Talking point
You can’t put a price on love, but marriages these days can be eye-wateringly costly, as Christabel Smith discovers
THE HOMEMADE CELEBRATION
Total cost: Under £9,000
Maxine Morgan, 56, helped her daughter Molly achieve the rustic wedding of her dreams.
Not so long ago, a couple would celebrate their nuptials with a glass of sherry and a ham sandwich, and it would all be over by mid-afternoon. Now, festivities can last all day and half of the night, while hen and stag dos are often multi-night breaks.
Little wonder, then, that the average cost of a UK wedding has almost doubled over the past decade, according to Compare Wedding Insurance, from £11,441 in 2012, to £21,725 by 2023.
A wedding list is now longer than Princess Diana’s train, and the expense mounts up faster than confetti on church steps. Costs are even more eye-watering on top of the current cost-of-living crisis. A 2022 survey on wedding site Hitched revealed that 59% of UK couples went over budget with their weddings. ‘Guest experience’ was their top priority, but with many still paying off student loans and saving for a house, is it bonkers to carry the cost of friends and family drinking fizz and generally having a hoot?
Some parents cringe at the amount of money their children are prepared to spend on a wedding, while others simply put the increase down to changing times. Either way, one thing’s certain: behind the woman saying ‘I do’, delicately dabbing their eyes before they ruin their make-up will be the mother of the bride.
Here, we talk to two women whose daughters did it their way.
When my daughter Molly got engaged to her husband Ezra, she was clear from the start that she couldn’t have a ‘corporate’ wedding. She wanted as much as possible to be handcrafted or recycled. She designed and printed her own save-the-date cards and invitations. We bought vintage crockery from charity shops, saved bottles for table lights, had dust sheets for tablecloths and used dried flower petals as confetti.
Molly wore my crochet wedding dress for the legal marriage at the register office in our home town of Ramsgate, Kent, then a stunning gown and veil for the ceremony and reception on a farm a few days later. A celebrant led them through their vows, with bridesmaids in pre-loved dresses. Molly’s godfather made their rings from a gold bracelet he’d given her as a baby, a florist friend arranged wild English flowers and the band were old school friends. Friends gave the barbecue lunch as a present and we assembled grazing boards for the evening guests. Molly even made the cake herself.
Molly and Ezra’s celebration was beautiful in every way, and I was bursting with pride. As I watched Molly cooking breakfast for her guests on camping s
