Typical/Average Wedding budget

Flat2dmat · 18-02-2009 09:35PM

I agree with Dr Loon, however if your parents are paying for the dinner that's another big saving on your side.how are the flowers free? Personally I'm going for a very small budget, avoiding a church, only inviting people I want there - about 30, and not getting the videographer, rented cars etc which are not necessary...unless you do consider yourself someth special!! To be honest, I think a lot of females give the rest of us a bad name, by expecting their new husbands to be happy with all the formal torture on the wedding day, that they consider "important". The wedding is just one day, the marriage is for life - which is more important to you will decide your budget!

Flat2dmat · 18-02-2009 09:42PM

[We're inviting 200ish people and I haven't budgeted for it, but many of them will bring cash gifts.[/quote]

The way people invite guests and presume the cash gifts will pay for them - what's the point? I'm only inviting people I really want there and am not expecting any gifts at all, I'm happy paying for their day out with us. The expectation of cash just comes across so shallow.

dlambirl · 26-06-2009 12:20PM

God reading this is giving me the shivers.....

We're not even engaged but we did a rough head count on IF we did get married who we'd have to ask....

Counted 300+ :rolleyes:

emma82 · 05-07-2009 10:42PM

hi guys, im very new to all this boards stuff- other half has always raved bout it but its taken me a while to get here!!

just got engaged- planning for 2011- hotels don't even have 2011 prices yet- should we get signed into something at 2009 prices or wait?

done a very early head count and are looking at 250 already- thats without family input!!! very scared at the thought of prices etc- can i ask a stupid question- how do people afford these huge days?:eek::eek:

seamus · 06-07-2009 10:03AM

emma82 wrote: »

just got engaged- planning for 2011- hotels don't even have 2011 prices yet- should we get signed into something at 2009 prices or wait?

Wait. Go look at places, but absolutely don't agree to 2009 prices - many places have in past insisted on their "right" to review the cost of the menu from year-to-year, so this shouldn't be a problem.

done a very early head count and are looking at 250 already- thats without family input!!! very scared at the thought of prices etc- can i ask a stupid question- how do people afford these huge days?:eek::eek:

OK. For a very modest meal, you're looking at €50/head. So that's €12,500 on the meal alone. We're getting a particularly expensive meal and we're still spending less than that.

It's time to start culling your numbers. Your only criteria for each guest should be, "Will I look back in 10 years time and be glad that they were there?". You don't invite colleagues unless they are very very good friends. Avoid inviting long-lost cousins or people you see once every five years. "We're keeping down costs" is a perfectly valid excuse for only inviting your parents' siblings and not your cousins.
Old college & school friends that you used to go drinking with but haven't seen them since they moved to the USA ten years ago? Forget them. Your next-door neighbour from when you were a kid? Forget them.

Not inviting children will also keep your numbers down. Even if your best mate has five kids that you all adore, tell them to take the night off and come party with you.

Menas · 06-07-2009 10:08AM

Agree with what was said above. If money is an issue then you need to keep the numbers down. A good rule of thumb is that if you do not have their number in your mobile phone - do not invite!
It will be a more special wedding to have a nice meal for a smaller (<100) crowd then a cheap and nasty meal for 250!

emma82 · 06-07-2009 07:26PM

seamus wrote: »

Wait. Go look at places, but absolutely don't agree to 2009 prices - many places have in past insisted on their "right" to review the cost of the menu from year-to-year, so this shouldn't be a problem.
OK. For a very modest meal, you're looking at €50/head. So that's €12,500 on the meal alone. We're getting a particularly expensive meal and we're still spending less than that.

It's time to start culling your numbers. Your only criteria for each guest should be, "Will I look back in 10 years time and be glad that they were there?". You don't invite colleagues unless they are very very good friends. Avoid inviting long-lost cousins or people you see once every five years. "We're keeping down costs" is a perfectly valid excuse for only inviting your parents' siblings and not your cousins.
Old college & school friends that you used to go drinking with but haven't seen them since they moved to the USA ten years ago? Forget them. Your next-door neighbour from when you were a kid? Forget them.

