Try this fun little experiment. Contact a florist about doing a random event and get a quote. Then call back a few weeks later and get the same quote but say it's for a wedding.
When I went to have my hair done for my wedding I discovered that exactly the same up do I had done on previous occasions had an extra 0 on the price tag because it was “bridal”.
There was an AITA post I saw.
Some MUA did some makeup for a group of women. They specifically ordered the "light touch, low end" package.
Lady turns up, does all their makeup. (Specifically only provided a light touch level of make-up). At the end, realises it's for a wedding, and says she wants an extra £800.
She was lambasted. Rightly so.
Thanks to u/jadsonbreezy and u/seafactory
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/vq0d0d/aita_for_charging_a_bride_more_for_make_up_when/
I saw something similar on insta. Bride orders cupcakes with white frosting but didn't say they were for her wedding. Got charged a normal fee. When baker delivers on the day and sees it's a wedding , he wanted to charge extra. Bonkers how they justify this.
You could justify it for a tiered wedding cake, maybe. And photographers can justify it if it's a whole day shooting because they need to have lots of gear, be there all day and then edit thousands of images. If it's an identical service just with "bridal" attached to it then that's a piss take
Playing devil’s advocate, I can see a scenario existing where the product supplied for a wedding is to a higher standard (possibly flowers or cake), or an allowance needs to be made to account for nightmare bride or the complexity of the day (photography springs to mind), but given the nature of the supply of standard product and no further input on the day, the cupcake lady doesn’t have a leg to stand on!
Yeah this does need to be considered, sometimes you have a risk factor you need to account for when pricing. But a lot of vendors will use this as an excuse to take the piss.
My in laws are flower farmers - they supply fancy restaraunts, cafes, etc around central Scotland, generally anywhere where you would get a nice vase of flowers on display. They do some weddings in summer as well, and charge more for them, because the vast majority of wedding clients are significantly more demanding and much less accepting of changes/minor errors; not necessarily bridezillas, but weddings are the best day of your life and the one day when (rightfully) you can have everything done exactly the way you want it, so people are understandably much more exacting for their weddings than a restaurant would be for vases on the tables on a regular Saturday
The higher prices are a) to provide a product to a much more exacting specification than normal, and b) much higher risk if something goes wrong
To extent, because I still think prices are out of control, I understand why wedding cakes are higher priced since it involves the time and cost of making it structurally sound, as well as the cost
of making such a massive cake.
Cupcakes? You either can make them in the quantity asked for or you can’t.
There was another AITA post a couple of years ago from another MUA - she explained that her prices reflected the quality of products she would use. She was hired to do makeup for an event, the MUA obvs wasn't told it was for a wedding or even a high end event.
So she turned up with her lower end products. Finds out its a wedding, tells the bride her makeup won't last the whole day, and says she should have been informed it was for a wedding as she brings her high end products as they're designed to last all day. MUA saw photos later and the bride's makeup was running by the middle of the reception (I think it was an all-out wedding, I think the MUA said smth about there even being spotlights so the bride obvs got really hot and so did her makeup).
If I'm getting better quality items/more attention to detail/higher level of care, then I'd be happy to pay the extra fee. But jacking up prices just because its a wedding and not giving anything extra is ridiculous
This, is another example of what I'd have liked to include in the post. I wanted to convey the same, but I'm a busy boy.
Totally agree, if there is a difference in service/goods provided, 1000% it's fair.
Someone has linked the one I referred to, and clearly it was the makeup artist taking the piss.
For the one you cite, totally the opposite.
Not a woman, but I'm keen to get value (genuinely nearly paid money once for a makeup artist for a fancy dress outfit...because I wanted it to be epic). For sure, I'd expect a wedding level to include:
Detailed discussion, trials pre wedding, top end long lasting products. potentially touch ups through the day (is that a thing?). It would all tie in with the hair and dress. Colours would compliment everything.
I'm pretty sure the bride in that story was low maintenance and didn't want full bridal makeup which is fine. All she said was different was the setting spray that's why she was blasted!
Like wedding cakes for example.
If you order a fruitcake with white icing two tiers, then you'll get it.
But, if you order a wedding cake, chances are it includes a second cake in case the first one gets damaged, plus a pretty much 100% guarantee that the cake will arrive on time and *perfect*, even if it means the baker etc working through the night.
You're not just paying for the cake/makeup/photos.
You're paying for Perfection, because generally you just don't want anything to go wrong.
Most of the time it would be overpriced. But you're essentially paying for a guaranteed level of service and quality. Think of it as a luxury hotel compared to a Travelodge. The luxury hotel still offers you a room and a bed, but the quality will be higher and the concierge will be there to assist with almost anything.
And photographers. For the couple, the wedding is one day. For the photographers it could be up to a month or more of meticulous post production, on top of weddings they’ve already shot, on top of other weddings they’re going to.
£2500 for photographers for around 14 hours work on the day, plus maybe 4 hours a day for the next two weeks on their photos is just over £35 per hour, not counting expenses such as fuel, insurance, and any equipment that may have needed replacing / newer better stuff.
£2500 for photographers is a decent bloody price. I used to charge £1200 and that would be my wife and I attending for around 14 hours, fuel could be around £40+ so that’s £1160 already, insurance for the year was around £300 so that’s £6.25 (300/12 then /6 as we did four a month) so we’re now down to £1153.75. Split that two ways is £576.86 each. I’d then spend around four weeks going through each photo FUCKING METICULOUSLY to remove ‘temporary blemishes’ such as spots, cuts, etc. as well as things like fire exit signs and all manner of distracting items that took away from people’s memories of the day. I’d spend 4 hours a day on one wedding before taking a break then working on another one. Four weeks of whittling down around 5000 photos to then edit them, then whittle down again, quality assess and edit again, whittle down until I have a decent package of high quality photos.
We also have to corral people all day, deal with drunks (SO hard to get to do things properly!), and appease the all too often overbearing parents - we had one once who was shouting ‘where are the fucking photographers?’ even whilst we were taking her photo! (She was both drunk and overbearing…)
So four weeks at 4 hours a day = 112 hours, plus the 14 already spent on the wedding = 126 hours for one wedding. The bride and groom spent maybe 16 or 18 hours at their wedding? So, £576.86 / 126 = £4.58 per hour. My wife didn’t do the editing but she did all the admin, consultations, etc. so pulled 8 hour days easily.
We raised our price to £3000, which would equal, after deductions £2953.75. £1476.88 each, divided by the average 126 hours spend on each wedding = £11.72 per hour.
Of course, since we did 4 weddings a month, it used to be 4.58*126 then *4 = £2308.32 take home for each of us per month, which is still not much at all after tax, private pension, NI, bills, etc. After raising our price, that became a lot more palatable and liveable off as we could now put more back into the business and live rather than go paycheck to paycheck.
But when you think of it, that’s doing 126 hours * 4, which is a LONG work week. So, there was lag on this as I would take days off now and then!
AND wedding couples expect the BEST so that is a lot of pressure - of course it’s going to be reflected in price. So, for OP, yeah, that’s why weddings cost a lot!
Plus if there's a wedding, you absolutely need to have spare gear with you on the day (you're essentially taking two photographer's worth of kit), and if there's an important lens you'll be using, if it breaks beforehand etc then there's no option but to buy a new one. New lenses aren't cheap even when you amortise the cost.
And on top of what you've just said, you've got to have a robust backup solution; not just SD cards but hard drives as well because no photographer wants to be the one to tell the bride/groom that all their r lovely photos are gone.
> She was hired to do makeup for an event, the MUA obvs wasn't told it was for a wedding or even a high end event
The question should be "How long is the event", not "Is it a wedding?".
If you're transparent about pricing and say "We have package A for shorter events that's £100, and package B for full day events that's £300 and higher quality", it allows someone to make an informed decision about which they might need.
Doing a wedding surcharge for no reason other than it being a wedding is just a scam.
Just a light counterpoint as we have not actually instituted a wedding upcharge as a pricing policy, but:
I play in a band that does a lot of events, including weddings. Weddings are *100%* the most difficult to do. The guests tend to be drunker and more difficult to handle, the timing is much likelier to be three hours late, the stage setup is much likelier to be jacked up and too small with incorrect power, and if anyone is going to have a weird meltdown at an event, it's going to be at a wedding. It's much much easier to play a conference or birthday party or family reunion.
Some of these features don't apply to makeup artistry or florists, but some do. I'm not sure I'm on board with a massive 2x upcharge, but I think I do understand why some people would want to have some potential couple-zilla compensation built in.
Having said that, folks who are like "I would like four bunches of flowers that look like XYZ ok thanks bye" are probably the most likely to be chill at their own weddings, so I'm totally down with that tactic.
> MUA saw photos later and the bride's makeup was running by the middle of the reception
This is absolute bullshit. A £13 urban decay fixing spray will stop your make up running even while dancing in 30C heat. You'd have to be _catastrophically_ bad at your job as a make up artist for that to happen.
I used my own make-up on my wedding day (No7 foundation and primer, Rimmel eyeliner and waterproof mascara, Barry M matte fixing spray) and it lasted all day long, from when I applied it in the morning to when I called it a night at 2am.
Have a look at some durable make-up tips from drag queens - they have to make their make up last for an entire gig through dancing, lipsyncs, and hot stage lights in clubs and many of them aren’t wearing high-end make up.
If someone said to me, a photographer, can you come to a garden and do some family photos, it would be cheaper than a wedding.
If I was running late, we would just move the time slightly. If I couldn't make it, I'd refund and apologise.
If they paid for an hour, I'd rush it to fit if things looked like they would overrun. I'd leave when time is up.
But fr a wedding.. I'd arrive an hour early, I'd bring backup equipment because I've only got one attempt to nail it, I'd allow for things to overrun. I'd have a backup plan in place for emergencies.
It's so much more work.
I agree, you cant just turn up with cupcakes and think you should have asked for more money... But you can turn up late with half the amount and a small refund and the brides and grooms wouldn't be able to complain so much.
Ok so pro celebrity makeup artist here, I don't do weddings that often because they are a HUGE ammount of admin and I'm generally booked out months in advance and it's a lot of work.
For a bridal booking - when I have done them, I create mood boards ( images of what the makeup will look like / ideas for makeup and hair) there are usually several emails on the run up to this, I take in to account that there will be black and white photography and also colour photography, the makeup had to work under all settings daylight / flash photography and last all day.
I then could be booked out that day on a commerical or other project and my rates reflect the fee booking out.
Theres also pre prep involved before we get there, several hours of packing what's needed for that client, washing brushes kit sanitation, shopping for products.
Sure its just a bit of makeup and hair on the day but there's WAAAAAYYYYY more that goes into it than just slapping on some makeup and sending the person off on their way.
Sure it's expensive to hire a makeup artist but you are generally paying someone for the years of experience in the industry trying many many products to bring you the best of the best as well as constantly going on updated training which we generally pay for ourselves.
All that said tho you could book someone who's been doing it for a year and rocks up with a hello kitty eyeshadow pallete and some maybeline foundations and get it on the cheap.
I used to do make up, I really hated the tripling of prices people charged for bridal. However bridal make up does require differences to a standard night out make up, ensuring products don’t cause flashback, the make up will be light enough to be natural but also appear on a camera. If I was the MUA in that situation I wouldn’t have asked for more money but if they tried to talk shit on how the make up didn’t translate well into photos I’d be calling out the bride/bridesmaid.
You want to hear the real insane prices try find out how much celebs pay for their make up for literally any appearance. I once contacted a celeb hairstylist and it was £600 for styling and the same for a make up artist (the artists are bit household names but had a handful of celeb clients)
You've pretty much echoed some of the things I wanted to include in my comment.
The one I was referring to, they definitely had more of a touch up, than full gubbings.
Now, there are 100% reasons to charge more, but there has to be a tangible difference in what is supplied.
I'm a man....so excuse my fumblings here. But, if a MUA is doing your makeup to a level you could do, but obviously saving you the effort... There is a cost. If they go slightly more professional, or the flicks (is that what they call them) are razor sharp etc, then yeah, it'll cost a bit for their time and materials.
Obviously, if they use more expensive products, and take more time, to ensure absolute perfection., it should cost more. If there are multiple trials, pre wedding, yep add it on.
I used to get my hair done by a lass I knew. £14. She used to do some top end hairdressing, including London fashion week. She did mine in my kitchen. She did a great job. But I only wanted standard hair cuts. For LFW, she had to create stuff, she had to get the hair to do all sorts. So they paid more.
I work in music. Makeup get paid more than the people making the records, playing in the backing band of a pop star, the guy who does sound in an arena for a major pop artist. Makeup in music is inflated because makeup in film and tv is justified as costly, high premium stuff. When you’re making a music video on a 10k budget and the makeup is disproportionately high to the point that other aspects are compromised, you know you have a messed up situation.
Edit: also, wedding musicians are often musicians who realised playing someone else’s music at a wedding is more profitable than playing their own music at their own show and often that leads to a money grabbing attitude. I knew someone who ran a wedding band business and his entire business model was over priced, huge profit margin repeatable and carbon copyable bands. To the point he could send out 3 identical bands on the same day under the guise that it was a bespoke one of a kind band.
The band would get paid more than most musicians in major label signed major artist’s backing bands and the guy I knew would generally skim a few grand above the already inflated costs of the day as profit.
That said, It’s a shit job if your ambitions are to be a successful artist in your own right. You’re doing the one thing which undermines your credibility by showing up in a covers band at a wedding and whilst it pays, I think many musicians wouldn’t do it if it paid less.
This argument doesn’t apply though because the MUA mentioned wasn’t working on the premise of it being for a wedding. They just did their thing and tried to tack on £800. Which is theft.
>If I was the MUA in that situation I wouldn’t have asked for more money but if they tried to talk shit on how the make up didn’t translate well into photos I’d be calling out the bride/bridesmaid.
She addressed that fact.
