Wedding Expenses

Marrying outside of a church or the local registry office is not the cheapest option.

In fact, costs are likely to be higher as extra fees are demanded since the registrar will have to travel to an out of town venue such as a remote country hotel. Despite reading that ordinary people frequently spend £20,000 on a wedding, you can actually get married in UK for very little - the cheapest fees are likely to be approximately £100 for a register office ceremony or about £300 for the alternative Church fees ceremony.

But of course very few people dash along to the register office or church as if it was an ordinary day. Without some other expenditure that marks the day as special, as an event of note, most couples do not simply go through the motions of a ceremony to get the certificate proof of marriage. It is indeed a special day and for many people their wedding day is one of the happiest days of their life.

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The whole point of a wedding is the word ceremony - which highlights the participants involvement in making vows and promises for an adventure together, hopefully for a life partnership. The whole concept of marriage is imbued with optimism, selflessness, compromise, comfort and hope for building a future of happiness by sharing joint adventures and ideas. So as this concept must be celebrated, so then the costs start to add on as the dressing up, eating, drinking, partying and recording of the event are all are added to the accounts.

You can find plenty of wedding websites that cover wedding preparation information. My best advice is stick closely to your budget and don't be too swayed by glossy magazines and websites that suggest you must have everything everyone else has. By all means read the advice, but filter out what is frankly often unnecessary expenditure.

Do you really need the caterers to the stars to make your wedding cake at £1000+? Be realistic, will it really make that much difference and make you happier in the greater scheme of things if the person who made and decorated the cake for Posh, Madonna or Prince Charles can make your cake. You could even make it yourself as I made mine from my cake recipe here.

The more interesting venues accommodate those who want somewhere special for their big day, but find that a church wedding is meaningless to them. There are others who would like the special feel of a church wedding compared to a registry office, but realise that third time round a church or chapel wedding might seem hypocritical.

Now those who want a more glamorous alternative to a civil registry office wedding can choose to have a formal wedding, but in surroundings more special than a Registry office at the back of the town. Now in UK it is possible to have the wedding ceremony and the wedding reception in one attractive building and one where guests often gather for one or two overnight stays.

With the exception of Quaker and Jewish ceremonies, in England and Wales it is only possible to get married in daylight hours between 8 am and 6pm. This is because an 'ancient' law states that there must be enough daylight for a man and woman to see the person they are about to marry. If a couple choose to marry in a civil ceremony in a Register Office then the hours are even more reduced to between 10am and 4pm in the week and to midday on Saturday. This means that in the UK it is more customary to marry by lunchtime and have a wedding reception in the afternoon. In many cases a second reception is held with evening entertainment varying from a disco to a barn dance.

As the new laws for venue licence properties came into effect so more and more people have begun to opt for a ceremony after 3pm so the wedding can take them into an early evening affair. One of the first royal weddings to do this was that of Sophie Rhys Jones and H.R.H Prince Edward. They married after 5pm at the last possible hour of the day. Guests were told not to wear hats. Most guests chose to wear evening dress for what was technically an evening function. As the new century approached new rules were emerging in weddings in England and Wales.