Average UK Wedding Cost Now at All-Time High
Just got engaged? Wondering what the average cost of a UK wedding is?
You might want to look away.
It’s £30,355.
MORE THAN THIRTY THOUSAND POUNDS.
It’s a 12% increase on last year.
Christ on a retro-converted prosecco bike - what are you people buying?
Okay, so it's probably not that surprising. All that Insta-worthy, #WeddingoftheYear, Etsy-inspired, three-day festival with alpacas, organic locally produced vegan street food and a laser light show will add up. It’s no wonder that the price is rising year-on-year. We’ve moved beyond the pre-90s wedding template: the church or registry office ceremony, the sit-down meal, the evening reception, buffet and disco into bespoke stage-managed events where personalisation is everything. It’s obvious that this is going to have an implication on price.
Just to put that into some perspective, a first-time buyer can expect a deposit on a house to be around £28,000.
It’ll be interesting to see if there’s ever going to be a year when the average cost goes down or whether we’ll be tweeting from our nursing home in 2065 about weddings averaging £5,500,000 because Mars has a bio-dome with gorgeous views and a food truck.
Of course, not everyone is spending that much on their wedding day. The actual average spend (not inflated by the big spenders) is probably between £10,000 and £20,000 depending on where you live in the UK. Your wedding may well have been much less. But when you consider how much the legal part of wedding ceremony costs (the most important bit when you think about it), even £10,000 is still a lot of money to pay.
It seems that we all want individual touches now, and it’s not fair to blame the vendors or venues for price increases. Whatever industry you’re buying in and whatever product you’re trying to secure, personalisation is always more expensive. It takes more time, care and often more talent to put something individual together rather than choosing off-the-peg or out of a brochure.
People are getting married later, too, which means that the money they’re spending to on their wedding is now more likely to be their own rather than their parents.
But there are plenty of ways to saving money on a wedding: getting married out of season or on another day of the week is one. Asking friends and family with suitable talents to help out might be another. Having your ceremony and reception at the same venue and taking advantage of end-of-season sales are others. It also helps to start your wedding planning off on the right foot.
Remember, too, that most people won’t remember all the carefully thought out nuances of your wedding (although, these may be the biggest things you’ll sweat over: the seat covers, the wedding favours etc). They’ll remember the atmosphere and how welcome they felt, so don’t go too overboard on the photobooths, fire eaters or cigar rolling stations just because it seems to be the norm on Pinterest.
