Last week's wedding Sankey made me curious about our own wedding costs during the 2020 pandemic, so I did and am posting it here for anyone interested in a small wedding for 9 people (including bride and groom). We had originally planned for it to be in May 2020 with about 40 people, but that was completely impossible, so we had to cancel the hen do and honeymoon, and postponed our wedding to August when lockdown was slightly lifted and they allowed a few guests.

We live in the UK so all numbers are in £GBP, so with a conversion rate of £1:$1.32 at the time, our total wedding cost was £7,759/$10,242 or £4,106/$5,420 depending on whether you want to include the engagement ring or not. Note our wedding was in 2020 and there's been roughly 25% general inflation in the UK in the last 5 years.

Notes:

  1. I chose to present my and my wife's costs separately since we paid for our own outfits and wedding bands (is that unusual?) so didn't want to obfuscate who paid for what. The rest we split out of our joint account 50/50. I'm actually very curious whether you guys prefer this presentation, or the 2nd or 3rd versions with more categories but also more obfuscation.
  2. I paid for lunch (including drinks) myself since it was relatively cheap. It was just at our favourite local Thai restaurant and lockdown had just been lifted so we were the only ones there on a weekday lunch and got excellent service as if we booked out the place.
  3. I chose a cheap titanium wedding band for myself, and actually got 2 as the first one was a bit loose.
  4. We hired our town hall for a 1 hour ceremony on a weekday so the venue hire was cheap.
  5. Our photographer only charged us 2 hours since it was much shorter than our original wedding plan.
  6. Afterwards, we bought a photobook separately from a printing company that gave us a £100 voucher, so would've cost £130 otherwise.
  7. We did buy a medium sized cake that we already liked before, just a normal cake so not a "Wedding Cake". It would've cost £50 but they actually forgot to flip the cake and remove the paper on the bottom so I complained and got it for free. Would've preferred to pay for a paperless cake for our guests though!

Hope this helps, we had a fantastic day despite the reduced size, and saved money that we've put towards our house and family now! Some friends and family have also opted for similar small weddings even after the pandemic, they don't all have to be huge if you don't want it to be, it's what matters to you that counts. 🙂

Posted by arthurmauk

41 comments

  4. How the flying fuck did the guy spend 3k+ on rings, but just 300 for an outfit.

    Priorities are insanely off here.

  5. Wow some things sure do seem like a waste of money. But congrats on having only two items of big spending I guess.

  6. I’m from India where weddings are over the top fancy galas. Huge amounts of money poured to entertain every person you’ve ever known, especially by both sets of parents more than the bride and groom.

    Lockdowns were a blessing for us where people were asked to limit number of guests to a ‘modest’ 100 max.

  7. Every comment is sort-of hating on how much was spent on rings. As someone who got married and knows many people who have got married in the years between 2020-present, the ring cost seems on the lower end.

    I’m jealous of how low the 50/50 costs are!

  8. I think that seems reasonable for an engagement ring. I know a lot of people push 10k

  9. You spent 2k+ on a wedding outfit she will probably never wear again in her life for a wedding with 9 people including the groom and bride?
    That’s insane to me… Far more than the ring(s?).

  10. Going out to eat at a restaurant in 2020 was a bad look, I don’t care if it was for your wedding.

  11. LOL at the amount of hate on this guy. Why are people up in arms for $4k or so for a ring but not the bride spending more than half that on her dress for the day? I spent that amount on a ring back in 2006 as a 23-year-old. Sheesh.

    Also a wedding lunch for 9 people for $250 seems insanely cheap to me!

    Anyway, F the haters.

  12. Everyone is overreacting to your costs. I think the whole thing sounds lovely and $3k for a ring isn’t crazy. The comments would have you think you spent $50k for a 9 person wedding. Congratulations and I hope you guys have a great life together

  14. I don’t understand how lunch for nine people was so cheap.

  15. Her dress wasn’t “expensive” – I skimped and saved to put mine together using a local seamstress and my own design, and it was more than £1k, two decades ago. A proper wedding dress today, no frills, no added costs, is not much less than the price OP posted. The materials aren’t cheap (lace, silk trims, etc), it has extras such as sashes/veils/boleros, it requires several fittings, and it’s custom fitted to the bride. For many women, it’s the one time in your life you’re going to have a garment made solely for your use – why skimp on that?

