Question for those who have been/are married!

[meow951]

I know there is a wedding section but i thought that i'd get a better response here so hope this is ok.

Me and OH want to get married but we don't have a lot of money. At the minute we're thinking of getting married at the end of October.

At the minute we're thinking of getting married in a registry office with about 17 people. Then going to a restaurant for a meal and then having a party somewhere in the evening and the people that don't come to the wedding will be invited to that.

Does anyone regret spending too much or too little money? I don't want to spend loads but i dont want it to be naff!

 

[Aidedhoney]

I got married in a local hotel with 20 guests then had a huge reception that night for 150. It was the kind of day i wanted. It was a fantastic day and looking back even though we are now split i have no regrets!

Its your day.......do what makes you happy

Good luck x

 

[sparkle_1979]

we got married in Greece. If you think about it, we would have been having a two week holiday anyways, so the only extra was possibly approx £1500, I loved it and wouldnt change what we did! x

 

[netty]

we got married in a registry office with 24 family members.

We hired a huge country house from the friday till the mon. All 26 of us stayed there all weekend.

We got married on the saturday and hired a disco for us in the evening and catering for the meal after wards. Also hired a wedding car and hairdesser for me and my bridesmaid.

For me it was ideal as we had a lovely family holiday with the wedding included
it was perfect for us.

It was about £3000 all together.

Good luck making the plans

 

[mrsraggle]

We got married in a registry office with 24 guests, had a meal at a lovely hotel afterwards and did our own DIY disco (very successful!) and honeymooned in Egypt. It cost us £5k (honeymoon was £1.5k of that) and I loved it and wouldn't change it for the world. It was so intimate.

 

[Jchihuahua]

We had a very small, intimate wedding too, just immediate family and best friends. Got married in a hotel, followed by a gorgeous meal, then a party at my mum and dad's in the evening. It cost about 5K all in and was a perfect day. I wouldn't have changed anything .

 

[binxyboo]

I 'splashed out' and spent £7k (the average wedding costs £20 -£25k now )
We got married in the local town hall with 75 guests, then had a reception in a local pub function room. the evening had about 120-150 guests. We had a ceilidh band (present from the In-Laws) followed by a disco by a friend with an MP3 - it worked well (just downloaded as many cheesy tunes as we could!!)!!
I think we spent the right amount of money for what we wanted.

Also, don't forget, where you live can also affect how much you spend. Here in Hampshire, registrars fees are quite high!! They vary from council to council!!

 

[feisty_filly]

we spent 2000 in total and that included reg office, cake, dress, kilts, venue, buffett, dj, hotel rooms, cars and everything!. i loved my wedding and wouldnt have had it any other way.
we got it cheap as we only put on a buffett and not a meal. we also had the reception in a local pub.
i had about 100 ish people for the bufett and about 200 for the disco

 

[feisty_filly]

but we didnt have a honemoon (we were ment to but the cash wed put aside for it went on a 2k vet bill for my horse) also muc as i LOVED my dress it was from ebay

 

[Mindy_mini]

We spent a lot on our wedding.... £17500 (poss £18000) and whilst we both agree it was the best day of our lives and we dont regret it theres a bit of me which thinks thats almost 1/5 of our mortgage.

Its a personal thing.

 

[gills8752]

I spent about 2 grand on our wedding, which was ina church, then to a pub with a band, belly dancing and fire jugglers for entertainment. Posh buffet dinner and free first drink.
If I did it again - I'd elope with 2 close freinds as witness' lol

 

[Harveysmum369]

We had a church wedding,with about 90 guests and then a reception in the village hall with a buffet,I think it came in at under £3000,the most expensive thing was my dress which cost £899.There was one snobby little moo at our reception who complained it wasnt a hot meal but apart from that everyone enjoyed themselves.
xx

 

[SKATERBUN]

Recently got married. we spent less than 1k on our wedding and did it the way we wanted it to be not to please everyone else. There was just the 12 of us, just family, and a registry office event and lovely meal to follow. Thats all we needed to show our love to each other.
Maybe next year after bubba is born we can throw a proper party.

