A huge part of wedding planning is coming up with a realistic budget – and doing your best to stick to it. Familiarising yourself with the wedding industry in general is a good idea so you can work out what costs what and what you’re happy to splurge on and what you don’t mind cutting back on a little.
New research from wedding website hitched.co.uk has found that the average cost of a wedding this year has hit £25,090, the highest it’s ever been. The single biggest expenditure was found to be venue hire (which will set you back £3,738), with the venue ranked as the biggest priority by brides. After the venue, the honeymoon is the second biggest outlay, costing on average £3,366.
Editor of hitched Caroline Bradley said it’s not a surprise that the venue is the main priority since by choosing this early on in the planning stage, happy couples can plan around it easily since there’s a wedding date, a location and a cost per head already agreed upon.
“We also see that couples are opting for guests to help fund towards the honeymoon – which may be a contributing factor to the average wedding spend being at its highest in seven years. With guests footing the bulk of the honeymoon bill, couples are free to spend the majority of the budget on the big day itself,” she went on to say.
When looking for the perfect wedding venue, think about booking at least a year before your chosen wedding date as this will give you as much time as you need to plan the rest of the day. Remember that the popular venues will be booked up a long time in advance during the summer wedding season so get in there quick if you can.
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