Budgeting / Saving for a wedding we can afford

skinny90

Hi All

We recently got engaged and we will be starting to plan for our day in either 2024 / 2025.

We are struggling on where to start...we have yet to visit venues but will start soon

First of all a bit of a background. we dont want to splurge but at the same time we want to have a nice unforgettable day without the frills.

Alot of this is down to the fact that we are buying a house and all of our current savings is being but into that coupled with just having a baby.

so we are starting to save from scratch..

are we being realistic?

What is an average wedding budget all in?

roughly speaking we'd need a venue for 150-200 guests.

Are there any good places/resoruces to start

TIA

highgiant1985

Firstly congrats on the engagement.

The average wedding budget is approx. 30k-32k. Source: https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2023/0213/1356430-for-richer-for-poorer-the-wedding-business-is-booming/ TBH though its very easy to go well above that in costs though.

Being honest about your situation, new mortgage, new baby... that's a lot already so I think you'll need to be really realistic about the wedding day and what you could afford that means compromising on the likes of venue and date to keep costs down. E.g. those exclusive venues may be nice but hotel weddings are more common for a reason as they're generally cheaper.

There is no reason to splash out 30k+ on a wedding and then finding yourselves in financial difficulty or at risk if one of you were to lose a job.

ozbackineire

Realistically I don't think that is possible in that time frame while saving for a house and with a new baby.

I got married 5 weeks ago and we booked our venue 13 months before the wedding with absolutely zero savings for it. We booked off peak in March in a beautiful small venue with dinner being €45pp (which is extremely reasonable, it has since gone up to €75pp off peak in the venue), we had 83 guests. I bought my dress off the rack, we rented suits, did artificial flowers, we had a DJ not a band because it was cheaper, no candy carts, photo booths any of the stuff that will add extra. Our venue supplied everything, all the little signs, the card postbox, the floral centre pieces so we didn't have that added expense. The wedding cost us nearly €22k. We did spend €2500 on our photographer but that was something we wanted to spend the money on to have great photos and it was worth every penny. We saved our butts off for those 13 months, we were lucky to get some help from our families but for the number that you are looking at you are going to need serious money. To add, we have a mortgage and an 18 month old so there isn't alot of spare cash floating around.

The best place to start is draw up a guest list of who you really want there and then visit venues based on those numbers. Maybe look for off peak rates, see do they have any bundles which include centre pieces etc. Best of luck

SmallgirlBigcity

Hi, we're in a similar situation where we want to have a nice day but there's so many other things to pay for too! We recently booked Fallon & Byrne in Dublin City Centre and it's a great spot for a wedding, and much cheaper than a usual hotel wedding. We'll have the ceremony there but you can do it at the registry office in Dublin, and then a sit down meal for our guests. Most of our guests live in Dublin so they can just go home after the party which is super handy. Check out Fallon & Byrne anyway if you want something cheaper than a hotel wedding but still nice. And congratulations on the enagagement!

Captain Flaps

I used to do wedding photography and F&B is a lovely spot for a ceremony and afters, the only issue I found was that everyone got booted out by midnight. Might suit you fine but something to be aware of, most of the guests weren't ready to stop but were at a loss for where to go as a group so it usually just ended up with friend groups splitting off for home or karaoke.

iniscealtra

I’d realistically save an amount. Say 10,000 euro and reduce the guest list and do not spend over that.