    We paid a fair bit for wedding photography (our second biggest cost, iirc, £500?), but we haven’t watched the videos or looked at the photos in years – too many of the nice people are dead and there’s too many arseholes we don’t want to be reminded we’re related to. For the amount of drama our relatives raised after the reception they should be grateful we fed and bought them drinks! E.g. girlfriends kicking up a storm because they were sat at a “low status” table relative to actual blood relatives, or refusing to tell me what the Unforgivable Thing I Did was, that they just keep bringing up with a pout before storming off at every reunion since (I’ve apologised several times), or the MILs who had the ONE JOB of labelling gifts so we knew how to thank for what (nope, too much to ask), or the relatives who stole all the leftovers after the catering company left. I wish we hadn’t invited half of them to our wedding.

    We ordered a 3 course meal from a local catering company, and hired a bar, with 2 drinks prepaid per guest. I baked our “wedding” cake (a nicely frosted carrot cake which is my favourite), so we saved a bit of money that way.

  16. Similar to what my wife and I did in 2001. $200 Aud for the town hall ceremony, $300 or so each on suit and dress. People paid for themselves at a restaurant afterwards .

  17. I suppose this looks so skewed towards the ring and dress because you bought those before the pandemic? How much would you have spent on the wedding if it wasn’t during lockdown.

  18. Solid presentation, better than the other two. Out of curiosity, what kinda outfit did you get for 300?

  19. Why do people in married relationships split costs like this when everything is jointly owned in case of divorce? Unless you folks have a prenup

  20. Everyone ripping on the costs within the chart and all I can think is how this is a horrible use of a Sankey.

  21. I do think it’s funny that the engagement ring is in the groom breakdown. Wasn’t it purchased for the bride?

  23. I like how the engagement ring became a groom expense. This was clearly drawn up by the bride.

  24. Thank you for sharing! It was my post that you saw. Congrats on your wedding, that was not a fun time to get married.
    I prefer the 3rd version, where all costs are together, even though you had things specifically bought.
    Edit: I commented before I read comments. Reddit will give hate more than love, so ignore those criticizing. I appreciate you sharing!

  25. What site/app/whatever is this where you can make graphs like this?

  30. I tought you had a joint (weed) for every guest, but then I was like 50/50 what? Cause you dont put anything else in a joint besides weed, no?
    Then I saw the “Legal” branch and I was wondering why do you have to pay to make it legal to smoke.

  31. I’m more curious about low spend on groom wedding bands and why 2?

    Edit: nvm saw the updates haha. Mine is palladium (because it’s what Tony Stark makes his first arc reactor out of) and thus was a little more expensive 😂

  34. You can also marry spending just a few hundred bucks, it’s a choice.

  35. Almost $900 for a joint seems excessive, but hey it’s your big day

  36. Really dislike these boring posts from individuals about how many boogers they picked over a 72 hour period. Post it in r/weddings. This data is fucking boring

  37. I think this is some US BS. I don’t think anyone who’s not massively influenced by US TV shows in europe thinks it’s reasonable to spend so much money on a ring.

  38. I will never understand what the point of an engagement ring even is. Are you people made out of money? But I’m also cynical about weddings in general, so I might not be the best judge. I‘m not against weddings, just comparing the cost of a normal (non-pandemic) wedding to what that would buy you instead makes it seem like a horrible investment to me. Lots of people spend so much they could almost buy a house with that or at least finance a good part of it. And a house definitely raises your standard of living more than a wedding.

  39. We were also a 2020 wedding. 20 people including location, food, clothing and alterations for both, DJ, photography and streaming, wedding coordinator, etc, we were around $8k I think (this excludes my ring). I don’t know how much the pandemic helped costs, but it would definitely be much more expensive now to have that same wedding, especially the location.

  40. What is the name of the software that does this type of graph?

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