Saving up for a wedding

By David Field

Saving up for a wedding is no easy process. After Lucy had finally said yes to my continued proposals last January, it quickly dawned on us that setting a date for the wedding in the approaching summer months would be far beyond our financial capabilities.

I now regret making quite as many friends as I have as I quickly came to realise that large numbers of people would have to be invited if noses were not going to be put out of joint. Lucy is possibly even more gregarious than myself and has a huge extended family, meaning the number of people we would have to cater for in the post-wedding luncheon was touching three figures. The hiring of a venue and the catering for the occasion came to an absolutely astonishing figure of £3,000. The addition of two bottles of wine on each of the 14 tables added an extra £400 to the bill. Caterers for weddings really do know they are on to a good thing. They realise that the desire for a good day means that couples are willing to pay far in excess of what they would for a similar service in any other walk of life. It makes me resentful.

Then there were the wedding outfits to purchase for all and sundry, the hiring of a lavish 1930s vehicle to turn up in and an official photographer. He alone was charging £1,000 for his services. I told Sarah that my friend Colin would happily do it for £100, but there really is no reasoning with a woman when it comes to a wedding and we eventually ended up looking at a total cost approaching £6,000. We decided that 18 months might be enough to cobble the money together. I took a second job, leading the greyhounds out down at the local track on Friday nights, while Lucy also joined me on these occasions, waiting tables in the corporate boxes. This brought in an extra £250 a month, still leaving us £1,500 short of our goal over the next year and a half. We opened an internet savings account to take advantage of its superb rates of interest, which saw us receive an extra £400 for doing precisely nothing. The remaining £1,000 was made up by taking home made sandwiches to work rather than buying something from a shop, cutting back dramatically on nights out and making sure that Lucy didn't buy any more clothes apart from wedding-related ones.

With the big day now just two months away everything is on course and almost paid for, although I cannot help wondering whether my 18 months of servitude at the dog track will be worth it just so that everyone can enjoy themselves at our wedding. Things were a lot less lavish in years past. Apparently you had to bring your own wine at my parents' do. Now that sounds like my kind of wedding.