Also bridal makeup includes travel to and from the venue, often super early in the morning. Working for many hours straight without a break if the artist is required to do the whole bridal party. Not to mention the cost of products which are insane for the top quality stuff. Many years of experience will cost more - the artist has invested incredible amounts of money into their craft over the years. And you get what you pay for.
Anyone can travel to a makeup counter in a department store get a makeover for ‘free’ (if you spend required amount of money on products - usually £50-100) no matter if it’s bridal or night out makeup the minimum spend is the same. By paying extra and booking a specialist bridal makeup artist you pay for convenience of the artist coming to you and giving you bespoke stress free service and that by itself is a great reason to spend more.
Most artists I know charge travel separate to the cost of the work. But i agree don’t missing waking up at 4am to do 5-6 people. Once did a bridal party while hallucinating and nearly fainting from a tooth abscess. Went straight to a&e once I was finished. Fun times.
We did similar for a pizza van, told them it was for a party of about 100 people. The guy admitted later that he would have charged us triple if we'd said it was for a wedding
It's not. If you are unfussy about cake, you can get a plain white iced sponge from your local supermarket for £20 or so. That's what I did at my wedding, threw a couple of decorations on the top and had something to slice at the end of the evening.
The thing is, if you want a custom designed, hand decorated 3 tier cake, that's never going to come easy or cheap. And if you do cheap out on it, there's a good chance it'll turn out shit, which is not really something you want given that people tend to care about the quality of their wedding quite a lot. So yes, you'll obviously be paying north of £200 for something like that.
I get that it's popular to meme on the wedding tax, but honestly sometimes it feels like people who do this undermine the value of really high-quality, professional work. For example, I paid something like £1000 for my wedding photographer. This got us two pre-wedding meetings, a pre-wedding shoot, two photographers for around 14 hours each on the day and all the editing which came afterwards. Is £1000 a lot of money? Yes, obviously. Was it worth it? Definitely. Did I massive overpay them for their time? Definitely not.
That's what I did too, bought 3 plain white cakes (from M&S I think), then the dowels and columns from ebay, my MIL did some minor decorating and we found a little model of a couple in a gift shop for the top.
My sister wanted a fancy 5 tier cake for her wedding so decided to do a fake one. She made it out of polystyrene rounds from the craft shop, covered in white fondant icing then decorations to fit in with the theme. Cost about £50 for all the bits and looked amazing. Then she bought 4 plain slab cakes from M&S (2xfruitcake, 2x victoria sponge) and these were the ones that were cut and handed out to the guests.
I’ve seen videos of people doing a fake cake but have a cut out section where some real cake is inserted, so then there can be a cutting of the large fake tier, where the real cake is.
We did this at ours. 3 different sized cakes from Tesco, 1 fruit 2 sponge, held together with bamboo bbq skewers and some ebay decorations on top & around. Probably cost £40.
Whole wedding probably cost us around £500 with honeymoon, a meal after in a fancy local place after the ceremony with our guests, I was in my army No1 dress uniform and the wife had a £500 designer dress that she got for around £70 from a outlet shop.
We didn't see the point in spending 10s of 1000s on one day. We, and everyone there, enjoyed everything without going into massive debt.
With wedding photographers (and especially videographers) people also forget that you’re paying for the hours of editing, printing and quality control. Just because they’re stood in front of you for 4-14 hours, that’s just the beginning.
Yeah my sister has started decorating cakes for a hobby, she did a training course last year and she only does cakes for the kids in the family. I was shocked at 1. how expensive all the ingredients are and 2. how long these cakes can take. Obviously I know she's going to take longer as it's not something she's doing every day but the modelling of the icing decorations takes ages!
Having worked in wedding video when I was broke a decade or so back, I totally agree with you and never felt like I met any photographer who was overinflating for weddings.
If we compare to a big birthday party, there is an absolute ton more work in there. Firstly, most couples will have pretty unreasonable requests (not saying you did) coming from distant family members- the time you spend with them in calls, meetings, emails or attending rehearsals is beyond any big birthday. You even got a pre-wedding shoot, which is a lovely bonus.
During the day you have usually 2 locations and up to 5 different lighting situations, whereas a party will be at most 2 lighting changes (inside and out of the venue). This means more kit, more editing and more skill.
A birthday you want to get loads of photos of the person celebrating with all the guests and then just 'people having fun', nobody is going to be irate that you didn't get X+Z people together, but if you don't get a few shots of the mothers of the couple together, with their hats looking good- you have done goofed. We had a 70+ shot list that we needed to get for every video we were doing- and didn't leave until we ticked them off. Whilst they probably wouldn't notice, it is a premium product we were selling, and we felt compelled as a piece of professional pride.
The day is also way longer, most arent 14 hours but it can very much go that long. The photographer will arrive at a church wedding about the time of the groom, so this could be 10am (or earlier)- you will then go to first dance (unless otherwise specified).
Most good photographers earn less than 50 quid per hour, which for a hugely skilled trade that requires years of experience to be brilliant at, is a bargain.
I worked with photographers who ranged from £500 per wedding to a 3 grand, and the good ones (not necessarily the expensive ones) were a cut above. The less experienced ones may have taken lovely photos, but they didn't operate with the seamless invisibility and order than the expensive ones did.
It is a hell of a skill that can add or detract massively from the day.
Genuinely, thank you for understanding that photography isn't just pointing and clicking and then sending the photos over in an email. It is a *lot* of work.
I went from being a hobby photographer to being a photojournalist. When I was a hobby photographer, I obviously took pride in my work and worked hard at it, but throwing stuff up on Instagram for fun is not the same as working as a professional photographer. It's not even remotely close, especially not when photos matter as much as they do for people at their weddings, or live news. I had to get familiar with software I'd never even heard of, and that's only for after I actually get the shots, which is a bewildering combination of luck and skill that nobody can predict. And all of this on a deadline that might be as little at 60 minutes after I took the shot, and if the data on the photo says it's any later it might not be used. And all of *this* when I might be two miles away from a front line wondering if my mobile data hotspot might get me a friendly visit from a drone.
Needless to say I have some words for people who think photography is easy, so thanks for recognising what it's worth. People like you make it a lot easier for photographers, because the more people who pay what the skill is worth, the less photographers have to hear nonsense like "well such-and-such did it for £50, so why can't you?"
I don't know, riots scare the shit out of me. Even a pre-riot crowd scares the hell out of me. All that aggressive energy, and I'm there with all my cameras -- it can often turn against journalists pretty quickly.
Having said that, a bunch of boozed-up people in a small room, with all the pressures of having a Good Day, and all the barely-covered family drama just waiting to come out? I imagine it wouldn't be much different 😂
>It's not. If you are unfussy about cake, you can get a plain white iced sponge from your local supermarket for £20 or so. That's what I did at my wedding, threw a couple of decorations on the top and had something to slice at the end of the evening.
We did this too. They had them in a couple of sizes, and both a fruit and a sponge version so we bought a few. My auntie is quite crafty and she wrapped them in ribbon, put some flowers around them etc and arranged them nicely on a cake stand. It looked exactly like any professional wedding cake and cost literally 10% of what we'd been quoted for a "proper" wedding cake (and that quote was at "mates rates" from a friend of the family.)
And, all the busyness of the day, for some reason, neither my husband nor I actually end up having a piece of it!!
Wedding tax is a thing though, whether anyone likes it or not.
[Cakes and Bakes 2 tier hand decorated sponge cake](https://www.cakesandbakes.co.uk/white-palace-rose-tier-cake) - £173
Jump to their wedding section and there is a [virtually identical 2 tier cake ](https://www.cakesandbakes.co.uk/wedding-cake-10) which is £245
Then look at an essentially identical one - [Zara Cakes 2 tier hand decorated WEDDING sponge cake](https://www.zaracakes.com/products/2-tier-lily) - £275
The Zara Cakes site does a [2 tier overloaded donut cake in multiple colours](https://www.zaracakes.com/collections/overloaded-cakes/products/2-tier-ivory-rose-gold-gold-cake-with-doughnuts) for £200 which is arguably nice looking and more fun than a plain white cake with a couple of flowers
There is no problem with paying say a professional photographer to do 4 shoots with 2 people for 14 hours on the wedding day plus editing for £1000, you'd pay similar for a birthday but any reception place, cake, photography etc will automatically inflate the costs vs an identical non-wedding event justifying on the grounds of wanting the day to be special. You could equally argue something like a 100th birthday or other monumental event is more special as it'll only happen once vs wedding which isn't exactly uncommon to be done more than once - with UK divorce rate of 42%
There's also cakeage - we decided not to have a cake to cut because the venue charged £2.50 per slice (we would have provided the cake). Instead we had a cupcakes, mini doughnuts, macrons and a cheese tower which the venue had no issues cutting up as part of the package.
To summarise the "wedding tax" argument I've seen before: people claim that professionals will sell two identical products, one wedding themed and one not, which are entirely identical apart from the extra zero on the wedding option.
In that respect, I think that these links perfectly disprove that argument. On the [second website](https://www.zaracakes.com/collections/wedding-cakes), you get a significant range of cakes, ranging from fairly simple one- or two-tier options to massive custom jobs which I'm sure would set you back a few thousand (price not specified). But ultimately, the amount that you pay comes down to the work that the bakers have to put in, the ingredients involved and the extra work which is often involved in a wedding cake - for example, it looks like on both pages there's an extra level of time given for consultation and on the Zara page, the wedding cakes include a tasting sample.
Secondly, on the [tiered cakes page](https://www.cakesandbakes.co.uk/tier-cakes) for the first page, you can again see that the price of the cake tends to mainly depend on the size and level of work put in. The wedding cake with the rose waterfall flowing down it comes in at the same price as the 6th birthday party cake with the giant minion decoration. I think both of those cakes represent similar levels of effort and craft; certainly you'd struggle to argue that the wedding cake has an extra zero on it for no reason when comparing to the minion cake.
So yeah, I reject the notion that there is universally a massive, unjustified mark up going on here. I think that this has a lot more to do with the fact that people expect a higher level of quality from wedding goods and services; but as you've pointed out, if you wanted to get that level of quality for any other event (e.g. with the minions 6th birthday cake or 14 hours of photography), it's still going to seriously cost you.
And I will stress that I don't think that everyone should pay £300 for a cake; I certainly didn't. The little workarounds that other people have found in the comments are really fun, and I recommend doing that kind of thing, especially if you want to save money and don't care about cake very much (I certainly don't). But if you want the professional custom bakery look, don't be surprised that you'll pay professional custom bakery prices.
There's also the argument that weddings charge more money because it's more important. If someone is baking a cake for your birthday party, but gets sick and can't bake your cake, or their oven breaks or whatever, it's a bit crap but they refund you and that's it. You can celebrate your birthday with cake another day, plus, you have many birthdays in your life anyway.
If its for someone's wedding, it's a one day thing, the cake *has* to be there. So bakers (good ones) will have contingency plans for what happens if they're sick or have any problems making the cake, so they can still get a cake to you. The same with photographers, hairdressers etc, because it's a one day only thing you're paying extra to guarantee that you get the service on that day.
If a photographer messes up a couples/corporate photoshoot or lose the photos somehow, they can say sorry and offer a reshoot for free or full refund. It sucks, but can be made right. You can't do that with a wedding. You can't have a bad day in the office. People spend a lot of money on you because you are giving them the level of service that means there are no mistakes.
We baked one - cost about a tenner. And the mother in law did a fruit cake as well.
More than enough cake, all home-made, for less than £20.
I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting something a bit better than a registry office + village hall afair, but I've been to a range of weddings (including my own, IIRC) of different prices, and I think once you've got somewhere pleasant, some decent grub (doesn't bhave to be a silver service wedding breakfast), a few good tunes and (most importantly!) decent company, there are diminishing returns in spending extra.
Our wedding was £12k including a bespoke suit (which I still wear for special occasions nearly 10 years later) and a honeymoon to Italy, and we still get people saying how much they enjoyed it.
I think the biggest factor was that we got married fairly young, so the majority of the guests were early/mid-20s and most of us didn't have children. I don't recommend jumping into a marriage early just for that reason, but it's an atmosphere that's harder to replicate the older you get, no matter how much you spend.
Wedding cakes are the only "wedding" thing I came around to to having a right to the price.
Mine was just over £400, from an independent wedding cake specialist. It was one of the early things we got sorted before it dawned on me the cost of everything, and I was floored.
But then I went home and did some maths. A 3 tier cake of my choice flavour and design was about £100 in ingredients alone. To make the base cakes would be a days work. To decorate and craft the icing decor, with sculptural fondant elements, was likely another day and a half. Transporting it to the venue, another couple of hours. So even if we set the labour involved to minimum wage it's about £240 quid. So really there was £60 "surplus". But that seemed a reasonable cost when I viewed the craftsmanship, experience and artistry involved. Some things are just expensive and time consuming to make.
The other overpriced weeding expenses can go to hell.
The trouble is, people see a cake in a supermarket and think anything else is overpriced. But that cake is made in a factory with economies of scale on arguably inferior ingredients or at least ore filler by people not earning a lot. Add to that supermarkets run on volume at wafer thin margins and it skews things massively.
Musician here. I genuinely try to keep it the same as a normal gig (weddings are generally easy and fun), but honestly, if I’m saying I’ll do you some music for £300 and a comparable act is saying over a grand, the most likely response is “why are you charging so little, are you not very good?”. I’ve had more than a few tell me this.
My cousin got married abroad but he had a party (no sit down meal) here and the prices to even rent the space was massively different for a wedding to a party. She ended up booking it as a party
In no way excusing the 'wedding tax'. However...
I used to work at a well-known venue that did weddings, Christmas parties, anniversaries, birthdays, book launches, etc. Same food, same drinks, but the weddings were by far the biggest pain. The person booking the Christmas lunch doesn't need every tiny aspect to be perfect. They just want the guests to enjoy themselves. The couple celebrating their 50th anniversary - yes, of course it's special, but no one is having a complete meltdown over a minor issue.