I'd say do what makes you two happy.
You can spend a lot of unecessary of cash on stuff which in my opinion is grossely overpriced, e.g wedding pics can cost from £800 -1k! :-o
My BIL has a swish SLR camera so we used that to do all the pics.

I hunted around all the local florists to get the best deal on bouquets, they were all coming up with quotes of £80 but I got one to do it for £50.
I bought my wedding dress a high street store (monsoon), for a fraction of the price that proper wedding shops charge.

When the word wedding is mentioned expect another zero to be added on.
For a day that can be over in a flash, you have to consider what bits are really important to you

 

[bky]

We got married at a courthouse for $70, and only told OH's grandparents as we realized we needed witnesses. We told other people later of course.
I am really pleased we did it this way as stress is no fun, and for us being married was more important than getting married. I went to my cousin's wedding later on and I just can't imagine having to deal with all of that. Not my style at all. Not even really her style but she felt she had to do it for the family. It wasn't a very big wedding even, but she had a garden rented and tables and catering and stuff and pictures and...yeah would have made me mad.

 

[sarah1989]

We had a wedding with about 75-80 people and spent a total (for the ceremony & reception) of 2500.00$ CAD.

We had more people at the ceremony than we did the reception, as my family didn't want to "celebrate our marriage" It was a small wedding with family & friends, those who meant the most to us.

Our reception was smaller, just a few very close friends, DH's family and the wedding party, but it made for a much more relaxed evening, where we could sit around and actually talk to those who attended, which is what we wanted in the first place.

If I had to do it over, I don't think I would change a thing

Best of Luck on your Wedding Planning!

 

[Linzi]

In total we spent £3k (admittedly could have been less because of my dress which was £1k. We hads about 30 guests at daytime do & 80 at evening. No meal or anything, just a DJ and a buffet. It worked out really well and couldnt have been happier with our day!

x

 

[AnnaHughes]

We spent £5.5k ( includes honeymoon)

Got Married in Jamiaca - £2k between us for the holiday, £1k on wedding stuff when there (licence fee, flowers, steel band, champagne etc) £1k on wedding dress, bridesmaid dresses and suits for blokes, and £1.5k on a hog roast buffet party for 250 guests when we got back

I would not change a thing - had 38 friends and family that came with us - so they each spent £1k to get there, and without them, it would not have been anywhere near as nice - so, i guess more like £40k if you include all their costs, however, they paid for a 2 week AI holiday, in a 5* resort, and made that their holiday they would have gone on that year anyway

I would do it all again if i could - and we are going back for a reunion holiday for our 5 year anniversary!

 

[MrsBop]

The only part of my wedding I regret is letting my MIL take over the reception, we didn't even want a reception, wanted to do something similar to what you have said but she offered to pay for what we wanted and then chose something completely to her taste, it was like a party for her, horrible, I wanted to leave at 8pm, we wanted the reception where we first met but she booked somewhere else to save a few quid even though we'd said if money was an issue we'd put money towards it too! I don't look back on my reception as a joyous occasion tbh so make sure you have it YOUR way no matter how cheap or expensive.

 

[Reedy]

We went all out for our wedding but we did get married in Cyprus so this did include a 2 week holiday in a pretty expensive hotel (once in a lifetime thing)
my parents paid for quite a bit too which helped. There was around 35 of us which included 3 children, we all had a great time & tbh the best holiday we have ever had, our friends also agree.
I do wish that we hadnt spent so much though & maybe cut back on things we didnt need to spend so much on as we are now in 12k debt

 

[dizzyisacow]

i regret not spending enough money on important things, like the dress and hair, and regret spending money on stupid things like shoes/bag/feeding way too many people. e.t.c