Wedding Prices/Costs

JB81

Hi There

Having just made the big step in proposing to my now fiancee, we are starting to look at our wedding day. The threads on here have been very helpful, however one area i am wrecking my head on is costs/prices etc.... We are getting prices from different people for different things and as we have never done this before we are not sure it they are the going rates or not, and on the threads here prices/costs are not mentioned too much. In this day and age price means a lot even for 'the day she has dreamed about since she was a girl'. What i was hoping to do was to get some feedback on what people have paid or or paying for different aspects of their 'big day'. I know you would really have to match like for like but just an idea of the costs would be really helpful. ie: price per head for the hotel, and i know this will depend on what day, time of year, how many courses etc... but its just so we can get to grips with what is out there, also price of photographer, videographer, band/dj, suits, wedding bands etc...
Any help will be really appreciated

Thanks in advance
JB

SSFG

Hi JB,
Well, first off huge congrats!! I know prices are hard to find, some people just won't say how much they paid, I don't mind as I think its up to us to spread the word about good or bad prices!
I am getting married this November and I have found that if you have the time to shop around, you should. Don't be afraid to bargain with hotels, bands etc, I did. In the end the band knocked off €300, and I got the hotel down to 42.50 pp, with a package that includes arrivals reception, 6 course meal, wine, room decor, afters food, late bar, complimentary rooms for parents, and a party the night after the wedding. I also bargained with them for a good deal for people that were staying overnight. It can depend though where you are based, and the time of year, I didn't have a date in mind so I wasn't fussed about what date we picked, but November is a quiet month so if you go for Nov/Dec/Jan/Feb these are considered off peak, excluding Christmas and New Year obviously!!
My photographer is costing me €800, this is cheap as the others I looked at were well over 1k. The package we chose includes a photobook, which is not the same as a big heavy album, so again, it will depend on what you think you will like yourselves.
Video is €1250, I'm honestly not too sure if this is good or bad in comparison, its just that the guy we picked does this thing where he will show guests the video so far after dinner, which I think is a nice touch, and it keeps people entertained!
Band is €1700 for band and DJ, kind of average around where I am (Galway), but again I did bargain a little as November is a quiet wedding month for bands who just do weddings, like ours does.
Wedding bands, again, shop around. We have just ordered the wedding band for himself as we are having it made from my mams engagement rings for sentimental reasons. We will probably go with the same place for my wedding band, he was the cheapest and the most helpful anyway.
Honeymoon is a sticky one, but I'd say you might have to plan for 5k for you both.
I think we are making our own invites and wedding booklets.
Haven't even priced or flowers or wedding cakes or suits yet, might get that done this weekend as there is a wedding fair in Leisureland in Galway if you are near there it may be worth a look.
Car is costing us €225, was 250 got a discount through hotel (mention this to hotel too, some hotels have deals with local suppliers.)
Think for the bridesmaids we will rent a nice BMW or something that way we get to have a nice car for driving into the sunset on honeymoon!!
Church singers are astonishingly expensive, I was a bit taken aback at this, the girl we are looking at is €300 which includes the music, and believe me thats a good price.
I have a wedding budget that my friend emailed me its an excel sheet you just put in what you want to spend and it adds it up!! Its scary though when you see the whole thing done out so beware!!!
Also, don't forget to think of pre marriage courses (ours is €120 but costs vary), registration of your intent to marry (€150 :eek:), and the price of church/priest etc if you are doing a church wedding. And things like wedding and bridesmaids, shoes, jewellery, beautician and hair etc etc...ok I think I've probably scared you enough by now, sorry!! :P
Any questions at all I am happy to help.
Best of luck...

BC

I agree with the above poster in relation to bargaining. Most suppliers will knock something off if you try it. Also, decide whats really important to you at the start and focus on that. You can then try to save money elsewhere.
At the end of the day you can spend as little or as much as you want on most items.

The major Items you need to think of are:

Register the intent to marry
150 euro

Church/Civil Venue charges.
Ranges in price, we paid about 700 in total, when you include cost of the pre marriage course, priest donation, church charge etc.

Reception.
This really varies, depending on what you want, whether you are paying extra for pre-reception drinks/food, afters food etc. It will also depend on your number of guests.

Music
Church singers average price i got was about 500.
Band, average price was about 2K, its more if the band have to
travel, if you want a DJ etc.

Outfits
Dress for bride, bridesmaids, suits for men etc.
This really varies, you could buy a second hand dress for 200 euro
and buy bridesmaids outfits in sales etc so it depends on what you want.

Hair/makeup/tan
Again it varies depending on what you want, how many people etc. Ours was about 500 for 4 people including trials.

Rings
Wedding bands.

Photographer/Videographer
These can range from 500 to 3000 depending on what you want! We went for the cheapest CD only package for the photographer and did the photobook album ourselves afterwards.

Invitations
We did ours ourself but they are usually around 2 or 3 euro per invite not including the stamp.

Cars
range from 200 to 500, we got family members to drive us.

Cake
Again they range in price. We got a 3 tier cake for 350 which feeds about 140 people. It was one of the cheapest we could find (short of buying a cake in marks and spencers or somewhere).

Then there are all the extras like chair covers, favours, mass booklets,shoes, jewellery etc that you may or may not want.

Edited to add in cake!

ThePiedPiper

We got married in April 2010 so prices may have come down a little bit again since then.
Hotel package on a Saturday was €52 per person including wine, champagne and tea/scones on arrival, chair covers, 3 rooms, etc.
Bride's dress was €1,000 in McElhinney's and bridesmaids €70 each from RK Bridal - New York. Kickin ourselves we didn't get the brides dress there too.
Band and DJ package was €1,700 and were excellent.
Cake was free as a friend made it.
Church music was free - friends again.
Cars were free - just used friends' Mercs, Audis, BMWs
Church - I gave the priest 150 euro I think even though he didn't want to take anything
Suit hire - €80 each for 8 suits
Flowers were mostly free as family friends did them from their garden - we bought a gift for them as a thank you.
Shoes and accessories probably came to about 100
I don't know what my wife and bridesmaids paid for hair, maybe 50 quid each
Invitations we did ourselves so cost of invites, thank you cards and postage was probably about 100 euro.
Honeymoon was about 1,500. Ryanair flights and 4 and 5 star hotels in the Alps, skiing, car hire, etc.
Engagement ring was about 2,000
Wedding rings were 100 and 500 as far as I remember.
Civil registery fee I think was 150? Open to correction on that one.
No video as I think it's a waste of money and is rarely watched.
A family friend with interest in photography did our photos. Again, he just accepted a gift of couple bottles of wine/whiskey.

I'm probably missing a few details here but I think those were the main items. I wouldn't change a single thing about our day and we were in no debt after it which was great. Too many people spend a small fortune on a wedding and end up regretting it.

JB81

Thanks for the replies everyone, very helpful and loads off information.
I would be interested in the excel sheet you spoke about SSFG, if at all possible, you could maybe PM it to me, or if not i could PM you my email address and you could email it to me,
If not possible thanks anyway for your detailed reply.
JB

Toto Wolfcastle

This site has a great budget planner. (Excel)

You can download it here.

We just removed anything that we didn't need from it.

As for finding out about costs, some wedding magazines have average costs in them. Look at the Irish ones rather than the English ones. You could also get prices from different suppliers and you'd get a fair idea that way of what's 'normal'.