Not inviting children will also keep your numbers down. Even if your best mate has five kids that you all adore, tell them to take the night off and come party with you.

thanks seamus- what youre saying really makes sense! my fiancee totally agrees with you as well. looks like we need to start cutting those numbers down!! cheers

Toots · 07-07-2009 12:39AM

Trigger Happy wrote: »

A good rule of thumb is that if you do not have their number in your mobile phone - do not invite!

That's a great idea!!! Also don't forget, if there's people who you sorta do want there, you can always invite them to the afters. We're having family and close friends only to the ceremony and the meal, but loads of colleagues and other friends to the afters, so you can still spend some of the day with them, but it doesn't work out so scarily expensive.

Edit: actually I'll throw up my budget just for the laugh:

Venue (meal, afters food, drinks reception & booze for about 125): €7300
Photographer: €1200 (including album)
Flowers: €500
Bride's Dress: €800
Bridesmaids (three dresses): €600 for the three
Suit hire: €800 (6 suits, not sure if I've totally overbudgeted here or not, my H2B has to suss out the suits)
Car: €400
DJ: €500
Invitations/Mass booklets supplies & stamps (making myself): €150
Rings: €800
Cake: €200 - €300
Priest: €100 - €150
Wedding registry office fee thing: €150

I'm sure I've left some things out though.

We're not going to bother with a videographer, cos frankly the idea of seeing myself on video is horrific! I'm just about coming to terms with a photographer :P Music for the church will be provided by my OH's brothers and one sister. We're not having a band, just a DJ. And our church only allows two small arrangements on either side of the altar, which actually works out very handy for us because it'll keep the flower costs down. I haven't included honeymoon in this because we're not sure what we'll be doing yet, have to see how the finances are closer to the time. My max budget is €15k though.

Unwilling · 08-08-2009 03:50PM

This is a great break down... hope you dont object to me using it.
8500 is pricey, but you are right, you can not compromise on the venue. That is where we are struggling at present...but each time we find a cheaper option it just doesn't sit right with me.... so I know we have to go with our guts on it.

tatli_lokma · 08-08-2009 07:38PM

ok, seeings as most of these budgets are listed as what people expect to pay, I thought I'd help and tell you what we actually paid! Got married 10 wks ago in Dublin:

hotel: well our total price was just under €1500 for 46 people, and a further 30 people in the evening. This included tea & coffee for guests on arrival, champagne reception for B&G, red carpet malarky (which shouldn't be charged for but I know some hotels do!), 4 course meal (soup, starter, main, tea/coffee. We opted against dessert - had wedding cake instead - explain why at cake price!), open toast, evening food, accomodation for B&G, reduced accom rate for guests at €66 per room. It also would have included flowers on table and cake stand if we had wanted, but we didn't. It also included use of the Bridal suite from night before as I got ready in the hotel. So going on that it was around €32 per head, and then evening guests cost nothing extra. So if you were having a larger wedding, you could budget for €32-€35 per head. It was a 4 star hotel, in Dublin. final cost €1500 (also just want to add, our menu was bespoke to our needs - we met with chef before and decided what we wanted to serve based on some suggestions from him, it was not a bog standard turkey and ham affair - really top notch food, and everyone was very impressed with the quality of the meals. really was restaurant quality and not a dry piece of turkey or mushy carrot in sight!).

flowers: asked around and got someone who works in a florist to do it as a nixer. flowers cost €600 for the flowers themselves, vases and other sundries and €200 for her time. We assisted her so it was all done in one evening 2 days before the wedding. She did the bouquet the night before. Total price was €800 and this included 10 table arrangements in tall vases, glass mirrors for the tables, votive tea light holders, button holes for 10 people and my bouquet. My flowers had a lot of exotics in them such as orchids, lillies, gloriosa lillies etc. The flowers were used for both the venue and the hotel. had I got these through the florist themselves I would have been looking at about €2k minimum, and the person who did my flowers would have been doing them in the florist anyway, so there was no compromise on quality! I gave the vases and table arrangements as gifts to special people who helped a lot, so that meant there was no extra cost for gifts for them.

