I have a budget of £4000.
Can you give me a rough guide to the cost of main aspects of a wedding or tell me how much yours cost? Such as:
Cost of church
One classic car hire
Photographer
Function room
DJ
Buffet for about 60
Suit hire
thanks for all the info so far! its helping to give me a better idea of the cost.
We are getting married in UK in Sept. Our costs are roughly:
Church - we are getting married at the venue so don't have this but registrar for the service is £300 (marriage licence is £30 each). No one told us about the payment for the registrar so this one came as a shock!
We don't have a car but when we looked into it it was going to be around £150
Photographer - you can get ones that will do negatives only rather than an album for around £200 - £500 but then you have to pay to have the pics developed (this will cost a fotune so is worth looking into getting one that will print the pics for you but not do an official album, which you can do yourself). John Lewis do nice albums, but then you can also order some for a lot less money from craft shops such as Hobbicraft. Otherwise a student is a really good idea - but def ask to see their portfolio first
DJ - ours is £280 for 3 hours
Buffet - estimate around £20 - £30 per head but then the alcohol if you are providing wine for the tables is generally £10-£15 per bottle - unless you have a venue that allows you to bring your own - but then you have to add on a corkage fee
Suit hire - if you want tails then depends on number that you need but roughly around £80 per person. We are just having suits so everyone has their own and hubby can buy his new for £500 (you can go to M&S for nice suits for anything from £120). Ties are generally £15 each for silk ones
Flowers - budget around £500 - that should be enough for your bouquet, 3 bridemaids, 4 buttonholes and 5 table arrangements and wedding cake decoration - if you are having a church wedding, you may also need to pay to decorate that. You can always also use your bouquet and the girls ones to decorate other tables, if you just get the vases - depends on what you want really.
It also works out cheaper in venue hire if you get married on a Mon - Thurs as venues often double in price on weekends (including Fri's) but then this means guests may need to take time off work
Table decorations and invites - this can really escalate the costs but we are lucky as my Mum and us two made our own stationary for around £50 and we have bought table dec's over the last couple of months. Confetti recently had a really good offer for 10 disposable cameras for £24 and Debenhams sales, if you watch out for their 20% off days sell voitive candles (we got 36 for £14). Sparklers, bags for favours and chocolates are readily available on e-bay if you want to have them (optional really as guests generally leave them behind and if you need 60 then this could get pricey - £200 - £250)
Wedding cakes - M&S do really nice ones - you can get a 3 tier cake which will serve 144 portions for £199 - obviously if you want smaller then the price will go down.
You haven't mentioned the price for your dress and bridesmaids - obviously depends what you are after - if you go to a bridal shop you are looking at anything from £750 upwards for your dress and £250 upwards for bridesmaids (and then you have fittings costs on top of that £120 max per dress - we forgot to budget for that one!). A friend of mine found her bridesmaids dresses at Warehouse in the January sales and they cost only £35 each. Monsoon do some lovely dresses from £150 for both brides and maids though.
Rings - depends on what you want. Platinum has shot up in price in the last couple of years in the UK, much to our shock when we went to get the wedding rings to match my engagement ring (bought 3 years ago). But our thought was we are going to be wearing the rings for ever so we decided to spend our money on these rather than on other things which would only be there for a few hours.
Anyway, hope this helps - if you have the time it really helps to shop around to keep the cost down and just focus on the important things for you.