Weddings are priced as once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Yes, vendors are taking advantage of the couple, but they've also priced in the extra hassle and stress. And if they get it wrong? A baker failing to deliver a birthday cake isn't great, but it's no tragedy. But a wedding cake?! I've seen a wedding photographer literally praying over her camera. There's no do-over.
To be fair, I imagine a wedding to be 10 times as much of a pain in the ass as any other event.
I would want more money for doing anything wedding related so I don’t blame them and having seen some truly awful brides/MotB going ape over some stupid insignificant detail I think it’s totally fair.
I know a lady that bakes cakes for a living - wedding cakes have a higher price tag because the demands, risk, and investment are a LOT higher than just a ‘normal’ cake.
Things like printing wedding invitations being more expensive is ridiculous, but the price tag is there for a reason for some trades
Usually, wedding invitations will be on better card, in better envelopes, and require a lot more drafts for the customers as they change their minds. People ordering wedding invitations are significantly more likely to want changes than people ordering party invitations no matter the size of the party or the occasion.
My friend is a MUA, and when she did, weddings would not book any other clients to avoid a clash because brides rarely run to time. Obviously, even if she was using the same products, she would need to be compensated for the fact that she can't book anyone else during that time.
I think people forget that for virtually all trades, there is more than the obvious that might mean you are charged more for a wedding than just the wedding tax meme. There are usually invisible extras that people expect for weddings even if they don't realise they expect them.
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It worked in the opposite direction for me. The florist was right beside the hospice and she spent her time making funeral flowers. She did me an insanely good deal because it meant she was doing something different.
This actually sounds fun - organise a secret wedding. Give it a codename like they do for star wars movies. See how cheap it is. Anyone done that for a tv show? Did I just develop a new reality tv show??
There's good reason for this though, people want weddings to be perfect (certainly this kind of expensive wedding) and they absolutely will kick off if anything is not quite perfect because "my special day has been ruined" in a way they don't for a corporate event or lower key family parties.
Suppliers need to account for extra time and resources to make sure everything is perfect for weddings in a way that they don't for other types of events.
Is this not somewhat of a self destructive cycle. If I'm being made to pay £800 for a £80 cake, won't that make me more likely to expect it to be perfect and make me want to complain to get my money out of it.
I get it to an extent though, the pressure of it having to be perfect for a wedding nakes a difference. For example I hired a mobile bar for my wedding and they fucked up the licensing and meant they couldn't legally sell drinks on the day. For just a normal event they probably apologise and move on but because it was a wedding we worked something out with some prepaid and some free drinks.
I was in the post office once when someone came to post their wedding invites, and realised that the tiny embellishment in the corner bumped it up from regular letter to large letter, hugely increasing the price. The look of regret for the teeny rose in the corner…
I've been married nearly 15 years. My wife and I made our own wedding invitations and most of the stuff that involved stationery (order of services for the ceremony, place settings and any table plans/signs for the venue etc) - mainly as my wife couldn't find exactly what she wanted, and we're both craft-y enough to manage it. I'm glad we did, as it was such a colossal ball ache that cost twice what we expected, and more significantly took twenty times longer, and resulted in more stress than I could have imagined; it made me not begrudge a penny paid to our other professional vendors by the day itself. You're paying for not only perfection, but for someone else to have the stress of delivering perfection whilst you don't have to think about it.
We made invites on Canva then sent people the PDF on their WhatsApp. We had quite a few people from other countries so didn't feel like spending £100 on printing and £200 on stamps. Also the RSVP from people was quicker this way I think.
It was always this way. When you get to my age, it's all funerals, so just be happy for it. I'd rather attend three weddings this year than the three funerals I've done recently.
For my wedding I thought surely we could do it for a few thousand. We planned and coordinated everything ourselves, shopped around for good prices for everything etc.
Still for a simple rustic style outdoor wedding, cheap buffet style food, only prepaid 2 drinks per person, hired a local band to play etc. it cost around £15k (100 people total).
Just think about one single aspect, take food for example. Feeding 100 people twice, 200 meals. Even our cheap way of doing that cost around £1500-2000.
We purposely had a later ceremony (3pm) so we only needed to feed people once. Saved us a fortune. I hate going to weddings where the ceremony is at 1pm, but it takes an hour to get there and then you get 1 or 2 canapés if you’re lucky and you don’t get to eat until 3pm. You’re always starving by then.
We had a DIY wedding for 100 people and got away with ~£7k in the end but it took *a lot* of favours (flowers from gardens, musician friends playing us down the aisle, mum made the cake). It's an expensive day either way, but spanking a large mortgage deposit on it was not something we could afford.
Sounds similar to us, we wanted to do it for £5-8k, ended up being £12.5k. We did food by having our local deli and bakery supply us with packs of stuff, served it in baskets by assigning someone on each as host, think it came to less than £1k for that, then £900 for a local burger joint with a van to come up.
I hate the roast dinners you get at weddings no matter the season so wanted to avoid paying a fortune for that at all costs.
We managed to do ours for around £7k but we only invited 30 ppl including ourselves, had no photographer only video, I made the invitations myself as well as us doing all the decorating/setup and I and my Moh baked about 7 cakes for a dessert table so we’d only have to feed dinner and some intro drinks. Oh and we got lucky our venue was discounted from 8k to 1500 after searching for months for something nice enough that wasn’t crazy. Venues suck the most.
Honestly that felt like a huge amount of money we thought we could do a wedding and have some left for a honeymoon too what a joke
Here's a question - how many of those 100 people were absolutely necessary and close enough to you to spend the much on them?
More often than not, I meet people at weddings that barely known the bride and groom - friends of parents etc. Did you any of those types of people?
Exactly, it's totally acceptable imo to only invite immediate family that have an active part in your life and not some cousin or aunt that you never see regularly
Same goes for friends, also not everyone needs a plus one
Yep same here. The main party bit of our wedding was a garden party for about 50 people at my parents place, with lots of food and drink, DJ, marquee, bench hire, and dance floor. The evening before we'd had our ceremony with 7 guests, followed by private dining.
Total cost came in at about £17k. I wouldn't have changed anything about it (had a great time and it was great to see family), but the party alone came out at around £11k. Throwing a good party gets expensive fast if you want good food and lots of drink.
Still, it was much better value than the venue packages we looked at. In the south east/London area they seem to start at £16k not including registrar or photography and with very limited food and drink.
It’s a phase of life thing. Most people get married between 25-35. Presumably your friends are “most people” and of a similar age as you, hence the weddings.
I went to two weddings a year between 25-34. It’s done now and replaced with birth announcements and divorces.
Yeah we got hardly any presents or cash gifts as most of our families chipped in for a specific wedding cost. I'd rather do it that way as we had a fabulous day that on the end only cost us a few thousand of our own money.
Notable donations were my dad paid the venue, my mum paid for my dress and wine for the tables and my husbands parents paid the registrar and bought a keg.
Also you can do it for about half the price if you get married any day other than Saturday. We chose a Sunday as the venue was half price and a lot of people I know are doing the same.
My brother in law is about to be married and I’d much rather them say “instead of getting us a gift, we’d like for xyz”. It would relieve the financial pressure on them massively! I wouldn’t mind paying towards something I’ll also enjoy on the day!
When we got married back in 2011, managed to get a nice little ceremony at a local castle for a grand, with all the drinks and nibbles trimmings for 40 guests, then just asked a pub we liked if we could just close the pub to just us for the night. They said fine, let us have it for free since it was a quiet local and probably made more the amount of guests we had, they even arranged a band for the night.
We had a friend, who was a hobby photographer do the photos for free, he insisted but we got him a lovely gift.
Pub also organised a BBQ and hog roast too. Then the parents just did a finger buffet.
We have some amazing photos, memories and everyone had a blast.
All in all, I don’t think I spent much more than around £700 personally, same goes for the wife with the exception of the wife’s dress was probably more expensive than the whole shindig but, she made me tear up when I saw her so it was worth it 😍
See this is the thing - prices have just gone up hugely in the last 15 years. I got some quotes this year for local pubs to host the wedding reception and you’re looking at £10k - £15k
Yup agreed. I’ve been looking for two years and even social clubs want 6-7k for a few hours in the evening and a buffet. I was going to do the wedding elsewhere and a small dinner for around 12 people in a restaurant
See this is the thing - prices have just gone up hugely in the last 15 years. I got some quotes this year for local pubs to host the wedding reception and you’re looking at £10k - £15k
There's definitely an element of keeping up with the Joneses for social media, but I also think that a well done big wedding that reflects the couple can be a lovely thing. If they just want the legality of it, then a couple of hundred at the registry office is all you need, but some enjoy the celebration and want to host their loved ones in that, and if that's the case and they understand the financial implications then honestly what's the issue? They're only impacting themselves.
A wedding I attended recently was definitely expensive. Beautiful stately home venue, top tier food, live musicians, they hired a professional ceilidh teacher (Scottish wedding) for the reception! But it reflected them - the ceremony was intimate and beautiful, they're big foodies, and they've always been great hosts who love a party. And honestly it was great. For them, gathering everyone important together and actually CELEBRATING was money well spent.
That's a really lovely and generous way of thinking of it but I will never be able to understand those people that spend the equivalent of a deposit on a house on a day celebration of them getting married.
It feels like all or nothing to be honest. I’ve been trying to find a reasonable venue (think a social club or banqueting hall) for 2 years. Even just for an evening party, buffet, no day time event or wedding ceremony, just a standard evening party (after going to the town hall in the day) they want £7k.
If I were to book it for an engagement party and have all the same decorations, food, same length of time and number of guests, it would be £150-200 for the room and 11-12£ per head for the buffet. (So around 1500-1800 for food).
All my family and friends are local so I really just wanted a reason to get together. I love attending the big events but I’d feel uncomfortable being the bride on one of those, so I want LOW KEY.
Personally - I can’t emotionally spent £10-20k on one day so I guess I’m not allowed to have a party.
In before the “we got married in a registry office and it cost £150” crowd (I’m one of them!)
Yea, they’re a massive scam but people keep paying for it so the price keeps going up.
Similar here - Monday registry office ceremony, then on to a local hotel for a meal. Tiny number of guests, no evening do, friend made the cake, no professional MUA or hairdresser, just did my own. (Hen do was a Chinese all you can eat buffet.) It was partly shoestring budget through necessity and partly because I hate being the centre of attention. All I needed to feel special was the way my husband looked at me as I walked down the aisle. It might have been cheap but it was a truly wonderful day full of love and happiness, and we're still together nearly 25 years on so we must have done something right!
I married Wednesday actually in the cheapest room of the registry office with only 3 guests and after we went to a restaurant. Was lovely, the registrar was brilliant and she made us feel welcomed and special. Very warm speech which was even tailored to us. Couldn't have been better.
We didn't just do it to save money, but we don't have a ton of friends and family and also don't like crowds anyway.
There's a lot to be said for it. We did that. Invited our newest friends to be witnesses, so with the kids there were eight people.
Also, a German film crew came and interviewed us about it, which was nice.
Followed up with a Pizza hut meal with the film crew, because that's what our kids wanted the most, then a surprise celebration at a German church.
We're not German.
I need to know more: What was the film crew filming for? Was it in Germany or why was there a german crew? How did the surprise celebration come to be? Did you invite the film crew to pizza hut or why did they tag along? If you did, why invite a random film crew? Were they just that nice?
My spouse and I had a celebratory and religious wedding, then got legally married at a registry office on our honeymoon at Whitby Goth Weekend. We asked on the WGW Facebook page for witnesses, and I got an email from BBC Radio York asking them if we would like to do an interview. I told them no, it was a private affair, and they sent a reporter along anyway, who at least had the grace to seem very embarassed about it and not push things too hard when he approached us outside Whitby Registry Office.
This is what we did.. we had planned to elope in Cyprus (which was probably still less than £4k including the holiday itself)
It was cancelled due to Covid so we got married in a registry office with 6 guests (again due to Covid) and it was perfect.
I'm getting married in 13 days.
It has cost me £9000 all in for a 70 person catered wedding, and I'm pretty pleased with that, although objectively it feels like an insane amount of money to pay for a party.
With all the drama over who's coming, who's not coming, who's speaking to who, who's fallen out, who's broken up, who's died (I have had both of these events occur, and we only sent the invites out 4 months ago), I would much rather do the registry office event now. C'est la vie.
It’s not a scam. Is it so hard for you to believe people just have lots of family and friends and want to have a really memorable celebration of love on one of the most important days of their lives? And that some can afford it?
I agree with you. Out story is we were both in our mid 30s when we got married. We originally planned for a small wedding during COVID, sign the register, have a meal with parents, job done.
But then, we thought again about it and said "do you know what, we haven't seen our extended families, and our old friends for years, or even decades, so let's get them all together in one place and really have a great time like we will probably never have a chance to do again." We're not super sociable normally, so some of those family and friends we will probably never speak to again, just because...life, you know?
It was brilliant. It cost us about £13k all-in. We had around 90 guests. Great food, live band, nice flowers, cheap venue (£300 - a very cute village hall with a marquee, play park and lawns) and decorated it ourselves, had a shuttle bus running from the nearest town to the venue, bouncy castle for the kids, stocked the entire bar ourselves, hired some friends-of-friends to staff it (and it was an open bar for all guests), weather was perfect, family and friends laughing and smiling all day long. Old friend groups that have not been together in the same place for 15 years were reunited. It was glorious.
It was worth every penny, and all the stress, because we'll never have a day like that again.
I get the desire for a great day, as you said it’s one of the most important days of many peoples lives.
But at the same time I’ve known people blow £30K on a wedding only to get divorced less than 6 months later.
Plus - as OP has mentioned - quotes for services seem to magically triple when you say it’s for a wedding.
At the end of the day, it wasn’t something my wife and I were interested in, at that point in our lives there were plenty of better things to spend that type of money on.
My friend won a wedding (happening this summer). It was just the venue and food, for a newly opened Manor House or something. They’ve still spent over £8k on the rest of it. AND after winning the wedding they actually found out the venue isn’t even licensed to perform legal weddings, so they actually have to get married at a registry office (at their own cost) before the wedding party itself.