Dress/veil/tiara: did some bargaining, searched around and found a place with it on sale. Was priced at €2800 in other shops, I paid €1200 for it as I agreed to take the sample. The shop had it cleaned and it looked brand new. In fairness the girl in the shop said that not many people had tried it on, so it had no wear and tear on it. This price included alterations etc. Bought my veil online - €80 as opposed to the €200 in the shop! my tiara was from debenhams, looked exactly like the one I liked in the bridal shop and was €50 or so and then there was a 20% reduction. Similar one in bridal shop cost €180. Same goes for necklace and earrings, and after the wedding so many people asked me where I got my jewllery and accessories! shoes were sourced online €90 inc P&p and were a copy of the ones I wanted retail which were €200. Total bridal wear: €1400

Grooms suit - bought when on holiday. Got a Pierre Cardin suit direct from their factory outlet. Retail price €1000, paid €350 inc shirt, cravat and waistcoat.

Registrar: €150 to register, €120 call out charge. total €270

Ceremony Venue: got married in a castle, normal cost would be €400 but as i was the first to do it and helped them arrange all the paperwork they charged me €300.

Car: only booked it 3 days before as it was not something we were sure we could afford. When we realised we could, we bargained. Also because the wedding was at 3.30 we bargained with him for a half day rate. So we paid €250 for that.

Invitations and ceremony booklets: sourced from abroad. took a bit of organising to make sure they had teh spelling and wording right, but we got fabulous invitations that everyone commented on. 50 day invites and 50 evening (there was a minimum amount so we had to over order). total price was €80 inc p&p. We then used the extra covers to cover our ceremony booklets which we did up ourselves at the cost of about €20 for the paper.

Ceremony music - downloaded onto a laptop and a friend took charge of this. price for the downloads €5

Dj - got a local Dj so no call out fee. He charged €250 for 5 hours playing and ended up playing 6 for no extra charge! he was really good - good mix for oldies and young. He also offered a karaoke - not everyones cup of tea, but cos we had a small wedding it was good craic and we had some great singsongs! this was inc in the charge.

Witness gifts - €150. Solid silver key rings each, engraved, necklace for female witness, solid silver engraved hip flask for the male.

Photographer and videographer - €800 with 500 photos on a CD, we did our own album which was in reportage style. Photographer also did a video of the ceremony. we didn't want the reception videoed, so he just videoed the ceremony. Cost of the software for the album was €100 and printing €100 (we sent it off online to China and they printed them and sent them back). This included a hardback coffee table album for us, 6 magazines for family, 2 handbag size smaller albums, 2 canvas prints. We just got them back and they are fabulous quality. And we can get them again as many times as we like as we have the software. We also gave lots of our friends CDS and self addressed envelopes and got them to copy their photos and send them to us. We have at least 800 photos and definitely about 60-70% of the photos are fantastic quality and useable. total for everything €1000

Cake: cake large enough to feed 100 people and with plenty left over! we got a fairly simple cake, three tier, different flavours each tier. hire of cake stand also (we didn't like hotels one). This was €300 from a local confectioner. We decorated it with fresh flowers which were already included in the flower price. We opted to serve the cake as dessert - this was on the advice of a friend who is a head waitress and has worked at a lot of weddings. aparrently she would estimate that at least 40% of the desserts go back into the kitchen untouched or barely eaten. People who are not dessert people just aren't bothered. By using the cake as a dessert then those who want it can have it and those who don't wont - much less waste and it saves you about €5 per head.

Wedding rings - got from a local jewller who custom made them. €500 for both, mine has small diamonds and his has engraving on it.

Hair and make up - did my own makeup and was complimented on it highly! practiced different looks for weeks before and trawled the net for tips and advice. Hair was €50 and beauty treatments inc nails, tan and pedicure was €100. He got a haircut and shave and mini-manicure the morning of the wedding - total for both of us was €200, but we also paid for my dad and bro-in-law to also have shaves so the whole lot came to €230.

Honeymoon - €800

Even with some sundry extras here and there it came in at under €8000 and we didn't have any 'cheap' or skimpy things. In fact we probably could have saved more money had we had more time to hunt around for prices. (we booked and organised our wedding in 14 weeks) If I were to do it again I would try to get my wedding dress cheaper for one!

I realise we didn't have bridesmaids and groomsmen so that reduced the costs a bit. But then again, if you are on a budget do you really 'need' a large bridal party?

We got some great compliments from people about our wedding, and I know people are expected to do this, but we even got compliments from people who never give credit where its due! so it must've been ok!

