Research: Cost of a wedding

janbaby

http://www.thejournal.ie/average-cost-of-irish-wedding-is-e23500-122765-Apr2011/?utm_source=shortlink

Some figures to help you budget!

Bride2012

Thanks.

Scary reading material! I need to increase my savings big time!

Borderfox

Scary stuff alright, I have a friend getting married shortly and trying to give her advice not to go mad on the spending.

janbaby

It all adds up so quickly. I found its the little things that I had no idea about that are adding up - cost of registering the wedding, paying the church, paying for the pre marriage course, flowers for the church, music in the church! I was concerned about the venue and band I forgot about all those little things!

Bride2012

Mind you it costs 150 to get married, the rest is optional really.

tinkerbell

That's insane. There is nothing in this world that would want me to spend that kind of money on a wedding day. You don't have to blow a huge load of cash to get married. However, I would go all out on the honeymoon because to me, that is where you should be spending your money - it's really special and it's just you and your partner, and I'd much rather spend my hard earned cash on that rather than on a big party trying to impress everyone.

ana_conda

It sounds like a lot but I guess when you go through the break down it all adds up!

Cathmandooo

I used to be of the view that spending a lot on a wedding was insane, but now that I'm planning my own I realise it'll be worth every penny (cent), I'll be shopping around with every aspect of it and doing lots of research and haggling to get the best deals and doing as much as I can myself. I could be spending it on a lot worse or losing the money on the property market with the way things are at the moment!

ana_conda

Cathmandooo wrote: »

I'll be shopping around with every aspect of it and doing lots of research and haggling to get the best deals

This is a really good point most suppliers are will to give some sort of reduction. I would expect there is a 10% margin that you could ask for. Not all will give it but its at least worth asking!

sparky20203

Hey All,

I'm getting marrined at the start of June. We recently worked out how much everything has cost in total, and 23K isn't too far off the mark! We had really tried to keep costs down. We have a friend making the cake, my fiance went to the UK to buy her wedding dress and the bridesmaid dresses (which was a HUGE saving for us) and have kept our numbers down to 90. But its still costing a fair chunk of change!

No matter what you do, if you want a church wedding, and a reception for you and your family, a photographer, and the other "standard" things that people have at a wedding, it's going to cost a lot...

tinkerbell

23k? Does that include the honeymoon in that??

ElleEm

sparky20203 wrote: »

No matter what you do, if you want a church wedding, and a reception for you and your family, a photographer, and the other "standard" things that people have at a wedding, it's going to cost a lot...

A lot of the stuff that is seen as "standard" at a wedding is still very optional, in my opinion. The idea of spending hundreds on fancy cars, a huge cake, loads of flowers/ button holes etc. is mental to me. It would easily drop €1,000 off your overall budget if you opted out of this stuff. I doubt they're the most memorable parts of the wedding that will stay with you.

sparky20203

ElleEm wrote: »

A lot of the stuff that is seen as "standard" at a wedding is still very optional, in my opinion. The idea of spending hundreds on fancy cars, a huge cake, loads of flowers/ button holes etc. is mental to me. It would easily drop €1,000 off your overall budget if you opted out of this stuff. I doubt they're the most memorable parts of the wedding that will stay with you.

I agree that there is a lot that not everyone will have, but as I said, in our case, we haven't actually paid for the cake, cars, and have only a few flowers. It's still costing in the region of 20K, as my fiancé wanted the traditional wedding. But to be honest, the reception venue, photographer and band/dj cost well over 50% of the money we have spent. A lot of brides still want the fancy car, and the huge cake etc also! And yes, tinkerbell, that's including the honeymoon in our case.

hazeler

Holy crap thats scary!

Now I know that most weddings are bigger but we are having 80 at ours and are coming in around the 10k- including the honeymoon (two weeks in USA!) we have not scrimped on anything. I have gotten everything I wanted and we have had no help or gifts of "wedding things" from family or friends.

I cant imagine what I would spend 23k on... very interesting read though. Makes me feel like I nabbed a bargain... and who doesn't love a bargain!

Irish Wedding D

Hi All,

Heres a link to a recent bridal websites survey on individual costs for most wedding related expenditure....

Hope this helps,

http://www.mrs2be.ie/news/irish-wedding-survey-2011-results.html

Ruairi Finnegan
www.irishweddingdj.com