Whether your wedding is indeed the happiest day of your life might vary from couple to couple, but one day that is almost certainly not going to be in contention for that title is the day that the wedding bills land.
While weddings have never been the cheapest of occasions, analysis by planning website Bridebook suggests costs have increased by 25% in the last four years, with the amounts involved often diverging quite a lot from what the British public feel is reasonable to spend on a wedding.
The median Briton, for instance, feels that £1,000 is the maximum reasonable amount to spend on hiring the wedding venue, with another £1,000 dished out for the catering. A dress should cost no more than £600, according to the median Briton, while the reasonable price tag for both the engagement ring and each wedding ring stands at £500 apiece.
The acceptable cost of a honeymoon is a bit higher, with the median Briton suggesting that £2,000 is a maximum reasonable amount to spend on a post-nuptial getaway.
In terms of the overall cost of the wedding itself, excluding events such as the stag and hen dos or the honeymoon, the median Briton feels that couples should spend no more than £6,000 on their big day, with this rising to £9,477 when looking at a mean average.
Notably, these amounts are all quite significantly below the actual figures. According to Bridebook, the average UK wedding costs £20,604, with a further £5,211 spent on the engagement ring and honeymoon. Just a quarter of couples (25%) reportedly spend £10,000 or less on their weddings, while around a third (35%) spend £26,000 or more.
Venue hire and catering take up the biggest chunk of the typical wedding budget, with the average couple reportedly spending £7,408 on catering and £6,040 on a venue, while a wedding dress typically sets a couple back by £1,532 and a total of £1,057 is on average spent on wedding rings and jewellery.
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Photo: Getty