In this price I have included everything we spend on food for our guests etc. We didn't borrow anything to pay for this wedding. We got some money back in gifts, but the best bit was, because we didn't borrow for the wedding the money we got as gifts we actually got to spend on ourselves and our house and not put straight into the bank to pay off a loan! we got a new couch and stuff for the house and garden and its lovely cos we can say 'we got that as a wedding present'. If you take my prices into account, for a wedding of 100 people it would cost an additional €1700 inc drinks and evening food, so for a wedding of 100 it would still be under €10000. Fair enough, we didn't have a mad exotic expensive honeymoon, but again this was something we decided against based on our budget. We had a great honeymoon, in a lovely hotel and we also had a few days away down the country. We are now married 10 weeks and have been away for weekends twice! the reason is because we are not struggling to pay back a wedding loan - we can enjoy our 'honeymoon' period with no worries about bills for a day that has been and gone!

One other tip we were given from our friend who works in a hotel is not to bother with wine on the tables - most of the lads will opt for pints anyway, as they won't start on wine and change to pints. Having heard some of the scams that go on with the wine, I think it is less of a headache to not have it. If you don't want to seem mean, then offer two open rounds to your guests. On the day we offered a second round of drinks which was kindly paid for by my dad and it was appreciated by everyone. I have been told that if you do opt for wine on tables, then you need someone to monitor it. After the meal, check how many bottles have been used, and check how many bottles are left on the tables. Make sure any unopened or half full bottles are left on the tables - one scam hotels sometimes pull is they clear off the tables taking the half full bottles away - then when someone goes to the bar for a glass of wine they sell them your wine which has already been paid for - the guest pays a second time for the wine YOU supplied! i have been told by good authority that this happens even in some TOP hotels! another one they do is to send the half full bottles to the bar or restaurant for use. bearing this in mind I would rather go for 2 toasts than wine!

In the end, family offered to pay for some of the things on our list, such as DJ, cake and car. So the cost to us was almost €1000 less than we had planned, which was wonderful.

I hope this info helps people and gives them some perspective on costs. There is a big difference between what you THINK you need to spend and what you actually need to spend. don't believe everything some people tell you -some people just love to throw money away! and they don't necessarily get any better service or have a better wedding for it.

Good luck to everyone planning a wedding, and to those of you planning on spending 30k - one question - would you not just hunt around, bargain and be sensible and then give me the extra 10k you save???? you might as well give it to me than to a hotel! lol

tatli_lokma · 08-08-2009 07:57PM

seamus wrote: »

OK. For a very modest meal, you're looking at €50/head. So that's €12,500 on the meal alone. We're getting a particularly expensive meal and we're still spending less than that.

sorry bit €50 per head just for the meal!!! madness! this is a very commom misperception. My 'meal' was well less than that and was fabulous quality food in a 4 star hotel. €29 per head actually. For a hotel to charge €50 is rubbing it in - and this is not just my experience, plenty of people are now realising that hotels CAN be bargained with.

Two friends getting married next year - one in very posh hotel in Wexford. Price for 80 guests, inc wine, evening food, use of ceremony room, bar extension, tea anc coffee on arrival, champagne reception etc is coming in at €50 per person. so to pay €50 for meal alone is a bit much.

Jurys are charging €6500 and according to their raido ad this is for 100 people, with wine on tables and evening food and tea and coffee on arrival. i think (but may be wrong) that this even includes evening entertainment.

there is definitely room to bargain out there.

And if any of you find a hotel with the audacity to charge for a bar extension take your business elsewhere!

wildsaffy · 08-08-2009 08:02PM

We are doing 150 guests and spending no more than €5,000 including the honeymoon.

It's madness the money people throw at weddings!

