A well managed credit card is debt the moment you do not clear the balance every month. A well-managed credit card may be used to spread a large bill over several months - that is debt. It may be debt that is well under control and will quickly be repaid, but it is debt.

The problem is the results of these surveys get tossed around without any of us knowing what the definition of debt was for the purpose of the survey nor do we know what population the survey sample was taken from.

My first wedding involved a taxi (rung at the last minute as an after thought) stinking of cigar smoke and a scruffy taxi driver. The back seat was filthy and my mum had to run in the house to get a sheet or a towel (can't remember which) for me to sit on. D H wore a borrowed jacket and his own (mis-matched trousers) and I had a brand new ordinary dress from Dorothy Perkins. After the ceremony in the register office we took the bus up to a local pub near where my grandparents lived and we "took over" the snug at the back.

Total cost around £50. (1980)

I think I got good value for money considering how long the whole bloody marriage lasted.

ANY young couple stuck in unnecessary debt is too many. However, 30% of 47% of 25% is about a third of a half of a quarter which (if my maths is OK) is about one in 24, or round about 5%. That is very different from your figure of 33% and I wondered where you had found it.

It does make the problem appear even more serious than it is, to say that a third of all UK couples are still in debt for their wedding six years after the celebrations.

According to the Office of National Statistics, the average length of a marriage in Britain is now 11.3 years, so you think one third of couples spend more than half of the time they are married paying off the debt for their nuptials?

Elegran and others, apologies if those stats were not clear, and upset you. But even then, 16% of couples being in debt for that long, for a 1 day event- and therefore unable to save for a deposit or start a family, is tragic enough in my book (and as said, a very anglosaxon problem directly imported from the USA).

The same pressure does not seem to apply to such a large extent elsewhere in Europe.

TerriBull yes think that would be great, I mean you can source stuff for free, print your own simple invites,makes your own favours(which we did)
The trouble with some of these flashy venues they won't let you take your own wine/champers/etc .The place where we had DDs charged over £2 for a childs froot shoot!! We did keep the wedding under £5,000 which I think was pretty good, still had a Bentley car, Preseco,meal/breakfast/Photographer,music/chair covers/flowers etc so think we did pretty well, and the venue was lovely countryside Ribble Valley.So was quite pleased with the outcome.But still a lot of money if you haven't got to to start with.

Friends of ours hired a village hall(also in the Ribble Valley) and the field, everyone brought jacobs join,didn't get dressed up, tents and camped out in the field, not everyone's cup of tea but hardly cost anything! Someone made a cake,others took photos with their phones/cameras and then put an album together later.

But what is "some" ? Your previous statement says "A third of UK couples" but where did you find that statistic? All I could find that came near (?) to it was one survey of "2,000 adults and found that nearly one-quarter of couples are prepared to go into debt to pay for their wedding, and nearly half of those (47%) say they immediately regretted their borrowing. And almost 30% of those were still paying . . . six years after" from a US source referring incidentally to UK couples in an article about US debt.

On a second reading I now take that as meaning that 30% of the 47% of the quarter who are prepared to go into debt for their wedding and immediately regretted their borrowing were stil paying six years later.

That is an even smaller percentage that the 16% I estimated above. If you are going to quote percentages, then do either give us a chance to look at the source to see how you reached that figure, or say outright that it is a subjective guess.

Following on from your post bikergran, I think it would be a good idea if a wedding challenge type of programme could be launched to demonstrate how such a day could be achieved with the minimum of cost. Who knows they could be an inspiration and may counteract the lengths some go to trying to emulate the vulgar c'leb weddings that appear in the sort of magazines that promote them.

Of course not Monica- well managed credit cards do not constitute debt- as well you know. But if some young couples borrow a significant amount for a wedding, and are still repaying after 6 years- surely that can't be good for the relationship and puts pressure on them - and makes it hard for them to save for a deposit or start a family. Which I find sad.

I like watching "say yes to the dress" on TV. It's interesting to see how much the dresses and weddings cost although it's all in dollars I can work out that it's a LOT of money.

I hired my wedding dress in 1968 and it was similar to the one worn by the Duchess of Cambridge which was described as retro.

We had a charabanc to take the guests to the pub where we had the reception in an upper room and we had a short honeymoon in London.

Hired dress and all I won the local Bride of the Week competition and the prize was a free wedding album. It was all in black and white of course which makes me feel old.

My son's wedding was the standard sort of one in an hotel and it cost a lot. My dh and I paid for a disco and a Beatles Look Alike Band and it was lovely in its way but I preferred my low key wedding with a local folk singer providing the music.

The problem is the definition of debt. DS and DDiL certainly owed money after their wedding to suppliers and on their credit cards. The sums were not large and cleared within a few months. Is that defined as getting into debt to pay for a wedding or the normal spreading of large bills over a short period of time?

I will be in debt after Christmas because some of the cost of it will not appear until I get my credit card statement at the end of January, when as ever I will clear the balance. Does that mean I will be getting into debt to pay for Christmas?

