. 

I'm impressed at 3 course meal weddings at 3k! X


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## Snow Owl

babynewbie said:


> I've worked out that our total is going to be just under £7K :shock: I always said I'd never have an expensive wedding but it's just kind of happened lol we are very lucky though that family members are paying for majority of that!
> 
> Snow Owl, LOVE that you are having dominoes for your evening food! Can I come?! :haha:

Our day is peri peri chicken, chips, garlic bread, sweet potato mash and spicy rice.

Do you see a theme.....


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## babynewbie

Snow Owl said:


> babynewbie said:
> 
> 
> I've worked out that our total is going to be just under £7K :shock: I always said I'd never have an expensive wedding but it's just kind of happened lol we are very lucky though that family members are paying for majority of that!
> 
> Snow Owl, LOVE that you are having dominoes for your evening food! Can I come?! :haha:
> 
> Our day is peri peri chicken, chips, garlic bread, sweet potato mash and spicy rice.
> 
> Do you see a theme.....Click to expand...

I do... Babynewbie's favourite foods! :haha:


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## kittiecat

God you ladies are putting me to shame! Atm ours is looking to be about £11-12k (not 100% sure). So far we have been paying for it all ourselves but OH's parents mentioned the other day that they might make a small donation. We hadn't intended to spend this much but it sort of grew. And we are having around 50 day guests and 100 evening though it may be more which we've had to include in our budget to pay for the extra food.


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## kbwebb

Modified I Love your dress! Want one like that so bad :( 

Quick question for you ladies, how did you work out what you could spend? Did you have it saved first or did you save along the way? I'm only having 10-15 guests and don't like to dance so any suggestions would be great about that! Any suggestions for keeping costs down? 

Sorry for taking over thread!!


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## babynewbie

We've just spent as we've gone along. Chosen what we wanted then figure out how to pay for it later :rofl:


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## CakeCottage

Smileyfaces my OH hasn't even proposed yet but we've already booked our wedding &#128563;
So far ours is costing around £18000 &#128563;&#128563; you ladies are putting me to shame!!


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## smileyfaces

CakeCottage said:


> Smileyfaces my OH hasn't even proposed yet but we've already booked our wedding &#128563;
> So far ours is costing around £18000 &#128563;&#128563; you ladies are putting me to shame!!

:rofl: omg hahahaha


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## CakeCottage

Omg to already booking it, or the cost? Ha x


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## smileyfaces

Both!!!! Haha :rofl:


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## Baby Bell

I think ours wil be about £5000 :cry: so much money on one day, it's scary. We got our venue for around half price becuase we getting married in January so that £2016, for 3 course meal with 50 day guests and an additional 50 evening. I go my dress half price as ex display in sale so for £500 instead off £1000, our photographer costing £500 instead of £1200 because it's A January wedding. We spending a lot on the band which I really didn't want to, but then I went to a wedding and they were playing and were amazing. A member is also my mums cousin so we know they are reliable. Family friends are doing invites, favours and flowers for us......we just have to pay for the flowers but not the labour:haha: we very lucky:thumbup:


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## CakeCottage

smileyfaces said:


> Both!!!! Haha :rofl:

We only plan on doing it once and can afford it so we're going all out ha!
We've known each other 10 years, together 6, we're practically married already so we just thought 'why not?' It was his idea to book it x


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## kittiecat

Hehe love the idea of booking the wedding before the proposal CakeCottage :winkwink:.

As far as working out what we could afford...we are saving as we go and so far it's working out ok. We know what we can afford to save each month and I set up a spreadsheet with everything we need and rough guesstimates of what it will cost. It has increases a lot from what we started with though. Prob my fault as I keep seeing ideas I love! Have had to rein myself in at times! But I do also look to save money where I can too or I'm sure we could have spent a lot more!


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## CakeCottage

Haha thanks kittiecat, we're not the most conventional couple, it took us 4 years to get together even though we both knew we wanted to be together ha! 
My mum is helping out a hell of a lot and I've already started to buy bits and bobs so we can spread the cost x


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## kittiecat

CakeCottage said:


> Haha thanks kittiecat, we're not the most conventional couple, it took us 4 years to get together even though we both knew we wanted to be together ha!
> My mum is helping out a hell of a lot and I've already started to buy bits and bobs so we can spread the cost x

That's good then! We're not very conventional either :lol:. We've been engaged since 2011 but just couldn't afford to do the wedding till now. We have had a pretty up and down relationship in the past and have been through a lot but we always came through it despite people saying we wouldn't :). I'm so excited we are finally getting married. I'm also so happy we can afford the wedding that we really want. We planned before but tried to do it for a lot cheaper with a registry office wedding and a reception at a community hall but it just wasn't what we wanted and my heart was never in it. The registry office was small and dingy and the hall was shabby too. But this time we love our venue. No it's not our dream one as that would've cost £10k just for the venue :lol: but it's a venue we are happy with :). And like you said we only plan to do it once and it's not like we have children which would limit us money wise. Are you still TTC btw? I've seen you on wellsk's journal before :lol:


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## CakeCottage

Venues are so expensive aren't they?! Ours is costing £13000 but that's for 96 day guests and 150 evening - ceremony/catering/drinks/canapés/chair covers and sashes/sweet cart/master of ceremonies/starlight dance floor and dj.
I thought I recognised your username, yes we're still TTC until the end of this year and if no luck we'll WTT until after the wedding u? X


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## kittiecat

CakeCottage said:


> Venues are so expensive aren't they?! Ours is costing £13000 but that's for 96 day guests and 150 evening - ceremony/catering/drinks/canapés/chair covers and sashes/sweet cart/master of ceremonies/starlight dance floor and dj.
> I thought I recognised your username, yes we're still TTC until the end of this year and if no luck we'll WTT until after the wedding u? X

Wow that is a lot but worth it if it's your dream venue! I was just too impatient to wait and save for the dream venue :lol:. Ours is nearly £4k and I'm happy with it. It's a lovely country manor set in a leisure park with lodges and lovely grounds. The guests get a welcome drink with canapés, three course wedding breakfast with a glass of wine and a drink to toast for speeches. Then we get an evening buffet with the disco. And that's for 50 odd day guests and 100 evening but we will prob end up paying for more as OH has a large family :lol:. Plus we get the chair covers, sashes, runners etc. so not bad going! I am jealous that you are having a starlit dancefloor though as that's something we just couldn't stretch too! But we get to stay in a lodge for a weekend which I can't wait for! A weekend chilling in a hot tub :lol:

We are back WTT now until after the wedding as we knew if I fell pregnant we'd have to cancel the wedding as we can't afford both. I'm happy waiting now though. Can't wait to start TTC again once we are married :).


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## LaurenH2B

We started on a budget of 3k but it's costing us 10k haha 
we have 50 day guests and an extra 30 in the evening.

But im having everything i've ever wanted so im happy 
x


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## smileyfaces

Sooooo...OH has asked me to show him which engagement ring I like :haha: think I will be engaged soon :happydance:


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