Mihalna · 08-08-2009 08:43PM

Hi! I`m an experienced videographer (four years in video-production studio) PM me if interested and I`ll sand you a link to somw of my works. I`m sure you will like it

Thank you
Anna

Unwilling · 10-08-2009 09:10AM

Hi

I would really like to learn more about where you got married (venue)
that is my current stumbling block. I know I can do well with my money for dress, cake, flowers, not interested in cars, have a good price for photographer... but it's all hinging on the bloody venue. Most of which charge MORE if I have less than 100 people. Which I do.
Would love your help

Thanks

i-digress · 10-08-2009 11:03AM

My hotel were going to charge us more because we had less than 120 people, but we agreed to have it on a Wednesday, not a popular day, and they charged us the same amount per head as if we had 120.

prinz · 10-08-2009 12:26PM

The first thing I don't understand is the whole photographer / videographer thing. Sure every person there is bound to have a digital camera or video anyway. What you do is ask your guests to send you their pics of the day, choose the best and make your own album for <10% of the cost of a photographer. tbh there's not a whole lot of difference in the standard anyway for most.

seamus · 10-08-2009 01:01PM

prinz wrote: »

The first thing I don't understand is the whole photographer / videographer thing. Sure every person there is bound to have a digital camera or video anyway. What you do is ask your guests to send you their pics of the day, choose the best and make your own album for <10% of the cost of a photographer. tbh there's not a whole lot of difference in the standard anyway for most.

There is an enormous difference between a professional photographer with professional equipment and a 30 year old with a pocket camera after 6 pints of Guinness. To pretend otherwise is fooling yourself. Same goes for a professional videographer versus your Uncle and his Sony handycam.

Whether or not this difference is important to you is the real question. Apart from having the equipment to take good photos and the experience to postprocess them, an experienced professional will also have an eye for good shots and will know when and how to catch good "moments". These are the kinds of things that most people only catch by accident.

That said, there are plenty of very experienced amateurs (look at the Photography board here for instance) who will give you extremely high quality shots at a fraction of the price. To an untrained eye, the difference between them and a professional will be mostly in the finer detail, which many people may not be too fussed about.

prinz · 10-08-2009 01:08PM

seamus wrote: »

There is an enormous difference between a professional photographer with professional equipment and a 30 year old with a pocket camera after 6 pints of Guinness. To pretend otherwise is fooling yourself. Same goes for a professional videographer versus your Uncle and his Sony handycam.

Is the difference worth the best part of €2000 when people are concerned about budgeting?

I think not. Add to that not everyone drinks and plenty of people are quite good with their "pocket cameras".

prinz · 10-08-2009 01:11PM

shane b wrote: »

Photographers. € 1850
Videographer: €800

deemark wrote: »

Photographer: 1700

Yeah I don't think so. That's quite an amount off any budget don't you think? For essentially the same product? I have seen lots of wedding photographs and I have seen some professional albums, there's not a whole lot of difference for 95% of the pictures in fairness.

seamus · 10-08-2009 01:20PM

prinz wrote: »

Is the difference worth the best part of €2000 when people are concerned about budgeting? I think not. Add to that not everyone drinks and plenty of people are quite good with their "pocket cameras".

http://www.markgriffinphoto.com/weddings.htm

Look at them and tell me that anyone with a pocket camera would produce something remotely as good as those. I've seen people's facebook albums. Hundreds of "nice" photos, but they don't compare with a professionally-produced album. In general, you're paying for the photographer's skill and their time in post-production. I'll agree that many photos look the "same" before post-production, but as I pointed out, the experience and skill of the photographer you hire will determine the types of shots you will get - shots which an untrained eye would miss or otherwise only get if they were lucky.

prinz · 10-08-2009 01:28PM

seamus wrote: »

http://www.markgriffinphoto.com/weddings.htm

Look at them and tell me that anyone with a pocket camera would produce something remotely as good as those. I've seen people's facebook albums. Hundreds of "nice" photos, but they don't compare with a professionally-produced album.

I've looked through the slide show there on that page and like I said the majority of those could be taken by any guest with a decent camera and a bit of initiative. I for one wouldn't be up for spending €1500 or whatever for a couple of pictures of the bride's back or the badge on the bonnet of a car.

seamus · 10-08-2009 01:39PM

I suggest then you advertise your services because if you think you can do as good as that, there's big money in it for you. Or you're simply underestimating the skill that goes into such a portfolio.

10-08-2009 02:06PM

How much does the average wedding cost is like asking how long is a piece of string.
It depends entirely on what the couple want to spend. The number of guests has a bearing on costs, as does the honeymoon and whether you want cheap and cheerful or the blowout of a lifetime in Tahiti.

There are lots of ways to save money on non-essentials.
For me, the things worth spending on are food and music.
Bad food or crap music can make or break any party so we're not scrimping on either of them.