The problem with so many of these surveys is that we never see the small print that defines words like 'borrowing' and 'debt' nor do we know anything about the sample, apart from its size, which is quite acceptable, but was the sample a random sample from the population as a whole, or just The Debt Advisory Centre's clients?

I googled it, and got very varied results - one in ten, one in eight, a quarter, and "the Debt Advisory Centre, a U.K.-based financial advice group, which surveyed 2,000 adults and found that nearly one-quarter of couples are prepared to go into debt to pay for their wedding, and nearly half of those (47%) say they immediately regretted their borrowing. And almost 30% of those were still paying off the costs of their big day six years after the event." this from a US source

I take that as meaning that 30% of the 47% who immediately regretted their borrowing were stil paying six years later. That is about 16% (very roughly) of the 2000 who were surveyed.

According to Moneywise, 29% of the 23% who borrow money for their weddings are still paying the loan off 6 years later. I don't know where your figure of one third of UK couples being in that position comes from, granjura?

Though I do think it's a shame that anyone should be in that position. As I said earlier, what people spend their money on is their own business, but I wouldn't have wanted my DC to start their married lives with unnecessary debts.

Bikergran I know you are not in a good place just now but it upsets me that you are still paying for a wedding after all this time and at a time when you can least afford it. I am sorry to be so blunt.

I would like to arrange a wedding just from bare essentials beg steal n borrow/homebaked/homemade everything sort of thing...I think that would be an interesting challenge..

deff "yes" as I am still paying for it nearly 3 years later..!! the only good thing about the day, was my DD looked beautiful and her dad although very ill, manged to get through the day and I would pay for it all again just to see him

We had a traditional wedding. I was 20 he was 24 . We were married by his family's minister in the University Chapel. I designed my long dress, bought the satin and had it made by a dressmaker. Total cost for my dress and two bridesmaids was £14. My parents paid for the dinner and dance reception with his parents chipping in for the wine. He had some sort of stag night in a pub. I didn't have a hen do. In fact I've never been to a hen do.

Our children have never married, although they have been in stable relationships for 15 - 21 years and have children. I've long since stopped looking at hats and visualising myself as mother of the bride. I would prefer them to be married but I'm glad we've been able to help them to buy houses which might not have been possible if they'd wanted extravagent weddings.

1/3 of uk couples get into debt to pay for wedding, and are still paying the loan 6 years and more later. This is not a good start, especially if you want to buy your own home at some point, and want to have children - surely?

Like other events, such as the school prom, which didn't exist here a short while ago, when we look to copy America, it usually involves over indulgence and an enormous expense. It's a personal thing I know, but over egging anything, Christmas included, just smacks of vulgarity and the essence of what the celebration is all about is often lost. IMO!

I think the wedding in the film Mamma Mia is lovely, relaxed and easy.

I don't know what the average price of a wedding in France has to do with the price of fish!

Those awful Big Fat Wedding type events are not really a reflection of the run of the mill UK wedding.

Asking for money by way of a poem is the pits!

The average wedding price in France is about £7000- so less than a 1/3 rd of the UK. There is a huge industry in the UK that has developed on the USA model- which just does not exist on the Continent. I know these sort of comments really do annoy some on GN- but it is the truth. This huge fairy tale in a Castle with string quartet, etc, wedding, is very much a USA thing with the UK just behind.

For a while, there wasn't anyone I knew who wasn't getting married in a castle with string quartets playing the music.!!!! No, I am not from the aristocracy and neither were they. The crazy thing was one wedding I attended had this poor string quartet playing while we waited on the meal being ready, you couldn't hear them for all the chat and no one played a blind bit of attention to them. What was the point?
The 'ordinary' wedding has vanished from view.

I don't know about anyone else but the bigger the wedding seems to be the less these marriages have lasted and I'm talking less than a year.

As I have said to my own family - the more complicated you make a wedding,the more likely it is that something will go wrong.

£24 000 is ridiculous but I suppose everyone has their own views and is free to choose.

I was married in a registry office with both sets of parents and one friend of (now ex!). My wedding dress was from C&A young maternity (I was 7 months pregnant but we had been together for 5 years). My parents stayed in our flat the night before and his came by train that morning. I cooked a casserole which was in the oven as we married. We all returned for the meal afterwards and we then drove down to in-laws who had arranged a family party that evening. I only knew his sister! I had to climb over my new husband who retired to bed drunk. We probably went downhill from that point, though I stuck it for two more children and 7 more years.

One DS had a lovely wedding with all the trimmings though still cost only (!?) about £4/5000. They separated after almost 3 years and 2 children.

There are no guarantees. granjura you are right, "It's the marriage that counts"

Average UK wedding £24.000!
Does that average include wotshername's, thingummywhistle, youknowher, yes, got it - Bernie Ecclestone's spoilt offspring?

So the average price of a UK wedding is the deposit required for a £240.000 home- I'd say money better spent. Agree with you Nellie and Monica.