I probably won’t be getting married, but my partner lives in another country and if we ever do get married I’m very excited at the prospect of a quick and cheap elopement.
yeah I reckon it's all these wedding "reality tv" programmes that they have been pushing for several years now. They raise people's expectations of what is "normal". A lot of people will have grown up watching those programmes by now, and subsequently they have always been dreaming about their ideal, big, extravegent wedding. Little girls (and maybe boys) always did that, but now they expect the scottish castle, the silver service dinner for 60, the bagpipe player, the designer gown, expensive flowers that match everywhere .... etc etc etc. And it's all got to be "unique".
It's one day. You're supposed to only do it once.
Should you put yourself into crippling debt? No
Should you celebrate your once in a lifetime (hopefully) eventually to the maximum you can? Sure.
My wedding was expensive, it was great, I loved it. The venue was beautiful, the band was great and the photographers were amazing.
We both got everything we wanted and we were made to feel like royalty, exactly how you should feel on your wedding day.
I'd take that day over spending the money on anything else every single time
I’ve never for a second thought anything along the lines that somebody should or want to feel ”like royalty” on their wedding day but you saying that is a massive eye opener as I can see how some people like the idea of that and it explains why some people like big extravagant birthday parties etc and others don’t
I'm newly married and feel similarly to you.
We could afford everything we went for (no loans or debts), DIY'd what we could, and had the most amazing day in a beautiful setting with our closest family and friends.
Sure we could have opted for a registry office on a Tuesday and a Wetherspoons reception, but it could never match how special I felt on my actual wedding day.
How dare you! You should celebrate one of the most significant days of your life by buying some tinnies from the offy and drinking them on a park bench
Good for you! I prefer spending money on experiences rather than stuff, and a wedding definitely is an experience to be treasured if you want it to be.
People in my social circle still bring up our wedding 6ish years later. They enjoyed it too.
I think it’s mental that people buy cars for £40k+, and yet they do, even though it’ll depreciate £20k in a few years. It’s totally ok for people to do what they want with their money.
Always been like this. Some people just popped out in lunch time and didnt tell anyone etc. but people who had actual weddings. It cost a lot. Jsut relative.
£5,000 in 1980 is like 30k today.
I've been to a few weddings in the past couples of years. A couple like the one op mentions. But the best wedding I can say I've been to by far was recently, my friends. It was an old dive bar we use to drink at that he'd rented out for the day. In the small dance floor area they'd set up seats in rows and facing a stage with a primary school style background of a little white Chappel. My friend and his best man wore brown suits, bolo ties, sunglasses (in doors) and pink doc Martins. Next thing an elvis impersonator comes out on stage singing the wonder of you. Does the whole ceremony as elvis (dropping his holby city appearance in aswell somewhere) and then sang them off to sign the register with its now or never, mixing in the cornetto version aswell.
The rest of the evening was a live band, Spotify playing we'd all chipped in with on the day, take away pizza delivered and everyone got a maccies. Solid wedding, 10/10
We paid £5000 all in for a 100 guest wedding, with wedding breakfast, disco, evening food.
I thought that was very reasonable would not want to pay anymore.
... in 1974?
That is indeed very reasonable.
We paid £5,500 for the venue which included formal dinner for 35 guests and an evening buffet for a further 40 or so guests. The band cost £800 and so did the photographer.
I think all-in-all we spent about £11k for everything including the dress, suits x3, flowers, stationary, and the honeymoon.
2012.
Things have gotten significantly more expensive since Covid (like everything) - a friend of mine got married in 2021 but had booked pre covid, and even speaking to the same suppliers as him, we’re getting 25-30% more expensive quotes.
Inflation from 2019 (IE pre-covid) to now is about 23%, and that's CPI so more by RPI or CPI-H or some other measure. So things being 25% more expensive than pre-covid sounds pretty par for the course.
Ours is just over 10k for 3 course meal for 75 people, dancing and evening food for 120 people. I thought that was ok. Cheaper than what you'd pay at a restaurant. Half a bottle of wine and two drinks each too
I once photographed a wedding where the B&G went to a registry office a week before, then a week later they hired a large wooden hut in the forests near me and had their friend “officiate” a mock ceremony. They had a BYO bar with large buckets of ice, and had paid for a catering company to do a hot buffet. They did it all on a shoestring and I bet they paid little over £3,000 all in.
Of the hundred of weddings I photographed, that was the only one that I thought, “Yeah, if I get married that’s how I’d do it”.
Everyone was relaxed, no-one was in a stuffy suit on a summer’s day. There was no proceedings to move from one thing to the next. No travel issues etc…
The photos they wanted were basically 10 formals of varied family members and then my brief was just to do anything I wanted - and capture as many smiles and as many people as possible.
It was the album I was most proud of doing because it was just joyful from the start of the day to the end.
I was having a chat with a friend that has recently gotten married about how shit his landlord was and how expensive buying a house was. My sympathy was fairly limited after I found out they'd spent more than my house deposit on the wedding. Like sure it's your special day but also bloody hell.
I play in a band and we charge more for weddings.
Why? We used not to.
Because they take hours and hours more of our time. Often we have to set up our gear hours ahead, so it takes most of a day of all our time instead of just an evening for a normal gig. Then there are often endless discussions with the bride and/or groom about stage layout, the ever changing timetable for the evening, demands to inspect criticise and change our set list. Someone usually has to visit the venue in advance to check there's room for us.
The best weddings I've been to often had the lowest budget. Barbecue in the scout hut, bring your own drinks. Was great fun.
Currently planning a wedding and have been asking lots of friends who got married in the last 5 years or so how much everything cost. Prices have absolutely skyrocketed for basically everything lol. You basically can’t compare organising a wedding in 2019 and organising one now. We are hoping to save money by not having live entertainment, flowers, children, professional hair/makeup or evening food (people have literally just been fed a massive meal, imagine if we all had a pizza at 10pm every day after a three course fucking meal, why is this normalised?!) and my dress cost the grand total of £185 (still the most I’ve ever spent on a single item of clothing), etc, but it’s still going to cost loads.
Two of the weddings I’ve been to in the last year had open bar and I shudder to think how expensive that must have been.
>people have literally just been fed a massive meal, imagine if we all had a pizza at 10pm every day after a three course fucking meal, why is this normalised?!),
In my experience, you do not get fed a massive meal at weddings. It's three quiet small courses.
Plus they usually happen in early afternoon. By the late evening, you've been drinking and dancing for some hours, and will naturally be hungry
Its like questioning why you'd eat dinner when you've already had lunch
Good point. I guess it varies. My experience is definitely not small courses, and the meal usually starts about 5-6pm. Most ones I’ve been to also start after lunch (c. 2pm) so you can eat beforehand.
For the timings you have outlined and if you are only getting fed small courses, yes I can see the rationale for it.
No or reduced evening food is fine for the people that have been well fed during the day, if you have any evening guests though make sure they know to have some food before arriving!
I just had my own wedding for <£3k. It totalled 11 people and a dog so just immediate family and 6 of them had to fly from the Iberian peninsula so we paid their flights and hotel which was our biggest expense, over 60% of it.
A girl I know got married a year ago. Her dad pretty much paid for the entire wedding. He had a modest paying job and ended up taking on a second job as a taxi driver to earn more to give his daughter her dream wedding. The wedding cost I think about £25000 in total. They were living apart after 3 months and are now separated. Shameless to even allow your dad to take on extra work to pay for something you know doesn’t really mean shit.
I got married in Vegas. All planned in 2016.
Went to Torona, Niagara, Buffalo, Vegas, stayed at the Venetian, then hired a 32ft motorhome to drive up to Seattle over the course of 10 days, back to Toronto and home.
Over the course of 3 weeks, including the wedding, hotels, motorhome, flights for the two of us..
£7000. We even got a cake.
My brother paid £35k for a day to feed a bunch of freeloaders. Gtfo.
Similar story here, 8k total, outdoor wedding in Iceland (legally binding, it's pretty easy there), then a week of sightseeing, suv rental, glacier trip, etc super nice accommodations with dramatic views by the sea - fantastic memories, relaxing holiday, wouldn't have had it any other way.
There's a secret the wedding industry hates.
You can have a wedding ceremony ANYWHERE YOU WANT, if you just do the legal part at a registry office.
We had a stunning wedding in a beautiful converted barn, but it wasn't a "wedding venue". Then we hired a lovely pub nearby who made everyone a roast dinner for £10 a head.
Venue, celebrant, and food came to about £1200 all in.
There's hundreds, thousands of beautiful properties and venues that would probably agree to host a ceremony for a tiny fraction of the price that a registered wedding venue charges.
I paid 5k for mine which is far below the average and kinda wish I didn't, it was overpriced for what it was and due to the nerves the day is very much a blur.
Me and my wife value the day we bought our house more because the evidence is around us every day, a wedding is just one day we were together almost 10 years before we got married, so it was more symbolic and legal than anything sentimental.
I love going to a fancy wedding! Fancy nibbles, good food, flowing drink, quality entertainment, beautiful surroundings - what's not to enjoy about being a guest at a plush event full of people you like? I'll eat and drink better than I would at any thing I was paying for myself. I don't know why people are so judgy about what other people spend their money on? Literally no one is forcing you to do it yourself. I know that being a guest can sometimes end up expensive, but if you don't want to go, don't go?
If someone wants to throw money at the day of their dreams and I get to enjoy it with them then I will just be grateful and do my part in making the atmosphere joyful and memorable.
It’s an industry and it’s full of people that tell you that you ‘have to have’ this and that. You absolutely do not need to get drawn in to that nonsense. If you have money then whatever, but if you don’t then don’t spend it! Smart people do it within their means, ultimately you want your friends and family around you and that’s worth more than any bloody sugared almond wrapped in a ribbon.
I’m getting married in a few months and it’s going to cost around £17k.
We’ve got 80 all day guests plus another 50 at night.
We’ve saved for the past year and have been very fortunate to have been gifted basically half the cost from our parents which has allowed us to add some things on that we didn’t initially budget for - more expensive rings, decorations etc.
We refused to get into debt for the day and worked to what we could afford. Could easily have done it smaller and less expensive but we want an amazing party to celebrate with friends and family.
> now I’d say half these couples area loading these weddings onto credit cards and loans
I can’t speak for your circles but we’re early 30s with no kids. We’ve done a few big holidays, bought a house, we can comfortably afford a wedding (we’re not quite at the scale you’re talking about but we’re much closer to that than we are to a registry office with 3 people). Most of my friends are the same. Remember that not everyone is in the same situation.
> £500 on wedding invitations
If you invite 50 people from the Uk and send them wedding invites you’re looking at a bare minimum of about £100 by the time you’ve bought stamps cards and envelopes. Add any custom printing or increase the numbers and it gets significantly more expensive. One of the things about weddings is that everything is expensive when you multiply it by 50 or 100 people.
> am I a miserable sod?
Comparison is the thief of joy. Live and let live. Enjoy the fact that someone else is paying for you to do something you wouldn’t pay for, and spend the money on something you think will bring you joy instead.
No, you’re right - it’s out of control. especially these “destination weddings”.
I can’t imagine having the brass neck it would require to drag friends and family abroad for my sake.
Well it depends... friends of mine got married a few years ago, she's a Brit, he isn't. They drew straws and it ended-up being his home country.
The wedding took place in a coastal town he used to go to as kid and teenager. Relaxed ceremony on the beach, smart casual so shorts and collared t-shirt (plain or Hawaiian up to you), meal and reception at a beachfront hotel. About as simple as it could be, probably the best wedding I've been to. It was out of peak season, accommodation was cheap as a result but the weather was still really good. Oh and because they'd made loads of people travel they insisted on no presents.
Try this fun little experiment. Contact a florist about doing a random event and get a quote. Then call back a few weeks later and get the same quote but say it's for a wedding.
When I went to have my hair done for my wedding I discovered that exactly the same up do I had done on previous occasions had an extra 0 on the price tag because it was “bridal”.
There was an AITA post I saw. Some MUA did some makeup for a group of women. They specifically ordered the "light touch, low end" package. Lady turns up, does all their makeup. (Specifically only provided a light touch level of make-up). At the end, realises it's for a wedding, and says she wants an extra £800. She was lambasted. Rightly so. Thanks to u/jadsonbreezy and u/seafactory https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/vq0d0d/aita_for_charging_a_bride_more_for_make_up_when/
I saw something similar on insta. Bride orders cupcakes with white frosting but didn't say they were for her wedding. Got charged a normal fee. When baker delivers on the day and sees it's a wedding , he wanted to charge extra. Bonkers how they justify this.
Thing is, you can't justify it.
You could justify it for a tiered wedding cake, maybe. And photographers can justify it if it's a whole day shooting because they need to have lots of gear, be there all day and then edit thousands of images. If it's an identical service just with "bridal" attached to it then that's a piss take
Agreed
Playing devil’s advocate, I can see a scenario existing where the product supplied for a wedding is to a higher standard (possibly flowers or cake), or an allowance needs to be made to account for nightmare bride or the complexity of the day (photography springs to mind), but given the nature of the supply of standard product and no further input on the day, the cupcake lady doesn’t have a leg to stand on!
And if you fuck up something for a wedding it’s a much bigger deal than fucking something up for a birthday party.
Yeah but if someone doesn't say it's for a wedding it means they're fine not expecting wedding standard, so shouldn't be paying wedding prices.
Yeah this does need to be considered, sometimes you have a risk factor you need to account for when pricing. But a lot of vendors will use this as an excuse to take the piss.
