Last week, the BBC published this feature on how to have a wedding on a budget. Their suggestions included ‘do it in November’ and ‘get help from your friends’, or ‘serve prosecco instead of champagne’.
Maybe not the fresh and inspirational kind of advice readers might have been hoping for – perhaps the Beeb journalist had taken her eye off the ball to enjoy the glorious sunshine. The article left me unhappy. Not because of their money-saving, creativity-lacking suggestions, but this specific remark;
‘Every time I call a supplier – whether it’s a florist or the printers, the quotes I get are always so much higher than I expect….It’s like you need to add a zero on anything that is wedding-related. Everything seems to cost so much’. – BBC News feature –
I want to put the record straight on the cost of weddings. I’m not going to rant, or get all righteous about something I feel strongly about. I want to expose some of the hidden costs that wedding suppliers have to account for when pricing their products and services. I also want to provide some really honest and truthful feedback from suppliers themselves. I would like for this feature to be a resource to educate readers to the costs involved when planning a wedding, and to provide sensible tips to keeping these costs manageable and within budget.
This is quite a long post, but well worth taking five to read, so before you push to the ‘TLDR’ file, consider this:
My first and most valuable advice is that you do not need a single ‘wedding’ product to get married. You need a registrar and a registry office and two witnesses. Any other cost you should actually enjoy adding. Be pleased to part with some hard earned cash for a celebration. – Emma Meek, Miss Bush Bridal –
It isn’t usually long after we’ve started planning a wedding that the internal dialogue starts niggling away; Why is my wedding dress so expensive? Why does this photographer want over £2,000 just to shoot my wedding for a few hours? Why is the venue hire so expensive? I shouldn’t have told them it was for a wedding! Over £500 for wedding flowers? Who are you kidding?!
Weddings can be as expensive or inexpensive as you like, but the view I have always held is that if you want to enhance your planning and wedding day experience by employing professional services, then you must expect to pay a fair and reasonable price for them.
The hours spent on e-mails, the time lingering over meetings, the extras, the travelling, the little things done to make someone’s special day even more special for no extra cost. Suppliers just don’t rock up on the day, do a job and get home by 6pm for an evening with their feet up. They plan, they prepare, they work relentlessly on the job and then they’re tidying up, sorting out, clearing away and finishing everything neatly afterwards. – Tamryn Lawrence –
As you may or may not already know, Tamryn Lawrence is a member of the Love My Dress team. She is also founder of The Candid Apple, a wedding PR expert, published author and former multi-award winning wedding planner. She knows a thing or two about weddings, and she has a healthy and realistic view of the wedding industry.
‘Some wedding industry suppliers do over charge for their services. I’ve been in the industry for over 11 years now and I’ve met a few suppliers that frankly should be paying to attend weddings, not the other way around. Happily, I’ve met hundreds and hundreds more super talented, uber committed and downright fabulous people who work their backsides off going above and beyond for their clients. If you think working in weddings is an easy gig and a quick way to make big bucks, then come and give it a go.’
Honest, refreshing words. Now, given the nature of the BBC feature, I’m particularly keen to focus on the subject of wedding photography. Wedding photography is often the first to get a bad rap by the press for being extortionately priced. Thing is, most people planning a wedding will not ever have invested in professional photography services before, so in all honesty they’ll be unlikely to fully appreciate the associated costs, skill and expertise involved.
There is a common misconception that, with the rise of modern, cheap digital cameras, photography i easy. It isn’t, and running a wedding photography business is not cheap. – Tom Ravenshear, Photographer –
Professional wedding photographer Tom Ravenshear charges £2,300 to shoot a full wedding. The fee covers Tom’s attendance from early in the day through to dancing and evening celebrations. He also meets and spends time with his clients, exchanges many emails before the wedding, and his fee includes a set of edited images accessible via the Internet.
‘As with every other photographer in the industry you work backwards from what you want to earn – so you set your salary based on your experience and skill, add on you costs, divide by the number of days worked throughout the year and there you have it. The one main thing to remember with wedding photography is that you usually only shoot one wedding a week – on a saturday. and not all year round – no wedding photographer I know shoots every saturday, 52 weeks a year. I usually look to do 25-30 weddings a year – and even that is a lot to manage.’
