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

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..

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

We have been to two weddings in recent years that were to my mind completely OTT and I dread to think what the cost was. The first marriage lasted two years when the husband admitted he had been having an affair with a colleague since shortly after the wedding day. The second couple took off on a round the world honeymoon and she came back on her own after six months saying it hadn't worked out.
I'm not really cynical! I just think sometimes the costs are ridiculous for one day. I have been to lovely weddings that were obviously 'spur of the moment' type things and I don't think anyone enjoyed them any the less.

On QI recently, it was stated that, generally speaking, the length of time the marriage lasts is inversely proportional to what it cost. On the other hand, the more people who attend the wedding, the longer it may last. Go figure! (Mind you, I take everything on QI with a pinch of salt.)

I was already living abroad when we got married in 1977. I went back about a week before the wedding (I'd just started a new job so didn't have many days' holiday). Popped into a shop in Ely and bought a wedding dress for 26 pounds. Some friends of my sister's (3 brothers) sang "Morning has broken" whilst we were in the registry. We recorded it on a cassette but I can't find the cassette any more.

We had the reception at the Rowley Mile Race Course because my mother worked at the Jockey Club. No idea who did the catering. I regret not being involved more now.

When DS No 1 got married, we had a lovely time preparing and planning along with the couple, their priest and both sets of parents. A lot of thought and preparation went into the service, which everyone praised highly - "It was like a concert" - so many choirs and musicians involved. And, being Catholic, they had altar boys and girls - 25 of them!

The biggest items were the flowers, the dress, and food at the reception for 80 sit-down guests. It all came to about 5000 Euros. I measure all weddings by that one, which seemed to have found the perfect balance, and was special without being too expensive.

Married in 6 weeks from day of proposal. Dress 17 guineas, reception a buffet in local pub costing around £60, honeymoon 4 days in Wales in in-laws Mini. Hen nights didn't exist, at least I don't remember them. Celebrated our Golden Wedding last Friday and feel very lucky.

Married in 6 weeks from day of proposal. Dress 17 guineas, reception a buffet in local pub costing around £60, honeymoon 4 days in Wales in in-laws Mini. Hen nights didn't exist, at least I don't remember them. Celebrated our Golden Wedding last Friday and feel very lucky.

I am very much in favour of marriage, but not weddings. Think of the percentage which end in divorce!

We gave our children money towards a deposit on a flat and told them that was their wedding present! They then paid for their own weddings.

We got off very lightly. Son got married on a beach in Canada with only four people present and daughter got married at a registry office in London, followed by a meal at an up market pub. Both lovely, happy couples!

We got married nearly 33 years ago and had to organise it very quickly as my husband arrived from Greece and for him to be able to stay in the country (he is Greek) we had to get married asap. In fact, we got a special licence from the vicar of the church where I was baptised, even though we actually got married in another church, 3 weeks later. I bought my entire outfit (suit, hat and shoes) for around £20 and I looked very smart! In fact, one of my friends said she had never seen me look so elegant! Our reception was sandwiches and drinks in a pub and a friend made our wedding cake. My Dad paid for the pub but we paid everything else ourselves - no mean feat as we were broke and didn't have time to save up!

For our honeymoon we went to Bath and stayed in a nice hotel for 2 nights as it was half-term and I had to get back to school the following Wednesday. On our honeymoon we were accompanied by 4 friends and a dog! We didn't know they were coming, they just turned up.

My stepdaughter got married in Copenhagen two years ago (she is half Norwegian and her husband is Danish). We made a biggish contribution. It was a great wedding in the beautiful Baroque chapel of a palace which is now a military academy, followed by a cruise around all the waterways of Copenhagen - most of her friends hadn't been to Copenhagen before and neither had we so it was a great idea and we all got a snack bag and sweeties on the boat, as well as champagne, of course. Their reception was a sit-down meal in the back room of a book shop and they had a group playing in the courtyard outside before the meal and a disco afterwards. It was great and everyone enjoyed it no end.

Our daughter got married last year. She had to organise it in a hurry for the same reason that we did (ie she was marrying an American in New York and had to do it before she got deported!) We contributed to that one as well, but had no organisational input as we were over here beforehand. Her husband's uncle married them on the roof of their apartment building (26th floor) with a view across to Manhattan in the background It was wonderful! The florist let her down at the last minute, so she had to do all her own flowers and bought up every rose from a wide radius! She did all the table decorations and the bouquet, buttonholes etc. She bought her dress online and it was gorgeous! The reception was in the Housing Works Bookshop in NY, which is a charity bookshop supporting AIDS victims and the homeless and is open for functions in the evening. If you got bored you could just read a book off the shelves! We had a lovely sit-down meal followed by dancing and the play list had all my favourite songs on it specially chosen by our daughter!

They were two fantastic weddings and so well organised by the brides and not hugely expensive either and in complete contrast to ours!

My youngest daughter and her husband got engaged , saved to buy a house then saved for the wedding of their dreams . We chipped in with what we wanted to offer . They never asked !

They got married abroad in front of 23 of their friends and family . Had an awesome 3 week honeymoon to follow and came home with minimal debt .

They negotiated hard, made some of the elements like invitations and scaled to what they could afford .

It was a beautiful wedding and I'm totally proud that it was nearly all through their own hard work x

My son and his wife had a BBQ in a field, which everyone contributed to instead of buying wedding presents. Entertainment was a folk band, with called dancing. It was a lovely day and the nicest wedding I ever went to.

I was having this very conversation with one of my nieces at the family Boxing Day gathering ... she recently got engaged to her long-term boyfriend and is looking at late 2017 for their wedding as the place she really really likes is fully booked till then. She wants the whole shebang and then some! I asked her which was more important ... being married or having one day costing 2 arms and legs, her answer was they have years ahead to be married and she wanted the day! Of course, most of her friends are already married and they all had the huge showy weddings, so she must keep up! My sister is horrified at the thought!

Different priorities these days apparently. Rather the big splash than use that money for a house deposit.

My husband and I married in Copenhagen (he is Danish, so ceremony was free) and took the families (15 of us altogether) out for brunch afterwards ... I think that cost was around £300. My first time was even cheaper as we did it with 2 witnesses and just went home after!!! Guess I'm not a wedding person! ?

What I do not like about 'modern' weddings is when the bride and groom disappear for ages for photographs after the ceremony. The guests are left by themselves to drink too much and wait and wait. I think it is the height of bad manners.