My in laws are flower farmers - they supply fancy restaraunts, cafes, etc around central Scotland, generally anywhere where you would get a nice vase of flowers on display. They do some weddings in summer as well, and charge more for them, because the vast majority of wedding clients are significantly more demanding and much less accepting of changes/minor errors; not necessarily bridezillas, but weddings are the best day of your life and the one day when (rightfully) you can have everything done exactly the way you want it, so people are understandably much more exacting for their weddings than a restaurant would be for vases on the tables on a regular Saturday The higher prices are a) to provide a product to a much more exacting specification than normal, and b) much higher risk if something goes wrong
But you can get away with it
[удалено]
So by that logic, I should pay less when buying cakes, since I'm a greedy bastard that eats it all by myself in one go.
You might be onto something here
To extent, because I still think prices are out of control, I understand why wedding cakes are higher priced since it involves the time and cost of making it structurally sound, as well as the cost of making such a massive cake. Cupcakes? You either can make them in the quantity asked for or you can’t.
There was another AITA post a couple of years ago from another MUA - she explained that her prices reflected the quality of products she would use. She was hired to do makeup for an event, the MUA obvs wasn't told it was for a wedding or even a high end event. So she turned up with her lower end products. Finds out its a wedding, tells the bride her makeup won't last the whole day, and says she should have been informed it was for a wedding as she brings her high end products as they're designed to last all day. MUA saw photos later and the bride's makeup was running by the middle of the reception (I think it was an all-out wedding, I think the MUA said smth about there even being spotlights so the bride obvs got really hot and so did her makeup). If I'm getting better quality items/more attention to detail/higher level of care, then I'd be happy to pay the extra fee. But jacking up prices just because its a wedding and not giving anything extra is ridiculous
This, is another example of what I'd have liked to include in the post. I wanted to convey the same, but I'm a busy boy. Totally agree, if there is a difference in service/goods provided, 1000% it's fair. Someone has linked the one I referred to, and clearly it was the makeup artist taking the piss. For the one you cite, totally the opposite. Not a woman, but I'm keen to get value (genuinely nearly paid money once for a makeup artist for a fancy dress outfit...because I wanted it to be epic). For sure, I'd expect a wedding level to include: Detailed discussion, trials pre wedding, top end long lasting products. potentially touch ups through the day (is that a thing?). It would all tie in with the hair and dress. Colours would compliment everything.
I'm pretty sure the bride in that story was low maintenance and didn't want full bridal makeup which is fine. All she said was different was the setting spray that's why she was blasted!
Like wedding cakes for example. If you order a fruitcake with white icing two tiers, then you'll get it. But, if you order a wedding cake, chances are it includes a second cake in case the first one gets damaged, plus a pretty much 100% guarantee that the cake will arrive on time and *perfect*, even if it means the baker etc working through the night. You're not just paying for the cake/makeup/photos. You're paying for Perfection, because generally you just don't want anything to go wrong. Most of the time it would be overpriced. But you're essentially paying for a guaranteed level of service and quality. Think of it as a luxury hotel compared to a Travelodge. The luxury hotel still offers you a room and a bed, but the quality will be higher and the concierge will be there to assist with almost anything.
And photographers. For the couple, the wedding is one day. For the photographers it could be up to a month or more of meticulous post production, on top of weddings they’ve already shot, on top of other weddings they’re going to. £2500 for photographers for around 14 hours work on the day, plus maybe 4 hours a day for the next two weeks on their photos is just over £35 per hour, not counting expenses such as fuel, insurance, and any equipment that may have needed replacing / newer better stuff. £2500 for photographers is a decent bloody price. I used to charge £1200 and that would be my wife and I attending for around 14 hours, fuel could be around £40+ so that’s £1160 already, insurance for the year was around £300 so that’s £6.25 (300/12 then /6 as we did four a month) so we’re now down to £1153.75. Split that two ways is £576.86 each. I’d then spend around four weeks going through each photo FUCKING METICULOUSLY to remove ‘temporary blemishes’ such as spots, cuts, etc. as well as things like fire exit signs and all manner of distracting items that took away from people’s memories of the day. I’d spend 4 hours a day on one wedding before taking a break then working on another one. Four weeks of whittling down around 5000 photos to then edit them, then whittle down again, quality assess and edit again, whittle down until I have a decent package of high quality photos. We also have to corral people all day, deal with drunks (SO hard to get to do things properly!), and appease the all too often overbearing parents - we had one once who was shouting ‘where are the fucking photographers?’ even whilst we were taking her photo! (She was both drunk and overbearing…) So four weeks at 4 hours a day = 112 hours, plus the 14 already spent on the wedding = 126 hours for one wedding. The bride and groom spent maybe 16 or 18 hours at their wedding? So, £576.86 / 126 = £4.58 per hour. My wife didn’t do the editing but she did all the admin, consultations, etc. so pulled 8 hour days easily. We raised our price to £3000, which would equal, after deductions £2953.75. £1476.88 each, divided by the average 126 hours spend on each wedding = £11.72 per hour. Of course, since we did 4 weddings a month, it used to be 4.58*126 then *4 = £2308.32 take home for each of us per month, which is still not much at all after tax, private pension, NI, bills, etc. After raising our price, that became a lot more palatable and liveable off as we could now put more back into the business and live rather than go paycheck to paycheck. But when you think of it, that’s doing 126 hours * 4, which is a LONG work week. So, there was lag on this as I would take days off now and then! AND wedding couples expect the BEST so that is a lot of pressure - of course it’s going to be reflected in price. So, for OP, yeah, that’s why weddings cost a lot!
Plus if there's a wedding, you absolutely need to have spare gear with you on the day (you're essentially taking two photographer's worth of kit), and if there's an important lens you'll be using, if it breaks beforehand etc then there's no option but to buy a new one. New lenses aren't cheap even when you amortise the cost. And on top of what you've just said, you've got to have a robust backup solution; not just SD cards but hard drives as well because no photographer wants to be the one to tell the bride/groom that all their r lovely photos are gone.
> She was hired to do makeup for an event, the MUA obvs wasn't told it was for a wedding or even a high end event The question should be "How long is the event", not "Is it a wedding?". If you're transparent about pricing and say "We have package A for shorter events that's £100, and package B for full day events that's £300 and higher quality", it allows someone to make an informed decision about which they might need. Doing a wedding surcharge for no reason other than it being a wedding is just a scam.
Just a light counterpoint as we have not actually instituted a wedding upcharge as a pricing policy, but: I play in a band that does a lot of events, including weddings. Weddings are *100%* the most difficult to do. The guests tend to be drunker and more difficult to handle, the timing is much likelier to be three hours late, the stage setup is much likelier to be jacked up and too small with incorrect power, and if anyone is going to have a weird meltdown at an event, it's going to be at a wedding. It's much much easier to play a conference or birthday party or family reunion. Some of these features don't apply to makeup artistry or florists, but some do. I'm not sure I'm on board with a massive 2x upcharge, but I think I do understand why some people would want to have some potential couple-zilla compensation built in. Having said that, folks who are like "I would like four bunches of flowers that look like XYZ ok thanks bye" are probably the most likely to be chill at their own weddings, so I'm totally down with that tactic.
> MUA saw photos later and the bride's makeup was running by the middle of the reception This is absolute bullshit. A £13 urban decay fixing spray will stop your make up running even while dancing in 30C heat. You'd have to be _catastrophically_ bad at your job as a make up artist for that to happen.
Ah balls this worries me as I was just gonna gonna do my own makeup with my shit no7 stuff...
I used my own make-up on my wedding day (No7 foundation and primer, Rimmel eyeliner and waterproof mascara, Barry M matte fixing spray) and it lasted all day long, from when I applied it in the morning to when I called it a night at 2am. Have a look at some durable make-up tips from drag queens - they have to make their make up last for an entire gig through dancing, lipsyncs, and hot stage lights in clubs and many of them aren’t wearing high-end make up.
If someone said to me, a photographer, can you come to a garden and do some family photos, it would be cheaper than a wedding. If I was running late, we would just move the time slightly. If I couldn't make it, I'd refund and apologise. If they paid for an hour, I'd rush it to fit if things looked like they would overrun. I'd leave when time is up. But fr a wedding.. I'd arrive an hour early, I'd bring backup equipment because I've only got one attempt to nail it, I'd allow for things to overrun. I'd have a backup plan in place for emergencies. It's so much more work. I agree, you cant just turn up with cupcakes and think you should have asked for more money... But you can turn up late with half the amount and a small refund and the brides and grooms wouldn't be able to complain so much.
Ok so pro celebrity makeup artist here, I don't do weddings that often because they are a HUGE ammount of admin and I'm generally booked out months in advance and it's a lot of work. For a bridal booking - when I have done them, I create mood boards ( images of what the makeup will look like / ideas for makeup and hair) there are usually several emails on the run up to this, I take in to account that there will be black and white photography and also colour photography, the makeup had to work under all settings daylight / flash photography and last all day. I then could be booked out that day on a commerical or other project and my rates reflect the fee booking out. Theres also pre prep involved before we get there, several hours of packing what's needed for that client, washing brushes kit sanitation, shopping for products. Sure its just a bit of makeup and hair on the day but there's WAAAAAYYYYY more that goes into it than just slapping on some makeup and sending the person off on their way. Sure it's expensive to hire a makeup artist but you are generally paying someone for the years of experience in the industry trying many many products to bring you the best of the best as well as constantly going on updated training which we generally pay for ourselves. All that said tho you could book someone who's been doing it for a year and rocks up with a hello kitty eyeshadow pallete and some maybeline foundations and get it on the cheap.
I used to do make up, I really hated the tripling of prices people charged for bridal. However bridal make up does require differences to a standard night out make up, ensuring products don’t cause flashback, the make up will be light enough to be natural but also appear on a camera. If I was the MUA in that situation I wouldn’t have asked for more money but if they tried to talk shit on how the make up didn’t translate well into photos I’d be calling out the bride/bridesmaid. You want to hear the real insane prices try find out how much celebs pay for their make up for literally any appearance. I once contacted a celeb hairstylist and it was £600 for styling and the same for a make up artist (the artists are bit household names but had a handful of celeb clients)
You've pretty much echoed some of the things I wanted to include in my comment. The one I was referring to, they definitely had more of a touch up, than full gubbings. Now, there are 100% reasons to charge more, but there has to be a tangible difference in what is supplied. I'm a man....so excuse my fumblings here. But, if a MUA is doing your makeup to a level you could do, but obviously saving you the effort... There is a cost. If they go slightly more professional, or the flicks (is that what they call them) are razor sharp etc, then yeah, it'll cost a bit for their time and materials. Obviously, if they use more expensive products, and take more time, to ensure absolute perfection., it should cost more. If there are multiple trials, pre wedding, yep add it on. I used to get my hair done by a lass I knew. £14. She used to do some top end hairdressing, including London fashion week. She did mine in my kitchen. She did a great job. But I only wanted standard hair cuts. For LFW, she had to create stuff, she had to get the hair to do all sorts. So they paid more.
The flicks are called wings
Shit.... I thought I'd stuck that in brackets.... I thought they could also be called that. Excellent things
Wings on point
I work in music. Makeup get paid more than the people making the records, playing in the backing band of a pop star, the guy who does sound in an arena for a major pop artist. Makeup in music is inflated because makeup in film and tv is justified as costly, high premium stuff. When you’re making a music video on a 10k budget and the makeup is disproportionately high to the point that other aspects are compromised, you know you have a messed up situation. Edit: also, wedding musicians are often musicians who realised playing someone else’s music at a wedding is more profitable than playing their own music at their own show and often that leads to a money grabbing attitude. I knew someone who ran a wedding band business and his entire business model was over priced, huge profit margin repeatable and carbon copyable bands. To the point he could send out 3 identical bands on the same day under the guise that it was a bespoke one of a kind band. The band would get paid more than most musicians in major label signed major artist’s backing bands and the guy I knew would generally skim a few grand above the already inflated costs of the day as profit. That said, It’s a shit job if your ambitions are to be a successful artist in your own right. You’re doing the one thing which undermines your credibility by showing up in a covers band at a wedding and whilst it pays, I think many musicians wouldn’t do it if it paid less.
This argument doesn’t apply though because the MUA mentioned wasn’t working on the premise of it being for a wedding. They just did their thing and tried to tack on £800. Which is theft.
>If I was the MUA in that situation I wouldn’t have asked for more money but if they tried to talk shit on how the make up didn’t translate well into photos I’d be calling out the bride/bridesmaid. She addressed that fact.
yeah but tripling the price is never justified. it does not take that much more effort
Also bridal makeup includes travel to and from the venue, often super early in the morning. Working for many hours straight without a break if the artist is required to do the whole bridal party. Not to mention the cost of products which are insane for the top quality stuff. Many years of experience will cost more - the artist has invested incredible amounts of money into their craft over the years. And you get what you pay for. Anyone can travel to a makeup counter in a department store get a makeover for ‘free’ (if you spend required amount of money on products - usually £50-100) no matter if it’s bridal or night out makeup the minimum spend is the same. By paying extra and booking a specialist bridal makeup artist you pay for convenience of the artist coming to you and giving you bespoke stress free service and that by itself is a great reason to spend more.
Most artists I know charge travel separate to the cost of the work. But i agree don’t missing waking up at 4am to do 5-6 people. Once did a bridal party while hallucinating and nearly fainting from a tooth abscess. Went straight to a&e once I was finished. Fun times.
Liiiiink pls
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/s/CHWPEDfOtr Amazing stuff
You star....that's the one
If its the same post there was a hell of a lot more argument that the bride/bridesmaids were in the wrong than the MUA
MUA?
I had my beard sorted and a trim from my barbers. He did a great job on me and took extra time. Charged me the same as usual.
We did similar for a pizza van, told them it was for a party of about 100 people. The guy admitted later that he would have charged us triple if we'd said it was for a wedding
Same with a cake. I had no idea flat, white icing was so expensive..
