Which google reliably informs me is $7427.21 US dollars (I like that. It makes me feel richer) .
The budget breaks down roughly as follows:
£500 - church fees, organist, marriage license.
£100 - his and her rings
£750 - hire of the hall for the reception
£500 - alcohol (welcome drink and wine for the meal, cash bar at night)
£400 - my dress, shoes and accessories plus a custom made corset
£200 - a shiny new suit for Mickey
£100 - gifts for bridesmaids/flowergirls (which will probably be some kind of themed accessory to tie together their exquisitely non matching outfits)
£50 - toddler proof outfits for Eli and Ethan (Eli's cousin and fellow 'page boy').
£1000 - food for 120 guests during the day (hot buffet), 200 at night (bacon butties) plus vintage china and linen tablecloth hire£600 - the band (we will be putting together our own ipod playlist for between sets)
£1000 - flowers, decor, centrepieces, cake, candy bar, invitations, any other paper goods... and everything else I have forgotten.
Which as anyone with a basic command of maths can tell you comes to £5,200 (I need to get ruthless with that last category!).
Things that you won't find in my budget:
A photographer. A very talented friend will be performing the role of photographer, for which she will be rewarded with a meal, wine and our undying gratitude. After the wedding she will send us the digital images and we are going to make them into a hard back photobook (the cost for 3 of these is approximately £60).
Wedding cars. It would be lovely to hire a fancy car to take us to the wedding. But at £300 for a two mile journey? I could get to New York and back for that!
Bridesmaid dresses. Traditionally in the UK the bride pays for her maids dresses... but then this bride told her best friend and two sisters to just wear something they already own. I should point out that they categorically ignored me and are each buying themselves a new dress, but at least it is something they have picked and that they will wear again.
A free/open bar. Until a few years ago I had never been to a wedding with an open bar, so I was really surprised to learn that this was the norm in the US. It does seem to be more creeping in more and more in the UK (to the point that the last three weddings I have been to have had open bars) but to be frank our family and friends won't expect it, we can't afford it, and so we are not doing it.
A first night hotel. Mickey wants to book into a local hotel on our wedding night. My argument is that 1. the hotel is further from the venue than our own house 2. I like my own bed 3. we will be too tired and drunk to appreciate the nice hotel, so we may as well save the money for our mini moon.
A honeymoon. In my mind, our wedding is the cost equivalent of a long haul holiday. There is no way we can justify having a wedding AND a long haul holiday. Also, I don't know what we would do with Eli, he is too little to be left even with the most doting grandparents for more than a few days, and he is too little to appreciate it if we take him with us to some amazing destination. Our plan then is to have a 'minimoon' for a weekend or so in the UK, and then look at a big, once in a lifetime family trip a few years down the line.
The intention of this post is not to brag about how little or how much we are spending. At the start of the planning process I found really helpful to look at other peoples budget breakdowns and I am just trying to return the favour!
2 comments:
I love the new exchange rate, it makes me feel like we spent less on our wedding than we did three months ago when there were two dollars to the pound. As long as the economic downturn keeps up I'm going to feel a lot less pained about sharing our budget with my (90% American) readers. It is a horrible thought, like that bit in those horrible makeover programs where they make some poor insecure woman stand in front of thousands of people in her undies, but I agree that it really is quite helpful to see other people's budgets.
We didn't have a honeymoon either, for exactly the same reasons. I really wish we had though, we needed one!
I must post my list too. (Thanks for the reminder.) It's rather similar actually.
We got a night in the hotel where we had the reception included, which was great because I got ready there, but after the event the only benefit was its proximity to the party. I agree, save it for a time when you can appreciate it.
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