Wedding season is costing me nearly £2,500. It's madness

Telegraph

13 hours ago

Weddings are supposed to be about love. In fact, I'm fairly certain that's the whole point: meet someone you like, successfully convince them you're not a lunatic, commit to tolerating one another for life, and celebrate with everyone you know. That's how it works. Except, it isn't really. Because the modern wedding machine is not so much defined by love as it is by capitalism.
Take the not-so-humble nuptials of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, who recently tied the knot in Venice, an amusement park for the cash-rich and morally bankrupt. Celebrities like Leonardo Dicaprio and Kim Kardashian were among the 200 guests at the three-day affair said to have cost somewhere around $50 million. Most people looked on with outrage at such ostentation. But my concerns were not so much with the poor taste of rich people. I was more intrigued by how much their guests would've had to pay to partake in this monstrous piece of performance art. Because big weddings mean big bills for all participating parties. And that's not counting the accompanying hen and stag dos, which can be even more costly.
According to research from the Money and Pensions Service (Maps), wedding guests are spending more than £2,000 a year, on average, with the biggest costs being travel and accommodation, followed by outfits and gifts. For people my age (31), this is even higher given how many of our friends are getting married; the report found that those aged 25 to 34 spend around £740 each time on average, equating to up to nearly £4,500 a year.
It sounds excessive because it is. I say this as someone who, this year, has spent the bulk of her summer holiday budget on other people's weddings and hen dos.
The first wedding featured a group of university friends I hadn't seen in years; we all piled into a local Travelodge together with strip lighting and questionably damp sheets. Spirits were high but so were the bills: £90 for the hotel room and £40 in taxis, not to mention the £60 I spent on a blow-dry and £50 on renting a designer dress, feeling pressured to look good in front of people who'd last seen me aged 21. None of which was helped by humidity on the day which meant my hair started to frizz the second I arrived.
Then there was the London hen do which cost me £300 – no, it didn't include an overnight stay and yes, that only included one meal. I didn't drink to save money. Another one of the weddings saw me getting stuck on a Sunday train service for two hours because of a delay, meaning I wound up paying £30 for a taxi home from the station because I didn't want to walk home from my local Tube station in the dark. And don't even get me started on all of the post-wedding hangovers that have forced me to write off the subsequent days, remaining bed-bound with Netflix and electrolytes when I should've been working.
One of the weddings was on my birthday, by the way; I held a small dinner the night before just to make sure I'd marked the occasion in some way before spending the weekend celebrating (and spending all of my money) on someone else.
And it's not even over yet. I have another wedding in August. That one is in Suffolk; I haven't even started thinking about where I'll stay, how I'll get there, or what I'll wear. Though whatever choices I make, it will end up in the ballpark of at least £250, and possibly much more if I decide to buy or rent a new dress given that I've already worn (and been photographed in) all of my existing ones at this year's weddings to date.
Those prices are just rough estimates, by the way. They would be a lot higher were I to incorporate all of the last-minute purchases: emergency fake tan, new lipstick, blister plasters, electrolytes and hair serum etc. Not to mention the money spent on drinks beforehand (and occasionally during if it's a cash bar) as well as the obligatory post-wedding fry up.
On top of the financial expenditure, though, is the energetic and logistical expense. Planning your journey to a wedding takes time: who will you travel with? How will you get from the station to the venue? Where will you stay and how close is it to the ceremony? Do you want to be closer to the church or the party? How reliable is that local cab company that's supposed to pick you up from somewhere you've never been at 1am?
I know this makes me sound resentful. Or ungrateful, and like I secretly hate all my friends for getting married and having the audacity to invite me. And I want to clarify that isn't the case. I love my friends and all of these celebrations have been so much fun. I've danced the night away, drunk plenty of champagne, and had many silly late night chats with people I adore. But when the invites pile up, and the events happen in such quick succession of one another, it's impossible not to feel a little overwhelmed by it all: financially, emotionally, and even spiritually. It's a lot, especially when the traditional wedding format is so well established it starts to feel a little like you're spending a fortune to experience Groundhog Day. There are only so many times I can see a groom wink as he sniggers 'my wife' into a microphone without feeling like I've seen it all before.
This summer is my first proper wedding season, so maybe I'm just still adjusting. Last year, I had just two weddings in September, and the years before had also been marked by just one or two. With those, I was very close to the couple and had a lot of friends there, which makes an enormous difference to how much fun can be had. This summer, a lot of the weddings I've gone to have featured just a handful of pals. At one where I knew just one person besides the bride, I actually tore myself away shortly after dinner so I could catch the last train back to London. I just couldn't face shelling out another £90 for a Premier Inn hotel room that would mean sleeping in overly starched sheets and eating powdered eggs for breakfast. And for what? To make small talk with strangers?
Also, I'm single, which shouldn't make a difference to my experience at weddings but unfortunately it does. Not only does it make it more expensive given you don't have an automatic 50/50 split for accommodation and taxis but it exposes you to an array of questions about your love life and condescending (while admittedly well meaning) attempts to set you up. Again, after a while this becomes tedious. And I've had to calmly tell a few friends that being single doesn't mean I automatically want to hook up with someone at their wedding, nor does it guarantee I'll fancy the one single man in attendance.
Don't get me wrong, wedding season has its perks. I love being able to catch up with people I haven't seen in years and celebrating the genuine love that my friends have found with their partners. But it wouldn't hurt my wallet and soul to spread things out a little more. So far, my 2026 is looking completely wedding free. Let's just say I'm not exactly unhappy about that.