The Budget

From funding careers in high NRG pop to keeping the world trade in Lycra vest tops buoyant, the pink pound – and its profligate spending – has a lot to answer for. Naturally, you will have exquisite taste and exercise sound judgement with your dosh, but it’s not as if you get married every day and you may well be tempted to go on a spending spree. With the average cost of a traditional wedding in the UK being £17,000, it’s no secret that getting hitched is bad for the bank balance. Overrunning by just 15 per cent will mean spending an extra £2,550 and the last thing you want is to start your relationship off in serious debt because you just had to hire that convoy of pink limousines and bullet-proof Humvees to transport your entourage to the registry office. This chapter is intended as a guide to help you make sound budgeting decisions that will allow you to have a memorable ceremony, reception and honeymoon, however you choose to interpret those wedding traditions. It should also be of use to penny-pinchers who have, up until now, never contemplated what kind of experience wedding guests expect when they receive that glittering invite.

traditional difference

In terms of finances, the main difference between a wedding and a civil partnership is exactly who will pay for it. It was, until relatively recently, tradition for the father of the bride to pay for the wedding, which doesn’t help either the men or women in this situation! These days, both sets of parents usually open their wallets, and the bride and groom often either pay for the wedding or contribute to the cost. Depending on your age and circumstances, your parents may not be around, or in a position to help with your wedding.

For many gay people, relations with parents are markedly different to those that heterosexuals enjoy. Unfortunately, some parents may not want to attend your civil partnership ceremony or conversely you may not want your parents there. You need to work out who – from yourselves to friends and family – is in a position to contribute towards the wedding and how much cash you can raise before aligning that figure with your hopes for the big day.

talking about money

Many people – especially the British – are reluctant to talk about money with those close to them. You may be lucky and find everyone from your partner to your parents initiates the discussion and sticks hefty lumps of cash on the table. On the other hand you may have to take the initiative. Firstly, work out how much money you and your partner can contribute as individuals. It’s important that you’re clear and comfortable about levels of finance. It may well be that one of you is wealthier than the other. This should not be a problem, but bad feeling can and will develop between you if you don’t discuss openly from the beginning how much you’re able to contribute and at what level you have to cap the spending.

As for parental support, if you both have a good relationship with your parents it will be worth asking for help. If they don’t offer some financial support when you bring the subject of your civil partnership up, grit your teeth, take a deep breath and raise the subject yourself. Be positive and start by outlining how much you can contribute to the cost of the wedding. They’ll probably want to know how much your other half’s family is contributing. Be honest. If one partner’s family is more likely to be protesting outside the town hall with ‘God Hates Fags’ placards than contributing a penny, make this clear to the other family, but don’t milk it.

If the bad news is that you really don’t have a dream white wedding budget, be realistic and go back to your priorities. What’s more important: a wedding worthy of a Footballers’ Wives Christmas Special or the fact that you will be looking into your partner’s eyes and saying, ‘I will be there for you’? Remember how the romantic heroes and heroines of fairytales are usually the paupers not the pampered? This is all about celebrating your love, not getting into debt and creating unnecessary stress.

why budget?

Unless you really do match the dream gay financial demographic and live among piles of pink pounds in a tastefully converted city centre power station, the chances are that you will have to plan the civil partnership celebrations very carefully financially. You should now know how much you are able to spend. An inherent danger with planning anything on the scale of a traditional wedding is that you can very easily over-extend yourselves, especially if you commit yourselves to expenses on a one-by-one basis, without keeping an eye on the overall picture.

financing your ceremony

The most sensible solution is to wait and save up for your ceremony plans. But with the wedding race having officially started, many of you will not be that patient in waiting. The average engagement in the UK is 15 months, in which time a lot of money can be saved. If this doesn’t work or you can’t even wait that long, you might consider a personal loan: the APR will probably be cheaper than loading up your credit card or using an overdraft, but, as with any financial purchase, shop around; it’s likely that your high street bank’s loan will be far more expensive than other mainstream lenders. If you are paying for your ceremony on credit, you should do what a lot of businesses do and defer paying the bulk of the cost until at least a week or two before the wedding, giving you more time to save. It’s also important to be sure that those who have promised to contribute money towards your ceremony actually pay up on time.