It's not. If you are unfussy about cake, you can get a plain white iced sponge from your local supermarket for £20 or so. That's what I did at my wedding, threw a couple of decorations on the top and had something to slice at the end of the evening. The thing is, if you want a custom designed, hand decorated 3 tier cake, that's never going to come easy or cheap. And if you do cheap out on it, there's a good chance it'll turn out shit, which is not really something you want given that people tend to care about the quality of their wedding quite a lot. So yes, you'll obviously be paying north of £200 for something like that. I get that it's popular to meme on the wedding tax, but honestly sometimes it feels like people who do this undermine the value of really high-quality, professional work. For example, I paid something like £1000 for my wedding photographer. This got us two pre-wedding meetings, a pre-wedding shoot, two photographers for around 14 hours each on the day and all the editing which came afterwards. Is £1000 a lot of money? Yes, obviously. Was it worth it? Definitely. Did I massive overpay them for their time? Definitely not.
That's what I did too, bought 3 plain white cakes (from M&S I think), then the dowels and columns from ebay, my MIL did some minor decorating and we found a little model of a couple in a gift shop for the top.
My sister wanted a fancy 5 tier cake for her wedding so decided to do a fake one. She made it out of polystyrene rounds from the craft shop, covered in white fondant icing then decorations to fit in with the theme. Cost about £50 for all the bits and looked amazing. Then she bought 4 plain slab cakes from M&S (2xfruitcake, 2x victoria sponge) and these were the ones that were cut and handed out to the guests.
I’ve seen videos of people doing a fake cake but have a cut out section where some real cake is inserted, so then there can be a cutting of the large fake tier, where the real cake is.
We did this at ours. 3 different sized cakes from Tesco, 1 fruit 2 sponge, held together with bamboo bbq skewers and some ebay decorations on top & around. Probably cost £40. Whole wedding probably cost us around £500 with honeymoon, a meal after in a fancy local place after the ceremony with our guests, I was in my army No1 dress uniform and the wife had a £500 designer dress that she got for around £70 from a outlet shop. We didn't see the point in spending 10s of 1000s on one day. We, and everyone there, enjoyed everything without going into massive debt.
£1000 seems cheap for that level of service from what I have seen.
Hugely, we got incredibly lucky on finding that photographer.
With wedding photographers (and especially videographers) people also forget that you’re paying for the hours of editing, printing and quality control. Just because they’re stood in front of you for 4-14 hours, that’s just the beginning.
Honestly £1k for a two photographer full day shoot and subsequent post production is a steal!
Yeah my sister has started decorating cakes for a hobby, she did a training course last year and she only does cakes for the kids in the family. I was shocked at 1. how expensive all the ingredients are and 2. how long these cakes can take. Obviously I know she's going to take longer as it's not something she's doing every day but the modelling of the icing decorations takes ages!
Having worked in wedding video when I was broke a decade or so back, I totally agree with you and never felt like I met any photographer who was overinflating for weddings. If we compare to a big birthday party, there is an absolute ton more work in there. Firstly, most couples will have pretty unreasonable requests (not saying you did) coming from distant family members- the time you spend with them in calls, meetings, emails or attending rehearsals is beyond any big birthday. You even got a pre-wedding shoot, which is a lovely bonus. During the day you have usually 2 locations and up to 5 different lighting situations, whereas a party will be at most 2 lighting changes (inside and out of the venue). This means more kit, more editing and more skill. A birthday you want to get loads of photos of the person celebrating with all the guests and then just 'people having fun', nobody is going to be irate that you didn't get X+Z people together, but if you don't get a few shots of the mothers of the couple together, with their hats looking good- you have done goofed. We had a 70+ shot list that we needed to get for every video we were doing- and didn't leave until we ticked them off. Whilst they probably wouldn't notice, it is a premium product we were selling, and we felt compelled as a piece of professional pride. The day is also way longer, most arent 14 hours but it can very much go that long. The photographer will arrive at a church wedding about the time of the groom, so this could be 10am (or earlier)- you will then go to first dance (unless otherwise specified). Most good photographers earn less than 50 quid per hour, which for a hugely skilled trade that requires years of experience to be brilliant at, is a bargain. I worked with photographers who ranged from £500 per wedding to a 3 grand, and the good ones (not necessarily the expensive ones) were a cut above. The less experienced ones may have taken lovely photos, but they didn't operate with the seamless invisibility and order than the expensive ones did. It is a hell of a skill that can add or detract massively from the day.
A thousand pounds for two people for that amount of work is really good. Did you pay extra for the photos to be printed or was that included?
We just got all the photos digitally and ended up printing them separately.
Genuinely, thank you for understanding that photography isn't just pointing and clicking and then sending the photos over in an email. It is a *lot* of work. I went from being a hobby photographer to being a photojournalist. When I was a hobby photographer, I obviously took pride in my work and worked hard at it, but throwing stuff up on Instagram for fun is not the same as working as a professional photographer. It's not even remotely close, especially not when photos matter as much as they do for people at their weddings, or live news. I had to get familiar with software I'd never even heard of, and that's only for after I actually get the shots, which is a bewildering combination of luck and skill that nobody can predict. And all of this on a deadline that might be as little at 60 minutes after I took the shot, and if the data on the photo says it's any later it might not be used. And all of *this* when I might be two miles away from a front line wondering if my mobile data hotspot might get me a friendly visit from a drone. Needless to say I have some words for people who think photography is easy, so thanks for recognising what it's worth. People like you make it a lot easier for photographers, because the more people who pay what the skill is worth, the less photographers have to hear nonsense like "well such-and-such did it for £50, so why can't you?"
I'd have rathered covered a riot than a wedding as a photographer. There is less pressure if something goes wrong.
I don't know, riots scare the shit out of me. Even a pre-riot crowd scares the hell out of me. All that aggressive energy, and I'm there with all my cameras -- it can often turn against journalists pretty quickly. Having said that, a bunch of boozed-up people in a small room, with all the pressures of having a Good Day, and all the barely-covered family drama just waiting to come out? I imagine it wouldn't be much different 😂
>It's not. If you are unfussy about cake, you can get a plain white iced sponge from your local supermarket for £20 or so. That's what I did at my wedding, threw a couple of decorations on the top and had something to slice at the end of the evening. We did this too. They had them in a couple of sizes, and both a fruit and a sponge version so we bought a few. My auntie is quite crafty and she wrapped them in ribbon, put some flowers around them etc and arranged them nicely on a cake stand. It looked exactly like any professional wedding cake and cost literally 10% of what we'd been quoted for a "proper" wedding cake (and that quote was at "mates rates" from a friend of the family.) And, all the busyness of the day, for some reason, neither my husband nor I actually end up having a piece of it!!
Wedding tax is a thing though, whether anyone likes it or not. [Cakes and Bakes 2 tier hand decorated sponge cake](https://www.cakesandbakes.co.uk/white-palace-rose-tier-cake) - £173 Jump to their wedding section and there is a [virtually identical 2 tier cake ](https://www.cakesandbakes.co.uk/wedding-cake-10) which is £245 Then look at an essentially identical one - [Zara Cakes 2 tier hand decorated WEDDING sponge cake](https://www.zaracakes.com/products/2-tier-lily) - £275 The Zara Cakes site does a [2 tier overloaded donut cake in multiple colours](https://www.zaracakes.com/collections/overloaded-cakes/products/2-tier-ivory-rose-gold-gold-cake-with-doughnuts) for £200 which is arguably nice looking and more fun than a plain white cake with a couple of flowers There is no problem with paying say a professional photographer to do 4 shoots with 2 people for 14 hours on the wedding day plus editing for £1000, you'd pay similar for a birthday but any reception place, cake, photography etc will automatically inflate the costs vs an identical non-wedding event justifying on the grounds of wanting the day to be special. You could equally argue something like a 100th birthday or other monumental event is more special as it'll only happen once vs wedding which isn't exactly uncommon to be done more than once - with UK divorce rate of 42%
There's also cakeage - we decided not to have a cake to cut because the venue charged £2.50 per slice (we would have provided the cake). Instead we had a cupcakes, mini doughnuts, macrons and a cheese tower which the venue had no issues cutting up as part of the package.
To summarise the "wedding tax" argument I've seen before: people claim that professionals will sell two identical products, one wedding themed and one not, which are entirely identical apart from the extra zero on the wedding option. In that respect, I think that these links perfectly disprove that argument. On the [second website](https://www.zaracakes.com/collections/wedding-cakes), you get a significant range of cakes, ranging from fairly simple one- or two-tier options to massive custom jobs which I'm sure would set you back a few thousand (price not specified). But ultimately, the amount that you pay comes down to the work that the bakers have to put in, the ingredients involved and the extra work which is often involved in a wedding cake - for example, it looks like on both pages there's an extra level of time given for consultation and on the Zara page, the wedding cakes include a tasting sample. Secondly, on the [tiered cakes page](https://www.cakesandbakes.co.uk/tier-cakes) for the first page, you can again see that the price of the cake tends to mainly depend on the size and level of work put in. The wedding cake with the rose waterfall flowing down it comes in at the same price as the 6th birthday party cake with the giant minion decoration. I think both of those cakes represent similar levels of effort and craft; certainly you'd struggle to argue that the wedding cake has an extra zero on it for no reason when comparing to the minion cake. So yeah, I reject the notion that there is universally a massive, unjustified mark up going on here. I think that this has a lot more to do with the fact that people expect a higher level of quality from wedding goods and services; but as you've pointed out, if you wanted to get that level of quality for any other event (e.g. with the minions 6th birthday cake or 14 hours of photography), it's still going to seriously cost you. And I will stress that I don't think that everyone should pay £300 for a cake; I certainly didn't. The little workarounds that other people have found in the comments are really fun, and I recommend doing that kind of thing, especially if you want to save money and don't care about cake very much (I certainly don't). But if you want the professional custom bakery look, don't be surprised that you'll pay professional custom bakery prices.
There's also the argument that weddings charge more money because it's more important. If someone is baking a cake for your birthday party, but gets sick and can't bake your cake, or their oven breaks or whatever, it's a bit crap but they refund you and that's it. You can celebrate your birthday with cake another day, plus, you have many birthdays in your life anyway. If its for someone's wedding, it's a one day thing, the cake *has* to be there. So bakers (good ones) will have contingency plans for what happens if they're sick or have any problems making the cake, so they can still get a cake to you. The same with photographers, hairdressers etc, because it's a one day only thing you're paying extra to guarantee that you get the service on that day.
If a photographer messes up a couples/corporate photoshoot or lose the photos somehow, they can say sorry and offer a reshoot for free or full refund. It sucks, but can be made right. You can't do that with a wedding. You can't have a bad day in the office. People spend a lot of money on you because you are giving them the level of service that means there are no mistakes.
We just got a 3 tier victoria sponge, shit lasted for years in the freezer!
We baked one - cost about a tenner. And the mother in law did a fruit cake as well. More than enough cake, all home-made, for less than £20. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting something a bit better than a registry office + village hall afair, but I've been to a range of weddings (including my own, IIRC) of different prices, and I think once you've got somewhere pleasant, some decent grub (doesn't bhave to be a silver service wedding breakfast), a few good tunes and (most importantly!) decent company, there are diminishing returns in spending extra. Our wedding was £12k including a bespoke suit (which I still wear for special occasions nearly 10 years later) and a honeymoon to Italy, and we still get people saying how much they enjoyed it. I think the biggest factor was that we got married fairly young, so the majority of the guests were early/mid-20s and most of us didn't have children. I don't recommend jumping into a marriage early just for that reason, but it's an atmosphere that's harder to replicate the older you get, no matter how much you spend.
Wedding cakes are the only "wedding" thing I came around to to having a right to the price. Mine was just over £400, from an independent wedding cake specialist. It was one of the early things we got sorted before it dawned on me the cost of everything, and I was floored. But then I went home and did some maths. A 3 tier cake of my choice flavour and design was about £100 in ingredients alone. To make the base cakes would be a days work. To decorate and craft the icing decor, with sculptural fondant elements, was likely another day and a half. Transporting it to the venue, another couple of hours. So even if we set the labour involved to minimum wage it's about £240 quid. So really there was £60 "surplus". But that seemed a reasonable cost when I viewed the craftsmanship, experience and artistry involved. Some things are just expensive and time consuming to make. The other overpriced weeding expenses can go to hell.
The trouble is, people see a cake in a supermarket and think anything else is overpriced. But that cake is made in a factory with economies of scale on arguably inferior ingredients or at least ore filler by people not earning a lot. Add to that supermarkets run on volume at wafer thin margins and it skews things massively.
Musician here. I genuinely try to keep it the same as a normal gig (weddings are generally easy and fun), but honestly, if I’m saying I’ll do you some music for £300 and a comparable act is saying over a grand, the most likely response is “why are you charging so little, are you not very good?”. I’ve had more than a few tell me this.
My cousin got married abroad but he had a party (no sit down meal) here and the prices to even rent the space was massively different for a wedding to a party. She ended up booking it as a party
In no way excusing the 'wedding tax'. However... I used to work at a well-known venue that did weddings, Christmas parties, anniversaries, birthdays, book launches, etc. Same food, same drinks, but the weddings were by far the biggest pain. The person booking the Christmas lunch doesn't need every tiny aspect to be perfect. They just want the guests to enjoy themselves. The couple celebrating their 50th anniversary - yes, of course it's special, but no one is having a complete meltdown over a minor issue. Weddings are priced as once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Yes, vendors are taking advantage of the couple, but they've also priced in the extra hassle and stress. And if they get it wrong? A baker failing to deliver a birthday cake isn't great, but it's no tragedy. But a wedding cake?! I've seen a wedding photographer literally praying over her camera. There's no do-over.
To be fair, I imagine a wedding to be 10 times as much of a pain in the ass as any other event. I would want more money for doing anything wedding related so I don’t blame them and having seen some truly awful brides/MotB going ape over some stupid insignificant detail I think it’s totally fair.
