No day getting married to any woman on the planet would compare to a year or more of travelling together. At least for me.

Just don't lose sight of what's most important to you about your wedding day - it's easy to get obsessed with details and costs and all sorts of things.  We tried to keep sight of the fact that everybody that we cared about was able to come and share a day of celebration with us - nothing else really mattered all that much to us.  We made sure that they were well fed and watered and we put on a lively evening of music for them, so a good time was had by all.  It's likely the only time in your life when everybody that you know and love will be there with you all at the same time - except for your funeral perhaps.

Dresses, venues, the colours of the sashes on the chairs, all of these things may matter to some extent but that's likely not what you'll care about in 20 years time when you look back on it.

Fair points.

The last thing you want is for your wedding day to be the best day of your life. That means it's all downhill afterwards. My cheapo wedding weekend was great, but there's been countless days since that have topped it.

Of course, if someone else is forking out for it and wouldn't give you the money for anything else, fine. I'd just never want anyone to go into major debt for it.

Not sure if the wedding car has been mentioned yet but here you go...

VW Camper

...no need to thank me, it's a pleasure to help!

My brother got married in June. It was literally all the family talked about for about a year and a half. But it was a great day in the end. Good luck to all those getting married!

I know. If it was mine it'd drive me mental. Good old brummie coachwork.

Didn't get much change from £40k, I found that whilst individual items seemed reasonable their cumulative effect was devastating on my wallet.

Also overspent on a cake.
Flowers were pricey but lovely, we reused some of the pedestals in the Marquee for the wedding breakfast.
Photographer, videographer was c£2.5k from memory but did a great job.
Quartet, harpist, choir and DJ were all reasonable.
Champagne everywhere added up.
Bar tab for everyone didn't come to much, maybe £700.
Venue hire and all the rooms added up to a reasonable chunk.
Meal c£50 per head excluding wine. Made sure everyone had a bottle of wine each for dinner - can't remember how much that cost.
My suit was £800, in retrospect there was no need to buy one but it fitted well. Dress was c£2k. Hired all the groomsmen's stuff. Bought some Mont Blancs as gifts for my best men.
Honeymoon was c£5k, but well worth it.
Had DarthJim's help with the invites. Laser cut perfection but cost a stupid amount.

Any way, it all adds up. Keep a spready and trying and cut costs on everything as the margin on all that shit is ludicrous as it is for a wedding people really try and take the piss.

regmcfly wrote:

I'm aimin for something like £6000- have had a quote of £4995 for hotel day and night reception, leaving £1000 for dress (mrs reg doesn't want a white dress etc) and car hire. About doable?

That's easily doable. You sound like you're planning something similar to what I did last year. Ours came in at about £5k.

Its all the little things that you don't realise you'll need that add up.

the photographer is an interesting one. Before hand I was a bit unsure about spending too much but the photo's are the easiest way for me to remember as the years go by as i've got a pretty shoddy memory (and a photographic one) so it helps me to remember no end. We spent about 1500 and the guy had a great time. It got to 12 and everyone was slaughtered doing New York New York and even though we told him he could stop and get drunk he continued very professionally.

Alot of people do photography quite well.. might be worth hitting them up but in retrospect i'd not skimp on this too much..

Mine was £650 but that was only really because I'd met her on a Business Link course and like me was starting out so did it as a bit of a favour to get some work in. The one quote I got just to make sure I wasn't being ripped off was £800 for half a day.

i'llneed some major convincing to get married i daresay but it'll be nice if it happens (someone in our families is feeling extremely generous)

"Mrs Danger" ahaha!

I suppose it depends on how you've got the day set up.

By the time everyone had got from the church to the venue it was cracking on for 7 o'clock. I wanted people to get food in them asap so told the caterers to serve it as soon as it was ready. Then we had speeches after (not during).

If you've got everyone in one place for most of the day you might do the speeches before food to fill in a lull a bit.

This is just personal preference but I hate that bit when all the tables are sitting there looking across hungrily at the top table as their food comes out first and you sit in line. I was determined wherever we had it it would be a hot buffet with no table plans.

Go team deeesecount!