All you need is love & £480 :-)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7565534.stm

My wedding cost much less than that! 

I do think it's good though, weddings shoudn't have to be so ridiculously expensive.  Unless people have bags of cash or for some reason want to get thousands in debt of course.   

One of my friends from work put a huge amount of effort into a budget wedding for her daughter and I have to say it was one of the nicest weddings I've been to.  Everything came from ebay or the sale rack and it was really really nice. 

We spent less than $100, but that was just a civil ceremony and a small dinner afterwards.  Maybe when we do our vow renewal (which we are planning on a semi-large do for) I should try to do it frugally.

I think this is very cool of them to try and suceed at, especially with all the influences in the opposite direction for pretty much everyone who is under the age of 80.  Everything is valued by its price, and not by the things that really matter.

I thought this was going to be about visa fees.

I thought this was going to be about visa fees.

I think the board - Hitching Post - gave it away for me.

Well, the visa is the next step after hitching 

Ehhh. Not that impressive considering many of us have probably done it for about that or cheaper. I think our wedding was about £500 which included dress, suit, rings, and wedding reception with 5 course meal for 15 people at a posh restaurant. 

But good on them, because people now-days are getting far to much in debt for a wedding when the important thing is the marriage. 

A friend of mine is spending £15k on their wedding, not including the honeymoon.  I think that is criminal, as well as stupid, especially when they already have a baby and a mortgage.

Vicky

A friend of mine is spending £15k on their wedding, not including the honeymoon.  I think that is criminal, as well as stupid, especially when they already have a baby and a mortgage.

Numbers like this used to sound shocking and ridiculous to me before we got our venue's quote. It's not quite as high as that, but when you have a lot of guests, choosing even a modest food menu makes prices jump up fast. And we're not even being frivolous in the slightest - I really don't give a toss about bridal magazines' notions of "the essential", we just want a nice venue and a nice party for our combined friends and family. We're even getting loads of things for free or very minimal cost: I'm refashioning my grandmother's vintage gown and sewing the bridesmaids' dresses, friends are baking the cake and doing the photography, and my fiance's godmother is a florist. It's just that venue + food + booze adds up FAST when you're talking about 80 people.

And since we've got our quote, so many people have told us that if you can do it for less than ten grand you're doing alright. So it's a good thing we've got a year to save up!

Numbers like this used to sound shocking and ridiculous to me before we got our venue's quote. It's not quite as high as that, but when you have a lot of guests, choosing even a modest food menu makes prices jump up fast.

Absolutely agreed. I'm in the middle of planning a wedding and just booking a venue and hiring a marquee put us over the £7,000 mark. (We've since switched venues, but it's still pricey!)

£500 sounds like a good wedding budget to me!  Seriously, I see no need to go into debt.  Its about celebration and fun, not about the favors or table settings! 

I think it's great to keep things low-key and inexpensive.  I wouldn't have had our wedding any other way.  Only 8 guests there with the two of us, a nice quaint B & B with a gazebo outside, perfect weather, the perfect dress I found on craig's list brand new for dirt cheap, and our beautiful rings, which are sterling silver, and i love that they didn't cost a fortune, only the sentimental value is important.... but then again, I never was really a wedding dreamer.  My best friend and fiance have been engaged for several years because she won't get married unless she can have the extravagant wedding of her dreams, which will cost thousands of dollars... and it is her choice... some people have different ideas about what their wedding should be like.  The only wedding I have been to that was a real blow-out 5 star affair ended in divorce less than a year later... lots of debt for a relationship that didn't work out must really suck!

I used to work with a girl who spent nearly $40k on their wedding and they were still paying it off when they got divorced.

IF (!!!) I was to ever get married again, I'd want something very small. I think I'd rather just run away somewhere to get married and come back and tell everybody we'd done it.

I spent £3000 in total.

That included new dress,jewellery, bag and tiara, favours, cost of wedding ceremony, The hire of a country pub for the whole day, invitations, Cake and stand, disco, Hog Roast, money behind the bar for everyone to have a free drink on us.  Margaritas in jugs on the dinner tables, Car, Flowers, Hire of OH suit and photographer and wedding decorations.

We wanted a country beer garden type of wedding..so thatched pub in a local village, buffet which was huge and really nice not cheap and cheerful style buffet. Decorations I bought on ebay..little cloth butterflies from Australia. The hog roast fed everyone about 3 times! ( best purchase  ever and everyone commented on how nice it was )

I don't think we missed out on anything for our wedding at all...but I just made sure I was shrewd with the cash.  I had a friend who's photographer was £4000 and in fairness they were no better than the ones my friend took at ours ?

I think people can get far too carried away with wedding costs or not researching enough...remember you can always get a better deal on the same things if you look hard enough.

There are a lot of people who are out for the con and cash in on peoples weddings.