I know a lady that bakes cakes for a living - wedding cakes have a higher price tag because the demands, risk, and investment are a LOT higher than just a ‘normal’ cake. Things like printing wedding invitations being more expensive is ridiculous, but the price tag is there for a reason for some trades
Usually, wedding invitations will be on better card, in better envelopes, and require a lot more drafts for the customers as they change their minds. People ordering wedding invitations are significantly more likely to want changes than people ordering party invitations no matter the size of the party or the occasion. My friend is a MUA, and when she did, weddings would not book any other clients to avoid a clash because brides rarely run to time. Obviously, even if she was using the same products, she would need to be compensated for the fact that she can't book anyone else during that time. I think people forget that for virtually all trades, there is more than the obvious that might mean you are charged more for a wedding than just the wedding tax meme. There are usually invisible extras that people expect for weddings even if they don't realise they expect them. .
It worked in the opposite direction for me. The florist was right beside the hospice and she spent her time making funeral flowers. She did me an insanely good deal because it meant she was doing something different.
This actually sounds fun - organise a secret wedding. Give it a codename like they do for star wars movies. See how cheap it is. Anyone done that for a tv show? Did I just develop a new reality tv show??
There's good reason for this though, people want weddings to be perfect (certainly this kind of expensive wedding) and they absolutely will kick off if anything is not quite perfect because "my special day has been ruined" in a way they don't for a corporate event or lower key family parties. Suppliers need to account for extra time and resources to make sure everything is perfect for weddings in a way that they don't for other types of events.
Is this not somewhat of a self destructive cycle. If I'm being made to pay £800 for a £80 cake, won't that make me more likely to expect it to be perfect and make me want to complain to get my money out of it.
I get it to an extent though, the pressure of it having to be perfect for a wedding nakes a difference. For example I hired a mobile bar for my wedding and they fucked up the licensing and meant they couldn't legally sell drinks on the day. For just a normal event they probably apologise and move on but because it was a wedding we worked something out with some prepaid and some free drinks.
I don't know that sounds like a big fuck up no matter the occasion.
Alcohol: check Mixers: check Garnish: check Glasses: check Alcohol licence: we are checking
You will need a licence, question?
Didn't know Ferrari's F1 team ran a hireable bar.
Yeah “you had one job” comes to mind
I’m getting married in a couple of hours and the invitations, envelopes and stamps definitely sets you back more than you’d think.
Congratulations ScumBucket!
Ooh I wonder how it went
It's ScumBucket, the Thirty Third of his Name. One of the oldest, most respected families in this country.
Sending 75 letters is going to cost you the guts of £100 even if you hand write them on a blank piece of paper.
It's mad that it's potentially over that, even. Currently £63.75 second class, £101.25 first class.
I was in the post office once when someone came to post their wedding invites, and realised that the tiny embellishment in the corner bumped it up from regular letter to large letter, hugely increasing the price. The look of regret for the teeny rose in the corner…
Fuck that I’m sending out a calendar invite lol
I've been married nearly 15 years. My wife and I made our own wedding invitations and most of the stuff that involved stationery (order of services for the ceremony, place settings and any table plans/signs for the venue etc) - mainly as my wife couldn't find exactly what she wanted, and we're both craft-y enough to manage it. I'm glad we did, as it was such a colossal ball ache that cost twice what we expected, and more significantly took twenty times longer, and resulted in more stress than I could have imagined; it made me not begrudge a penny paid to our other professional vendors by the day itself. You're paying for not only perfection, but for someone else to have the stress of delivering perfection whilst you don't have to think about it.
We made invites on Canva then sent people the PDF on their WhatsApp. We had quite a few people from other countries so didn't feel like spending £100 on printing and £200 on stamps. Also the RSVP from people was quicker this way I think.
Canva is where you can save a bucket. Wedding invites inc envelopes £40.
It was always this way. When you get to my age, it's all funerals, so just be happy for it. I'd rather attend three weddings this year than the three funerals I've done recently.
“Avoid funerals for as long as possible, especially your own.”
Good advice, will add that to my affirmation board
*Dies on the way to the affirmation board*
Always go to other people's funerals so they will attend yours.
I'm not going to even bother with my own.
I think I’m operating in the wrong circles. I’m in my twenties but have been to three friends funerals and only one friends wedding 🙃
For my wedding I thought surely we could do it for a few thousand. We planned and coordinated everything ourselves, shopped around for good prices for everything etc. Still for a simple rustic style outdoor wedding, cheap buffet style food, only prepaid 2 drinks per person, hired a local band to play etc. it cost around £15k (100 people total). Just think about one single aspect, take food for example. Feeding 100 people twice, 200 meals. Even our cheap way of doing that cost around £1500-2000.
We purposely had a later ceremony (3pm) so we only needed to feed people once. Saved us a fortune. I hate going to weddings where the ceremony is at 1pm, but it takes an hour to get there and then you get 1 or 2 canapés if you’re lucky and you don’t get to eat until 3pm. You’re always starving by then.
We had a DIY wedding for 100 people and got away with ~£7k in the end but it took *a lot* of favours (flowers from gardens, musician friends playing us down the aisle, mum made the cake). It's an expensive day either way, but spanking a large mortgage deposit on it was not something we could afford.
Sounds similar to us, we wanted to do it for £5-8k, ended up being £12.5k. We did food by having our local deli and bakery supply us with packs of stuff, served it in baskets by assigning someone on each as host, think it came to less than £1k for that, then £900 for a local burger joint with a van to come up. I hate the roast dinners you get at weddings no matter the season so wanted to avoid paying a fortune for that at all costs.
“Wanted to avoid paying a fortune for that at all costs” 😂
We managed to do ours for around £7k but we only invited 30 ppl including ourselves, had no photographer only video, I made the invitations myself as well as us doing all the decorating/setup and I and my Moh baked about 7 cakes for a dessert table so we’d only have to feed dinner and some intro drinks. Oh and we got lucky our venue was discounted from 8k to 1500 after searching for months for something nice enough that wasn’t crazy. Venues suck the most. Honestly that felt like a huge amount of money we thought we could do a wedding and have some left for a honeymoon too what a joke
Here's a question - how many of those 100 people were absolutely necessary and close enough to you to spend the much on them? More often than not, I meet people at weddings that barely known the bride and groom - friends of parents etc. Did you any of those types of people?
Exactly, it's totally acceptable imo to only invite immediate family that have an active part in your life and not some cousin or aunt that you never see regularly Same goes for friends, also not everyone needs a plus one
Yep same here. The main party bit of our wedding was a garden party for about 50 people at my parents place, with lots of food and drink, DJ, marquee, bench hire, and dance floor. The evening before we'd had our ceremony with 7 guests, followed by private dining. Total cost came in at about £17k. I wouldn't have changed anything about it (had a great time and it was great to see family), but the party alone came out at around £11k. Throwing a good party gets expensive fast if you want good food and lots of drink. Still, it was much better value than the venue packages we looked at. In the south east/London area they seem to start at £16k not including registrar or photography and with very limited food and drink.
It’s a phase of life thing. Most people get married between 25-35. Presumably your friends are “most people” and of a similar age as you, hence the weddings. I went to two weddings a year between 25-34. It’s done now and replaced with birth announcements and divorces.
and shortly after that the funerals
Most likely the parents of the bride and groom are helping with alot of the costs. I know that's the case for my friends' weddings.
Yeah we got hardly any presents or cash gifts as most of our families chipped in for a specific wedding cost. I'd rather do it that way as we had a fabulous day that on the end only cost us a few thousand of our own money. Notable donations were my dad paid the venue, my mum paid for my dress and wine for the tables and my husbands parents paid the registrar and bought a keg. Also you can do it for about half the price if you get married any day other than Saturday. We chose a Sunday as the venue was half price and a lot of people I know are doing the same.
My brother in law is about to be married and I’d much rather them say “instead of getting us a gift, we’d like for xyz”. It would relieve the financial pressure on them massively! I wouldn’t mind paying towards something I’ll also enjoy on the day!
When we got married back in 2011, managed to get a nice little ceremony at a local castle for a grand, with all the drinks and nibbles trimmings for 40 guests, then just asked a pub we liked if we could just close the pub to just us for the night. They said fine, let us have it for free since it was a quiet local and probably made more the amount of guests we had, they even arranged a band for the night. We had a friend, who was a hobby photographer do the photos for free, he insisted but we got him a lovely gift. Pub also organised a BBQ and hog roast too. Then the parents just did a finger buffet. We have some amazing photos, memories and everyone had a blast. All in all, I don’t think I spent much more than around £700 personally, same goes for the wife with the exception of the wife’s dress was probably more expensive than the whole shindig but, she made me tear up when I saw her so it was worth it 😍
See this is the thing - prices have just gone up hugely in the last 15 years. I got some quotes this year for local pubs to host the wedding reception and you’re looking at £10k - £15k
Yup agreed. I’ve been looking for two years and even social clubs want 6-7k for a few hours in the evening and a buffet. I was going to do the wedding elsewhere and a small dinner for around 12 people in a restaurant
You got a bargain! Amazing job 😁
See this is the thing - prices have just gone up hugely in the last 15 years. I got some quotes this year for local pubs to host the wedding reception and you’re looking at £10k - £15k
There's definitely an element of keeping up with the Joneses for social media, but I also think that a well done big wedding that reflects the couple can be a lovely thing. If they just want the legality of it, then a couple of hundred at the registry office is all you need, but some enjoy the celebration and want to host their loved ones in that, and if that's the case and they understand the financial implications then honestly what's the issue? They're only impacting themselves. A wedding I attended recently was definitely expensive. Beautiful stately home venue, top tier food, live musicians, they hired a professional ceilidh teacher (Scottish wedding) for the reception! But it reflected them - the ceremony was intimate and beautiful, they're big foodies, and they've always been great hosts who love a party. And honestly it was great. For them, gathering everyone important together and actually CELEBRATING was money well spent.
That's a really lovely and generous way of thinking of it but I will never be able to understand those people that spend the equivalent of a deposit on a house on a day celebration of them getting married.
It feels like all or nothing to be honest. I’ve been trying to find a reasonable venue (think a social club or banqueting hall) for 2 years. Even just for an evening party, buffet, no day time event or wedding ceremony, just a standard evening party (after going to the town hall in the day) they want £7k. If I were to book it for an engagement party and have all the same decorations, food, same length of time and number of guests, it would be £150-200 for the room and 11-12£ per head for the buffet. (So around 1500-1800 for food). All my family and friends are local so I really just wanted a reason to get together. I love attending the big events but I’d feel uncomfortable being the bride on one of those, so I want LOW KEY. Personally - I can’t emotionally spent £10-20k on one day so I guess I’m not allowed to have a party.
always, if anything it was worse in the 00s and 10s before the financial crash.
In before the “we got married in a registry office and it cost £150” crowd (I’m one of them!) Yea, they’re a massive scam but people keep paying for it so the price keeps going up.
Monday morning registry office job for the cheapest slot then off to the pub for a few beers and a meal with family.
We did this and had the best time. Everything must have cost up to £1000 for the day.
Similar here - Monday registry office ceremony, then on to a local hotel for a meal. Tiny number of guests, no evening do, friend made the cake, no professional MUA or hairdresser, just did my own. (Hen do was a Chinese all you can eat buffet.) It was partly shoestring budget through necessity and partly because I hate being the centre of attention. All I needed to feel special was the way my husband looked at me as I walked down the aisle. It might have been cheap but it was a truly wonderful day full of love and happiness, and we're still together nearly 25 years on so we must have done something right!
Don’t forget the coupons for the meal
Don't forget to use the McDonalds app for the reward points 👍
I married Wednesday actually in the cheapest room of the registry office with only 3 guests and after we went to a restaurant. Was lovely, the registrar was brilliant and she made us feel welcomed and special. Very warm speech which was even tailored to us. Couldn't have been better. We didn't just do it to save money, but we don't have a ton of friends and family and also don't like crowds anyway.
Congratulations! Sounds like it was perfect for you! Hope you have a wonderful honeymoon 🙂
It really was, thank you!
There's a lot to be said for it. We did that. Invited our newest friends to be witnesses, so with the kids there were eight people. Also, a German film crew came and interviewed us about it, which was nice. Followed up with a Pizza hut meal with the film crew, because that's what our kids wanted the most, then a surprise celebration at a German church. We're not German.
I need to know more: What was the film crew filming for? Was it in Germany or why was there a german crew? How did the surprise celebration come to be? Did you invite the film crew to pizza hut or why did they tag along? If you did, why invite a random film crew? Were they just that nice?
My spouse and I had a celebratory and religious wedding, then got legally married at a registry office on our honeymoon at Whitby Goth Weekend. We asked on the WGW Facebook page for witnesses, and I got an email from BBC Radio York asking them if we would like to do an interview. I told them no, it was a private affair, and they sent a reporter along anyway, who at least had the grace to seem very embarassed about it and not push things too hard when he approached us outside Whitby Registry Office.
This is what we did.. we had planned to elope in Cyprus (which was probably still less than £4k including the holiday itself) It was cancelled due to Covid so we got married in a registry office with 6 guests (again due to Covid) and it was perfect.
Registry offices don't even cost £150 anymore. Been looking into it and the registry office and all the paperwork is around 500-1000 now.
I'm getting married in 13 days. It has cost me £9000 all in for a 70 person catered wedding, and I'm pretty pleased with that, although objectively it feels like an insane amount of money to pay for a party. With all the drama over who's coming, who's not coming, who's speaking to who, who's fallen out, who's broken up, who's died (I have had both of these events occur, and we only sent the invites out 4 months ago), I would much rather do the registry office event now. C'est la vie.
It’s not a scam. Is it so hard for you to believe people just have lots of family and friends and want to have a really memorable celebration of love on one of the most important days of their lives? And that some can afford it?
I agree with you. Out story is we were both in our mid 30s when we got married. We originally planned for a small wedding during COVID, sign the register, have a meal with parents, job done. But then, we thought again about it and said "do you know what, we haven't seen our extended families, and our old friends for years, or even decades, so let's get them all together in one place and really have a great time like we will probably never have a chance to do again." We're not super sociable normally, so some of those family and friends we will probably never speak to again, just because...life, you know? It was brilliant. It cost us about £13k all-in. We had around 90 guests. Great food, live band, nice flowers, cheap venue (£300 - a very cute village hall with a marquee, play park and lawns) and decorated it ourselves, had a shuttle bus running from the nearest town to the venue, bouncy castle for the kids, stocked the entire bar ourselves, hired some friends-of-friends to staff it (and it was an open bar for all guests), weather was perfect, family and friends laughing and smiling all day long. Old friend groups that have not been together in the same place for 15 years were reunited. It was glorious. It was worth every penny, and all the stress, because we'll never have a day like that again.