Photographers charge what we do not because we can get away with it, but because that’s what its worth. – Tom Ravenshear –
‘If I shot 30 weddings at full price, this would give me an annual turnover of £70,000. But factor in running a car, insurance for cameras, cost of camera gear (I have £30,000 worth of cameras at £1000 a year insurance costs), computer and software costs, advertising costs, marketing, accountancy fees and this leaves enough for around a c.£50,000 annual salary. This is above average, but photography is a highly skilled profession and I have 15 years experience of shooting weddings. A photographer is expected to have the skill to capture some of the most intimate moments of your life, having known you for the least amount of time out of all the guests at your wedding. That is a skill that takes years to hone.’
Would you suggest that £50k a year for a skilled photographer who spends most week days editing and running his/her business, and the majority of weekends working away (possibly long distances away, for long days) as unreasonable? Remember, wedding photography is a highly competitive market, so it’s not in a photographer’s interest to simply overcharge for the sake of it – they need to remain competitive to get the work. It’s important to point out that the vast majority of wedding photographers won’t earn anywhere near as much as this – Tom is in a small minority having developed his business over 15 years.
Get a photographer, with skill, good equipment, a great personality, professionalism, a lot of experience, whose work you love, and who has public liability insurance (a must for any business). You won’t get all of that from a ‘friend with a camera’ or anyone who charges less than £1000 per wedding. – Tom Ravenshear –
Wedding photographer Eliza Claire says she has a number of factors that affect her pricing. ‘My prices start from £1500 and go up to around £3000 depending on the length of coverage, and what albums are included. All packages include a second photographer and all final images fully edited in colour and black and white for the client to print and use as they wish. In setting my prices, the most important thing to consider was the ability to earn a living without having to supplement with a second job that would take away from my business and time for my couples. In addition to this, I looked at the demand for my work, how many weekends a year I am able to work and what my outgoings are.’
Perhaps this comment left by photographer Pete Cranston on the Love My Dress Facebook page last week sums it up best, ‘I have a mortgage, taxes and mouths to feed. This isn’t a bloody hobby’. This photographer’s reaction to the BBC piece also struck a chord with industry colleagues.
It doesn’t matter whether I’m photographing a wedding on a Saturday in August or a weekday in October, I still have to find childcare for my on. – Alexandra Davies, Photographer –
The BBC piece made a dig at venue costs too, so I spoke with Laura Caudery, the leading lady behind Fetcham Park, a wedding venue in Surrey. Fetcham Park is available for exclusive use hire on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays for £7,000 inc. VAT.
Can you hear that internal dialogue again? (£7,000 + VAT for one day? Are you serious?)
Laura explains how this fee was set. ‘Our fee ensures couples have the use of the house from 9am on the day of their wedding until midnight, and support throughout their planning process (access to trusted suppliers, two in depth planning meetings and ongoing support from a dedicated wedding coordinator). Fetcham Park is only available for exclusive use hire for a limited amount of days per year, but the level of service that is delivered for every wedding is unwavering and likened to that of a 5* hotel. Like most businesses, the venue itself has running costs, which include garden maintenance, housekeeping and the upkeep of all the rooms amongst many other things. Grade II* listed houses are expensive to maintain and our maintenance and improvements are ongoing. Not only so that we can preserve the house for future generations but so we can ensure it looks its very best for each and every couple.’
‘A team of highly professional individuals are employed by us to undertake a multitude of tasks – from liaising directly with the bride and groom (which on average, adds up to 300 emails and a day of face-to-face time), to ensuring Fetcham Park has an online and offline presence, and most importantly ensuring we are keeping abreast and ahead of industry advancements so that we can offer our couples the best service. Our staff are working 7 days a week – often late into the night so we can be available at times that suit our client – not just on wedding days and I think that’s often forgotten. There’s also the many hours that are spent liaising with suppliers for each wedding; there are usually a minimum of 7 different suppliers on a wedding day and there can be more than 20. In brief, it’s the man hours and behind the scenes costs that are often overlooked but when put into context, demonstrate just how reasonable our charges are. The day itself is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our costs.’