This can be a very sensitive subject for some, so it’s best to have a clear strategy from the start. You may want to set up a bank account specifically for the wedding finances. This could be in your name or could be overseen by a parent or someone who is contributing the bulk of the money. Set deadlines for the promised contributions. Perhaps the best and most polite way to do this is to send a thank-you letter, perhaps with some flowers or a decent bottle of wine, to all those who have offered financial support. An alternative approach is for various contributors to pay for certain sections of the wedding. A parent might pay for the reception and party, for example, and a close friend the venue fees.

finding the money

Before thinking too much about what kind of day you want, work out how much money there will be to play with.

how to budget

The most obvious way to budget ruthlessly would be to go for the cheapest possible civil union price you can find (typically just under £100) and then build carefully upon that amount. Couples who get organised early and plan carefully are most likely to get a memorable ceremony at a price they can afford. It doesn’t matter which style of ceremony you choose, you are at the risk of overspending. You should build a contingency of around 10% on top of your budget to pay for the ‘must-haves’ or last-minute emergencies you discover along the way. The key to budgeting is not finding every item along the way essential; a little imagination, planning and the support of friends and family can go a very long way.

Whatever innovative ideas you dream up for the day, it’s likely to revolve around the official ceremony in a qualified venue and a reception of some sort with food and drink. On top of that, even a post-reception party and honeymoon may be luxuries. Civil partnerships are now big business for a newly sprung industry that sells everything from cake-topping, same-sex marzipan couples to horse-drawn carriages at an hourly rate, mark-up included. These companies are constantly looking for new and creative ways to wrest money from your wallet. Their know-how can be used to good effect by those with the money to pay for it, but you can create a beautiful and memorable day by doing it yourselves.

If you do pay for outside help, always remember that the ceremony is for you and your partner, not the wedding company. If you so wish, you may skip all the traditions you like: cake, flowers, whatever. Once you’ve started your budget, prioritise. Keep your head screwed on and ask yourself honestly what is most important to you.

Haggle

Take full advantage of the fact that civil partnerships are a break from tradition: it can be any theme you want, especially if the theme doesn’t cost much! No one will know why there is only one dead flower as a centrepiece and if anyone asks say it has always been ‘our vision’. There is also nothing to stop you bargaining with your suppliers or asking for more reasonable options. Do you really need a cameraman, a soundman and an on-site editing suite? Or will just a photographer do?

Top Tips for Bargain Hunting

compulsory costs

For those of you intent on avoiding the lavish spending associated with a traditional ceremony, it is worth taking into account that there are set fees for giving notice to a civil partnership registrar and their attendance at a civil partnership registration. At the time this book went to press, they were as follows:

You can only become civil partners at a venue that has been granted a licence to hold civil ceremonies. In this case your choice will be limited when looking for the most inexpensive route to go down, as all venues vary depending, for example, on the number of people permitted in each licensed room.

sticking to the budget

Once you’ve done your calculations and know how much money you have to play with, keep that in mind alongside lots of information on the costs of various suppliers and services. The sample budget sheet below can be personalised to suit your own needs. Use the quick-reference sheet for overall figures, so that you have a complete picture at a glance.

cost allocation sheet

quick-reference budget sheet

top tips for saving money

celebrity wedding

Who said celebrities were generous? Britney Spears and Kevin Federline made all their guests pay for their own drinks at their wedding party and served mini pizzas and hamburgers. Classy!

vox pop

Phillip, 34, and Daniel, 27, Cardiff

‘We did our ceremony on the cheap! We’re just two normal guys who have been together for the last four years and had decided to tie the knot, so to speak. The whole point for us was to secure our plans together for the future that means having our mortgage together and other joint assets, making sure we’re covered if, God forbid, anything happened to us.

‘We knew we had to pay the flat rate for the ceremony, which only set us back about £100. We didn’t bother with getting anything new for it, just smart clothes we already owned. Maybe if we had money to burn we would have gone mad for the hell of it, but doing things small scale really suited us anyway. My mum came and Dan’s parents were there, then just a few close mates who all came to the ceremony. We had the reception in our local pub in Cardiff where of course everyone ended up buying us a drink to celebrate! If you’ve got it, spend it, but if not, do what we did. It’s inexpensive and there’s a lot less planning involved. No sweat!’