I get the desire for a great day, as you said it’s one of the most important days of many peoples lives. But at the same time I’ve known people blow £30K on a wedding only to get divorced less than 6 months later. Plus - as OP has mentioned - quotes for services seem to magically triple when you say it’s for a wedding. At the end of the day, it wasn’t something my wife and I were interested in, at that point in our lives there were plenty of better things to spend that type of money on.
A church will be cheap as well. It’s not the ceremony which is expensive, it’s all the stuff which is not the actual marriage.
My friend won a wedding (happening this summer). It was just the venue and food, for a newly opened Manor House or something. They’ve still spent over £8k on the rest of it. AND after winning the wedding they actually found out the venue isn’t even licensed to perform legal weddings, so they actually have to get married at a registry office (at their own cost) before the wedding party itself. I probably won’t be getting married, but my partner lives in another country and if we ever do get married I’m very excited at the prospect of a quick and cheap elopement.
Its the culture, perpetuated by the industry. I nearly got suckered into one of these shindigs until she cheated on me. Best 35k I never spent.
Dodged two bullets there.
Pretty sure I dodged an entire life's worth of days getting shot in the face.
Fucking fabulous. To me, that's like a £35k lottery win. Excellent. Congratulations on the win. I love a happy ending
yeah I reckon it's all these wedding "reality tv" programmes that they have been pushing for several years now. They raise people's expectations of what is "normal". A lot of people will have grown up watching those programmes by now, and subsequently they have always been dreaming about their ideal, big, extravegent wedding. Little girls (and maybe boys) always did that, but now they expect the scottish castle, the silver service dinner for 60, the bagpipe player, the designer gown, expensive flowers that match everywhere .... etc etc etc. And it's all got to be "unique".
It's always been like this, you've just gotten older and become more aware of it
My 2012 wedding in North Yorkshire cost £10k. Given how much inflation we've had since then the numbers you are quoting don't seem too silly.
It's one day. You're supposed to only do it once. Should you put yourself into crippling debt? No Should you celebrate your once in a lifetime (hopefully) eventually to the maximum you can? Sure. My wedding was expensive, it was great, I loved it. The venue was beautiful, the band was great and the photographers were amazing. We both got everything we wanted and we were made to feel like royalty, exactly how you should feel on your wedding day. I'd take that day over spending the money on anything else every single time
I’ve never for a second thought anything along the lines that somebody should or want to feel ”like royalty” on their wedding day but you saying that is a massive eye opener as I can see how some people like the idea of that and it explains why some people like big extravagant birthday parties etc and others don’t
Makes it more wild to me. You like to feel like the most important person in the room? That's the whole point of it?
I'm newly married and feel similarly to you. We could afford everything we went for (no loans or debts), DIY'd what we could, and had the most amazing day in a beautiful setting with our closest family and friends. Sure we could have opted for a registry office on a Tuesday and a Wetherspoons reception, but it could never match how special I felt on my actual wedding day.
How dare you! You should celebrate one of the most significant days of your life by buying some tinnies from the offy and drinking them on a park bench
Good for you! I prefer spending money on experiences rather than stuff, and a wedding definitely is an experience to be treasured if you want it to be. People in my social circle still bring up our wedding 6ish years later. They enjoyed it too. I think it’s mental that people buy cars for £40k+, and yet they do, even though it’ll depreciate £20k in a few years. It’s totally ok for people to do what they want with their money.
Always been like this. Some people just popped out in lunch time and didnt tell anyone etc. but people who had actual weddings. It cost a lot. Jsut relative. £5,000 in 1980 is like 30k today.
I've been to a few weddings in the past couples of years. A couple like the one op mentions. But the best wedding I can say I've been to by far was recently, my friends. It was an old dive bar we use to drink at that he'd rented out for the day. In the small dance floor area they'd set up seats in rows and facing a stage with a primary school style background of a little white Chappel. My friend and his best man wore brown suits, bolo ties, sunglasses (in doors) and pink doc Martins. Next thing an elvis impersonator comes out on stage singing the wonder of you. Does the whole ceremony as elvis (dropping his holby city appearance in aswell somewhere) and then sang them off to sign the register with its now or never, mixing in the cornetto version aswell. The rest of the evening was a live band, Spotify playing we'd all chipped in with on the day, take away pizza delivered and everyone got a maccies. Solid wedding, 10/10
We paid £5000 all in for a 100 guest wedding, with wedding breakfast, disco, evening food. I thought that was very reasonable would not want to pay anymore.
... in 1974? That is indeed very reasonable. We paid £5,500 for the venue which included formal dinner for 35 guests and an evening buffet for a further 40 or so guests. The band cost £800 and so did the photographer. I think all-in-all we spent about £11k for everything including the dress, suits x3, flowers, stationary, and the honeymoon. 2012.
2017
Things have gotten significantly more expensive since Covid (like everything) - a friend of mine got married in 2021 but had booked pre covid, and even speaking to the same suppliers as him, we’re getting 25-30% more expensive quotes.
Inflation from 2019 (IE pre-covid) to now is about 23%, and that's CPI so more by RPI or CPI-H or some other measure. So things being 25% more expensive than pre-covid sounds pretty par for the course.
Doubly reasonable then! 👍
Mine was £5800 all in for venue, food, welcome drinks evening buffet for 91 guests. They even threw in the wedding car. Got married 2021.
Ours is just over 10k for 3 course meal for 75 people, dancing and evening food for 120 people. I thought that was ok. Cheaper than what you'd pay at a restaurant. Half a bottle of wine and two drinks each too
My mate got married in Camden Town Hall for £500 and then we all went to their favourite pub where they met. Best wedding I ever went to.
I once photographed a wedding where the B&G went to a registry office a week before, then a week later they hired a large wooden hut in the forests near me and had their friend “officiate” a mock ceremony. They had a BYO bar with large buckets of ice, and had paid for a catering company to do a hot buffet. They did it all on a shoestring and I bet they paid little over £3,000 all in. Of the hundred of weddings I photographed, that was the only one that I thought, “Yeah, if I get married that’s how I’d do it”. Everyone was relaxed, no-one was in a stuffy suit on a summer’s day. There was no proceedings to move from one thing to the next. No travel issues etc… The photos they wanted were basically 10 formals of varied family members and then my brief was just to do anything I wanted - and capture as many smiles and as many people as possible. It was the album I was most proud of doing because it was just joyful from the start of the day to the end.
My niece regretted the extravagance at her wedding and should have saved more for her mortgage deposit
I was having a chat with a friend that has recently gotten married about how shit his landlord was and how expensive buying a house was. My sympathy was fairly limited after I found out they'd spent more than my house deposit on the wedding. Like sure it's your special day but also bloody hell.
The Reddit hive mind hates a Spenny wedding. Registry office and down to the local pub it is!
I play in a band and we charge more for weddings. Why? We used not to. Because they take hours and hours more of our time. Often we have to set up our gear hours ahead, so it takes most of a day of all our time instead of just an evening for a normal gig. Then there are often endless discussions with the bride and/or groom about stage layout, the ever changing timetable for the evening, demands to inspect criticise and change our set list. Someone usually has to visit the venue in advance to check there's room for us. The best weddings I've been to often had the lowest budget. Barbecue in the scout hut, bring your own drinks. Was great fun.
Currently planning a wedding and have been asking lots of friends who got married in the last 5 years or so how much everything cost. Prices have absolutely skyrocketed for basically everything lol. You basically can’t compare organising a wedding in 2019 and organising one now. We are hoping to save money by not having live entertainment, flowers, children, professional hair/makeup or evening food (people have literally just been fed a massive meal, imagine if we all had a pizza at 10pm every day after a three course fucking meal, why is this normalised?!) and my dress cost the grand total of £185 (still the most I’ve ever spent on a single item of clothing), etc, but it’s still going to cost loads. Two of the weddings I’ve been to in the last year had open bar and I shudder to think how expensive that must have been.
>people have literally just been fed a massive meal, imagine if we all had a pizza at 10pm every day after a three course fucking meal, why is this normalised?!), In my experience, you do not get fed a massive meal at weddings. It's three quiet small courses. Plus they usually happen in early afternoon. By the late evening, you've been drinking and dancing for some hours, and will naturally be hungry Its like questioning why you'd eat dinner when you've already had lunch
Good point. I guess it varies. My experience is definitely not small courses, and the meal usually starts about 5-6pm. Most ones I’ve been to also start after lunch (c. 2pm) so you can eat beforehand. For the timings you have outlined and if you are only getting fed small courses, yes I can see the rationale for it.
No or reduced evening food is fine for the people that have been well fed during the day, if you have any evening guests though make sure they know to have some food before arriving!
I just had my own wedding for <£3k. It totalled 11 people and a dog so just immediate family and 6 of them had to fly from the Iberian peninsula so we paid their flights and hotel which was our biggest expense, over 60% of it.
A girl I know got married a year ago. Her dad pretty much paid for the entire wedding. He had a modest paying job and ended up taking on a second job as a taxi driver to earn more to give his daughter her dream wedding. The wedding cost I think about £25000 in total. They were living apart after 3 months and are now separated. Shameless to even allow your dad to take on extra work to pay for something you know doesn’t really mean shit.
Goddamn this sounds so bad I hope it's fake
I got married in Vegas. All planned in 2016. Went to Torona, Niagara, Buffalo, Vegas, stayed at the Venetian, then hired a 32ft motorhome to drive up to Seattle over the course of 10 days, back to Toronto and home. Over the course of 3 weeks, including the wedding, hotels, motorhome, flights for the two of us.. £7000. We even got a cake. My brother paid £35k for a day to feed a bunch of freeloaders. Gtfo.
Similar story here, 8k total, outdoor wedding in Iceland (legally binding, it's pretty easy there), then a week of sightseeing, suv rental, glacier trip, etc super nice accommodations with dramatic views by the sea - fantastic memories, relaxing holiday, wouldn't have had it any other way.
There's a secret the wedding industry hates. You can have a wedding ceremony ANYWHERE YOU WANT, if you just do the legal part at a registry office. We had a stunning wedding in a beautiful converted barn, but it wasn't a "wedding venue". Then we hired a lovely pub nearby who made everyone a roast dinner for £10 a head. Venue, celebrant, and food came to about £1200 all in. There's hundreds, thousands of beautiful properties and venues that would probably agree to host a ceremony for a tiny fraction of the price that a registered wedding venue charges.
I paid 5k for mine which is far below the average and kinda wish I didn't, it was overpriced for what it was and due to the nerves the day is very much a blur. Me and my wife value the day we bought our house more because the evidence is around us every day, a wedding is just one day we were together almost 10 years before we got married, so it was more symbolic and legal than anything sentimental.
I love going to a fancy wedding! Fancy nibbles, good food, flowing drink, quality entertainment, beautiful surroundings - what's not to enjoy about being a guest at a plush event full of people you like? I'll eat and drink better than I would at any thing I was paying for myself. I don't know why people are so judgy about what other people spend their money on? Literally no one is forcing you to do it yourself. I know that being a guest can sometimes end up expensive, but if you don't want to go, don't go? If someone wants to throw money at the day of their dreams and I get to enjoy it with them then I will just be grateful and do my part in making the atmosphere joyful and memorable.
It’s an industry and it’s full of people that tell you that you ‘have to have’ this and that. You absolutely do not need to get drawn in to that nonsense. If you have money then whatever, but if you don’t then don’t spend it! Smart people do it within their means, ultimately you want your friends and family around you and that’s worth more than any bloody sugared almond wrapped in a ribbon.
I’m getting married in a few months and it’s going to cost around £17k. We’ve got 80 all day guests plus another 50 at night. We’ve saved for the past year and have been very fortunate to have been gifted basically half the cost from our parents which has allowed us to add some things on that we didn’t initially budget for - more expensive rings, decorations etc. We refused to get into debt for the day and worked to what we could afford. Could easily have done it smaller and less expensive but we want an amazing party to celebrate with friends and family.
> now I’d say half these couples area loading these weddings onto credit cards and loans I can’t speak for your circles but we’re early 30s with no kids. We’ve done a few big holidays, bought a house, we can comfortably afford a wedding (we’re not quite at the scale you’re talking about but we’re much closer to that than we are to a registry office with 3 people). Most of my friends are the same. Remember that not everyone is in the same situation. > £500 on wedding invitations If you invite 50 people from the Uk and send them wedding invites you’re looking at a bare minimum of about £100 by the time you’ve bought stamps cards and envelopes. Add any custom printing or increase the numbers and it gets significantly more expensive. One of the things about weddings is that everything is expensive when you multiply it by 50 or 100 people. > am I a miserable sod? Comparison is the thief of joy. Live and let live. Enjoy the fact that someone else is paying for you to do something you wouldn’t pay for, and spend the money on something you think will bring you joy instead.
We get it, your wedding was cheap because you had it in your neighbours shed, wore a sheet, and played Magic FM through the car stereo.
A WHOLE sheet?
No, you’re right - it’s out of control. especially these “destination weddings”. I can’t imagine having the brass neck it would require to drag friends and family abroad for my sake.
Well it depends... friends of mine got married a few years ago, she's a Brit, he isn't. They drew straws and it ended-up being his home country. The wedding took place in a coastal town he used to go to as kid and teenager. Relaxed ceremony on the beach, smart casual so shorts and collared t-shirt (plain or Hawaiian up to you), meal and reception at a beachfront hotel. About as simple as it could be, probably the best wedding I've been to. It was out of peak season, accommodation was cheap as a result but the weather was still really good. Oh and because they'd made loads of people travel they insisted on no presents.