Laura reveals some of the more hidden costs that wedding professionals have to account for when setting their prices. It certainly makes you think a little deeper about what your wedding budget is being spent on, doesn’t it But my venue is charging me a fortune for corkage – £10 per bottle – £20 for champagne!
I know, I hear you. Corkage fees (<— a MUST read) are where your sensibilities need to come in to play. Are you really prepared to pay £10 – £20 per bottle to be opened? If your venue is posing a problem with things like corkage fees, perhaps it’s time to look elsewhere? Remember, be sensible, and always follow your instinct.
I asked Laura for her views on booking a venue during the winter months to save money.
‘Most people understand the relationship between supply and demand as it’s apparent in day-to-day life; happy hours during the week, cheaper haircuts on Mondays, sales on clothing at the end of a season. The price of stock and service is all relative to how in demand they are, and the same can be said of summer weekend weddings vs weekday winter. However unlike most venues, Fetcham Park is only available at weekends and is just as desirable in the winter as it is in summer. The time and effort devoted to each of our couples – and our expenses – don’t change depending on the time of year so therefore neither do our prices.’
And what about the dress ladies? The average price of a wedding dress is around £1,500. Can you justify buying a dress at that price when you are only going to wear it for one day? I fully believe you can and I respect the time, energy, love and craftsmanship that goes in to the design and creation of each dress. Not to mention the professional services provided by the boutique/supplier selling the dress. Emma Meek, owner and Managing Director of Miss Bush Bridal in Surrey says she and her team spend 16 hours on average (often much longer) on each wedding dress sale. This time covers everything from emails to checking order confirmations, fittings and more.
‘From the shop floor to the car door as you collect you have a huge team of skilled and dedicated women employed in a retail environment like no other.’
So we’ve established that weddings are not cheap and there are good reasons for that. But one fact often overlooked is that what a consumer encounters in day to day life is simply not scaleable for a wedding. Take food for instance – Laura Caudery explains this further.
‘If you were to go to a restaurant chain for a meal, and have a few nibbles, starter, main, dessert, cheese, coffees, a bottle of wine and water – you would probably expect to pay around £60 + per head. Bear in mind that this restaurant has reduced costs because of the high turnover of business they do. The level of service and attention a wedding is given is over and above what you would expect in such a restaurant. Menus are bespoke, teams of people are brought in especially for you and in some cases, the quality of food will be comparable to that of a fine dining restaurant. Plus whereas you are sat in a restaurant for a couple of hours, our team will be hosting your guests for up to 12hrs!’
‘It’s the same with other suppliers – florists for example. We’re all familiar with picking up a cheap bunch of flowers with our weekly shop but people don’t think about the workshop space required, the transportation, 2am starts at the flower market, the pressure of bringing flowers to bloom at just the right time, temperature variations, hand-wiring – the list goes on! My point is that whilst a bunch of flowers from the supermarket might ‘cost’ £10, a bespoke bunch from an independent supplier (which the majority of wedding suppliers are), is going to cost significantly more. That’s not because you’re being ripped off, it’s because we simply don’t and can’t have the same economies of scale as mass-produced products.’
There is no ‘wedding premium’, but there is most certainly a ‘skills premium’ needed for weddings and that is greatly undervalued and under-reported. – Laura Caudery, Fetcham Park –
Should those planning a wedding ask for discounts?
Well it depends who you’re asking really. Photographer Tom Ravenshear believes there is no harm in asking, as long as you ask politely. ‘Yes, lets chat – but don’t be surprised if you can’t get a discount on a saturday in August. And please ask nicely. Also, never force a price down just for the sake of it. I went to shoot a wedding I agreed to do after the bride pleaded with me, but on arriving, I discovered the bride had purchased two dresses, four pairs of shoes and countless other items suggesting she clearly could have afforded my services. It’s a shorthand way of saying ‘I don’t care enough about you or the quality of your work.’
Photographer Eliza Claire says she is happy to adjust her packages rather than provide discounts, ‘…if the client can’t afford a full day’s coverage, or they want an album but don’t have the money yet, I can offer deferred payments or shorter day coverage etc.
I also offer an album registry so their guests can contribute to their album. However, I don’t offer discounts as it would not be fair on my couples who have paid the full price.’
