The average cost of a Wedding is about £11,000, this is no mean feat and I sometimes wonder if this kind of money would be better spent on a deposit for a house or something that the couple will see contribute to more than what is essentially just a big party. The fees for the ceremony are less than £500 on average, and registration is about £50 a couple so where does the rest of the money go?
Firstly the one of the biggest spends for most couples is the dress, this can cost anything from £100 to £5,000 for a designer wedding dress, this cost does not always include alterations to make it the perfect fit. I am not spending £5,000 on my dress but I still need to keep money aside for the alterations, this won’t be done until the last few weeks and I’ll be on a strict diet and wii fit excercise regime leading up to the wedding to make sure I look my best.
The most expensive factors to consider in the wedding is the reception and wedding breakfast, at half a bottle of wine per head and champagne the drinks alone can get quite expensive. The wedding breakfast usually consists of a 3 course menu and for up to 100 guests this is very expensive, so anyone who is not invited to the wedding breakfast please don’t take offense we’re just skint. For the wedding breakfast you are usually looking at an average of £100 a head, so for 100 guests you’ve spent £10,000 already.
The wedding party/reception afterward usually includes a buffet which can be anything from £10 to £50 per head depending on your deal and you have to look at the entertainment, which could be a band or a DJ each costing from £500 for the night going up to nearly £3,000.
There are various traditions over who pays for what, it is either down to the brides parents or the bridesmaids to pay for the bridesmaids dresses. I still haven’t decided on the dresses for my bridesmaids and flower girls but as I have 5 bridesmaids it will probably get expensive.
So we’ve covered the wedding dress the wedding breakfast, buffet and party, and bridemaids dresses and these costs alone are totaling up. You can get deals and if you get married this year you can get recession busting discounts, but you need to be prepared that these costs alone will be substantial. There are other costs not even mentioned like tux hire for the groom and groomsmen, flowers, photographers, wedding favours etc.
We are very lucky that my Mother has generously offered to pay for most of it and me and Luke are trying to get extra money for little extras like the entertainment and flowers. The best thing to do is plan your money carefully, I usually use an xcel spreadsheet to list everything I need then over estimate the budget and set money aside to allow for hidden costs or something you may not have thought about.
Tags: Wedding Budget