Wedding Fever

Flood and Partners
Aug 31, 2018 · 3 min read

By Lucinda Lewis — Research Associate at Flood + Partners

Imagine this… in your Monday post, there is a fancy envelope; inside, an extravagant, luxuriant card, embossed with joined up writing and classy sparkles.

Your eyes light up — Beverly and Barry are getting married in a surreal castle and YOU, you are invited!

Then your face falls…

The wedding is on a Wednesday.

Beverly and Barry live in Edinburgh, you finish work at 5.30 on Tuesday, you’re going to have to take a half day Tuesday and stay the Tuesday night just to be able to make it. Then you have to take off Wednesday for the actual day and then Thursday too because there is no way you’re going to make it to work the next day, due to a toxic mix of the dreaded hangover and extreme journey time.

Two and a half days off and at least £200 on the hotel stay at this fancy castle. Now imagine you’re invited to 4 weekday weddings - like me.

It would be wrong to ignore the part that weddings have played in this year’s holiday intake from work and my super hectic summer. I’ve been invited to 5 weddings and attended 4, all of which have been on a weekday! Let’s not forget all the other malarkey that comes with it, from hen dos to bridal showers.

Basically, I don’t want to hear Ed Sheeran ‘Perfect’ ever again…

All this fun got me thinking about how it has all changed. The ‘weekday wedding’ is now the normality. Saturday weddings are a distant memory, with 44% of couples opting for other days of the week to marry — but why? MONEY OF COURSE. In 1990 the average wedding cost £5000 and these were almost always on a Saturday. Now, the average wedding costs a whopping £25,000, even with people opting to weekdays (which are meant to be cheaper!)

So, I decided to do some desk research, what is making these ginormous figures? It surely can’t be the sweetie carts alone??

And it’s not- que the amazing country house, coming in at a whopping £8,500 (already smashing the 1990 £5000 budget!). Then we have the food at £5,500… FYI we are already at £14,000! Then we have the ceremony fees, dress, shoes, accessories, bridesmaids’ dresses, grooms wear, hair and makeup, photographer, reception décor, flowers, stationary, wedding favours, the cake, entertainment- the famous sweetie cart and a photobooth (obviously) and thank-you gifts. All of which will easily set you back the other £16,000. And I’ve not even considered the honeymoon!

Your 1990’s wedding cost so much less because they didn’t have sweetie carts… and they also didn’t have massive light up LOVE signs, photobooths, they hired clothing, and venues were generally a lot cheaper, the food was less extravagant, and the photographer was your uncle’s cousin! The whole experience was less about making everyone happy and how things looked, and more about just sealing the deal!

So, let’s bring it back to the 1990’s wedding, a simpler time, all about the love and leaving great memories and a wicked story to tell your kids— plus, maybe this way I can actually go to a wedding on the weekend…

Flood and Partners

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