Emma Meek of Miss Bush Bridal illustrates why discounts are not usually possible when it comes to your wedding dress purchase, ‘Take the £1795 average wedding dress price tag, remove the VAT of £299.17 and the shop nets £1495.83. Remove the trade price of the dress, rental costs (shop & studio), labour for 16 hours, phone, email & electricity and the shop nets somewhere nearer to £380. From this sum we have to invest in new samples, market and advertise our services, spend on rather dull items like stationery, printer ink, sewing machines, steamers, insurance, overlockers & branded storage bags.’
‘There are delivery costs levied by the designers, water coolers need to be kept supplied, cleaning has to happen. The net will be closer to £250. There are Employers Contributions to be taken from this sum and if by some miracle this sum is not further reduced will have to pay tax on this profit. Imagine the tiny sum that is made when the dress starts off at £1000. You can see how easily discounting would wipe out any profit. I have had to help an alarming number of brides this year from shops that have closed, all of which had been heavily discounting.’
‘Even if we were the most generous individuals on the planet it is not an option to not make a profit The simple fact is that out credit card terminal providers will not supply their services if we do not, neither will our dress designers if we look a bad credit risk.’
The one that that irks people is saying that wedding suppliers are expensive. As the famous phrase goes, if you think we’re expensive, wait until you hire an amateur! – Emma Meek, Miss Bush Bridal –
I warned you this piece would be long, but I really hope it has helped you understand a little more about why weddings may seem expensive and why suppliers charge what they do.
I’d like to end with some sensible suggestions of our own for couples managing a wedding budget:
- Be open and honest with suppliers about your budget. Tell me your real budget and I can help even if it is simply to point you to the best budget retailers I know. (Emma Meek, Miss Bush Bridal)
- If you need to spend less, spend less. Find things you can go without, look at your priorities, exercise some self restraint and ask yourself what’s really necessary and what’s truly money saving. (Tamryn Lawrence).
- Be realistic about what you can afford. Work out what is most important to you right from the start, and try not to get carried away with everything you see on Pinterest! (Laura Caudery, Fetcham Park)
- Don’t be afraid to talk to your supplier. Experienced suppliers know what they’re doing and can take the pressure off you so that you can concentrate on enjoying the run up to your day. Professional suppliers will help you avoid a (potentially costly) problem before it even happens. (Laura Caudery, Fetcham Park)
- Be mindful of expectations. DIY isn’t always cheaper and it certainly isn’t easier. Accessories and other stuff from auction sites doesn’t mean you’ll get a bargain (or indeed anything you actually want to use). (Tamryn Lawrence)
- Prioritise what is important to you. Work out what’s important to you, and place the money there. I have seen so much money wasted on fluff that just wasn’t necessary. (Tom Ravenshear)
- Choose your suppliers wisely: Look at reducing the amount of hours you need for wedding photography – 4 hours of amazing coverage is always better than 10 hours of average quality photos. (Eliza Claire)
- Set yourself a realistic not idealistic budget. If a wedding dress is over budget then you simply cannot afford it. If you push to £3000 when you really should only spend £2000 you will start to resent perfectly acceptable charges like alteration costs. (Emma Meek, Miss Bush Bridal)
- Check for hidden extras: always check prices include VAT and make sure there are no ‘hidden extras’. We’ve recently been told of a venue charging £8 for bottled water! (Laura Caudery, Fetcham Park)
- Keep a healthy perspective: I’m sorry to sound cynical but the best wedding we’ve hosted was planned in just 5 weeks – it wasn’t about a big budget or years spent obsessively planning but rather a couple that just wanted to get married surrounded by their favourite people. A single day can never be worth getting yourself into debt over and whilst it’s an incredibly special day, I also don’t believe it will be the best day of your life…how depressing would that be?! (Laura Caudery, Fetcham Park)
Now it’s your turn. Leave your thoughts comments and queries below. Are you grappling with a wedding budget? What are your thoughts on the general expense of weddings – do you feel the cost is justified or extravagant? If you are a supplier, do you provide discounts? What ways can you suggest to help manage the wedding budget? Has this feature enlightened you and are you able to add anything to our list above? I’m keen to receive all feedback and experiences.