Just a word of advice, everyone from the neighbours to the cat's mother will have an opinion on your wedding. Stuff them. It's your day, and you don't have to explain or justify what you're doing with it.
If you want to spend lots of money it's really nobody else's business.
For some odd reason people love to pass judgement on other people's weddings - they wouldn't dream of remarking on how much XY or Z spent on their car or their holiday but weddings are fair game for begrudgery.

What's a 'mad' amount of money to one person is a few months' salary to another. It's all relative.

Amston · 10-08-2009 02:11PM

We hired a car from Hertz for ourselves, borrowed a car for the Bridesmaids and got my brothers to drive them.. Saved a few bob so it's worth looking at

mam1 · 10-08-2009 02:51PM

Hi dont know if this will be of any help but my brother and his fiance were in
Florida on holidays and they got all of the following
Wedding dress $200
Bridesmaids dresses(3) $300
Flowergirls dresses (3) $150
Veil and brides headdress $110
All wedding staitionary $70
All novelties for 230 guests , Guest Book, Cake topper, Cake Knife $150
Dresses and brides stuff came from Davids Bridal
Walmart for everything else
Also they bought their wine wholesale 5 euro a bottle and worked out a corkage deal for 8 euro a bottle(musgraves)
DJ for the whole night for 400 euro
Photographer is providing Bridesmaids car
Flowers(bridal party and church) 450
Mobile hairdresser for 9, 250euro (gumtree ads)
Beautician (makeup for 9 and nails for 6)300 euro(gumtree ads)
Hope this is of some help

prinz · 10-08-2009 02:56PM

seamus wrote: »

I suggest then you advertise your services because if you think you can do as good as that, there's big money in it for you. Or you're simply underestimating the skill that goes into such a portfolio.

Isn't that exactly the point I was making? This thread is about wedding budgets is it not? If someone is trying to cut costs etc, €3,000 on a photographer and videographer is not really a necessary expense IMO.

seamus · 10-08-2009 03:08PM

prinz wrote: »

Isn't that exactly the point I was making?

No, your point was that your guests' photos would be just as good as any professional's, therefore a professional photographer is a waste of money. Or maybe I misunderstood you.

No, a photographer is certainly not a necessary expense. Your guests will take photos worthy of going in a wedding album and everybody will know somebody who's a hobbyist, has a decent camera and can take half-decent shots for the posed/group photos.

However, if you want professional photographs, then you won't get them from your guests. Unless one of them is a professional photographer.

Saint_Mel · 10-08-2009 03:59PM

dlambirl wrote: »

God reading this is giving me the shivers.....

We're not even engaged but we did a rough head count on IF we did get married who we'd have to ask....

Counted 300+ :rolleyes:

Thats a trap I was falling into while myself and herself were planning our wedding. Between family, friends, work colleagues, neighbours
etc it was coming up on almost 300, until it finally sunk in that we didnt have to invite people.

We finally decided on an immediate family only wedding and the hassle this had avoided makes life so much easier.

The people we were worrying we'd offend if we didnt invite them are actually glad as to be honest people dont really want the expense or hassle of going
to a wedding these days.

For our wedding it'll be us, our parents, brothers & sisters and neices and nephews. 20 people altogether

That said I'm still having a stag weekend away with the lads and they are all happier to go to that than an actual wedding

tatli_lokma · 13-08-2009 12:50AM

Unwilling wrote: »

Hi

I would really like to learn more about where you got married (venue)
that is my current stumbling block. I know I can do well with my money for dress, cake, flowers, not interested in cars, have a good price for photographer... but it's all hinging on the bloody venue. Most of which charge MORE if I have less than 100 people. Which I do.
Would love your help

Thanks

our ceremony venue was Ardgillan Castle - we got married in the drawing room. It was really beautiful. REception was in a nearby hotel, which kept costs down for transport. It was also great time wise as we came straight out of the castle and had photos - no driving off somewhere for the photos. I would recommend Ardgillan to anyone looking for somewhere with a sense of occasion for a civil ceremony.

bigbadcon · 13-08-2009 10:21AM

I personally would definitely not skimp on photography.

Its probably the only thing you have to show for your money after the day is over!

Typical/Average Wedding budget

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