starrsville

>>> The talk of the steamie was that the average price for a British wedding was £15k- with civil partnerships, the guys will be double that and the lesbians, half <<<

VERY funny, Sheila!

LoveItaly

It is typical for weddings in Italy to be quite large and are very formal events with hour after hour of food to the point that some guest really get ill, lol. Than it is not quite so formal, lol. In most cases weddings are taken quite serious in Italy

TexasAggie

I grew up in Dallas and attended private school there though high school. Some of these schoolmates went on to have unbelievably ornate weddings... many costing over $150,000 USD. In most cases the families involved were well able to afford it so even though it seems outrageous, to each their own.

In any case, my Dad was thrilled when DH and I expressed our desire to do a simple destination wedding for 50-ish guests in the mountain town of Estes Park, Colorado.

starrsville

Just heard on HGTV a couple invited 250 guests for a Sunday afternoon cocktail party. Guests thought they were coming to celebrate the completed renovation of their home. They were handed a glass of champagne and an announcement that they were at a wedding.

Now, that's the way to do it!

vivi

Starrsville- I just went to a similar "party." The bride and groom
sent invitations for a beach party, they were rather insistent that we attend. I was stunned when it turned out to be a stealth wedding; it was a low key yet fantastic event.

My cousin just got back from a wedding in Tuscany, he said there were 300+ guests for the weekend-long event.

audere_est_facere

>>> The talk of the steamie was that the average price for a British wedding was £15k- with civil partnerships, the guys will be double that and the lesbians, half <<<


Are you sure? All those women, so all those mad hats? (Mind you they will all be vegetarian, and they will drink pints rather than wine so the costs could be cheaper)

PatrickLondon

I don't think the poor so and so who pays for the wedding also buys the hats (might make for some interesting viewing if they did). For the lesbians, I assume no hats but interesting shoes.

Come to think of it, some recent examples I've seen of some ostentation in the UK: another pair of neighbours got married in the posh reception room at Tower Bridge, travelled there and back in a Thames Barge and had their evening party in the upper walkways of the bridge (family reception in a posh hotel at Canary Wharf). And the other day I saw an Indian wedding in a sidestreet in the City, groom on the white horse, drummers, the works.

audere_est_facere

I've seen a lesbian wedding in Soho (where else?) They were all wearing suits. No hats.

Then they went down the pub. And drank pints (sadly they didn't smoke cigarillos, so the image wasn't complete).

Cretan

Hi all,

I am from Crete island - Greece and here a wedding with 350-400 guests is a very very small one. Usually weddings in Crete have 1000 to 2500 guests invited for the ceremony and for the reception as well. Most of the expenses is paid by the bride's father. The ceremony takes place only at night, starting at 17:30 - 19:00 in winter and at 19:30 - 20:30 in summer The reception lasts till early hours 05:00-06:00 am and the whole wedding celebration lasts 3-4 days.

SiobhanP

In Ireland the largest one I went to was 300 people in the country and it was totally unusual. The groom invited pretty much the whole village.

The average can be from 80-150 people. The wedding and reception will last a few hours and then at approx 8pm the Afters guests arrive. They are people not necessairly closest like family but workmates and the cousins if you have a huge family and dont want to invite aunty mary's 10 kids etc. Then the party begins to all hours i.e. 5am the next day in some cases if there is a residents bar in the hotel. ALso tea and sandwiches are usually served at this time.

In the U.S. we also have weay mire bridesmaids. I was one of six in NJ for a friend and it was too much in my opinion. You cant have everyone as a bnridesmaid, its OTT.

Sue_xx_yy

Friend just came back from a wedding in northern Spain....250 guests, and a famous fisherman's choir sang for said guests while they ate dinner....sigh, wish I'd been there!

Regarding 'average' wedding budgets:

Bride a: $60,000
Bride b: $6,000
Bride c: $12,000

Average cost of above list of weddings: $26,000.

There are lies, damned lies, and then there are....

rex

My wife is from a big Catholic family, in a fairly small community, where weddings of 500-800 are becoming increasingly common, especially among our two dozen-plus nieces and nephews. We just moved "back home" (in 2003) after 22 years living out of state, and so we don't have the friends/colleagues connections of our many siblings - - so we had the "reduced" version of a wedding when our first daughter got married (in 2004) - - only about 250! And that included an unusually high proportion of out of state guests and (his) family - - about a third of that number.

Best wishes,

Rex