So, you popped the question, and she said YES!
Great. But now you have let yourselves in for a considerable amount of work, because planning your wedding is going to be the next thing, and there is a lot to take into consideration in order to ensure that your big day is perfect.
But first and foremost, you need to calculate your budget. Weddings costs today in the UK average £31,974, according to the wedding photography site Hitched. And yes, you did read that correctly! Of course, if money is no object, then you can have whatever you want, but for most couples that is not the case, and therefore you have to plan your wedding day around what you can reasonably afford.
There are many things to consider, starting with the actual wedding ceremony. If you get married in a registry office, there is a fee for the notice application which is usually £35 per person. There is a basic fee of £57 for hiring the room for the ceremony which just covers a basic room. There is also a fee of £4 for the marriage certificate if you collect it on the day, or £10 if you collect it later.
If you get married in a C of E church, the fee is £495 if you marry in your home parish, or £541 if you marry away from where you live. Costs can vary in other churches, such as Catholic, or Islam where the fees in a mosque may range from £300 to £400, plus £50 for the marriage certificate.
So those are just some examples of the cost of the actual wedding. Then there is the cost of the venue for the reception, and this, of course can vary enormously. If you are using a venue which will also provide the catering, then there is the cost of the food, and that will depend upon what you choose. On top of that, there is the cost of a bar, and a band if you are going on into the evening.
Of course, there are also the wedding venue decorations to consider, and again, this is one of those “how long is a piece of string?” questions. It depends entirely on what you want and who you choose to carry out the decoration work. At Kenza Creations we can work entirely within your budget, but obviously the more that you can afford, the more lavish can be the décor. So, for example, you may well want huge strings of exotic flowers on the wedding stage and at the reception which are either not grown in the UK or are out of season. Certainly, you can have them, but they will come at a price.
Then there is the cost of a wedding photographer. You most definitely need a professional wedding photographer who has plenty of experience. Better still, you need two photographers at a big wedding because they will be able to capture everything that is going on between them. If you only have one photographer, he can’t be in two places at once. The average cost of a wedding photographer in the UK is £1,600 to £2,000 for a full day. If you want two photographers, you can expect to pay nearer £3,000. However, you should get 400 – 500 fully edited high-resolution images on a USB.
There are, of course, other costs such as a wedding cake, the average cost of which is £300, but then you can spend as much as £1,000 for a five tier really elaborate cake.
And, of course, there is the cost of your honeymoon. Again, that could be almost anything.
So, you can readily see how easy it is to burn through money on your wedding, which is why you need to budget carefully at the outset.