Weddings & Elopements

The honest answer is that averages are a poor guide, but they are a place to start. The two big UK surveys put the 2026 average at £20,604 and £21,990, both excluding the ring and the honeymoon, and both agree the average spend per guest is around £272. Venue hire and catering together usually account for 45 to 51 per cent of the total, which is why those two decisions shape everything else. Abroad, we see roughly €28,000 to €40,000 for a hundred guests in Cádiz, €35,000 to €50,000 in Puglia and €45,000 to €70,000 in Tuscany or on the Italian Lakes. What we would tell you in a first call is that guest numbers move the figure far more than the country does, and that 56 per cent of couples overspend their original budget by an average of around £4,800. We build an itemised budget before you commit to anything, and we hold a contingency in it.

Twelve to eighteen months for most weddings, and eighteen to twenty-four for a summer Saturday at a venue you have set your heart on. Exclusive-use properties are the tightest, because they hold far fewer weddings a year than a hotel does, so the good dates go first. For destination weddings the constraint is often not the venue at all but the paperwork: a legal wedding in Italy can take nine to twelve weeks of documents, and that has to be planned backwards from the date. If you are flexible on the day of the week or willing to look at May, June, September or October rather than late July, you will find far more availability and pay noticeably less for it.

Start with guest numbers, budget and the part of the country you want, then judge everything else against those three. In our experience the things couples underestimate are all practical: where the shade falls at four in the afternoon, how many people can actually sleep on site, whether the ceremony space works if it rains, when the music has to stop, and how far guests will be driving after dinner. Photographs flatter and websites rarely list what is genuinely included. We look at venues for a living and we have stood in most of the ones our couples are weighing up, so we can tell you what a place is like at capacity rather than empty. If you can visit, visit. If you cannot, we will go and send you an honest account.

It varies enormously, and this is where most unpleasant surprises come from. Some venues include tables, chairs, linen, glassware, staff, a wet-weather marquee and clean-up. Others charge separately for every one of those, and a few require you to use their caterer or their bar. Accommodation is sometimes bundled into an exclusive-use fee and sometimes billed per night on top. Across the venues we work with, hire alone runs from around €3,700 to €10,000, while a packaged wedding weekend including rooms and a private chef can be €19,000 or more, which is why the headline numbers are so hard to compare. We ask for the full inclusions list in writing before anyone signs, and we read the contract for the clauses that catch people out.

Guest numbers are the single biggest lever on your budget, because most of the cost scales per head. At roughly £272 a head in the UK, twenty extra guests is another £5,400 before you have changed anything else. They also drive the venue shortlist: plenty of beautiful properties top out at 80, and once you pass 150 the field narrows sharply. For a destination wedding, plan for a meaningful proportion to decline, particularly older relatives and families with young children. We would rather you built the budget around a realistic number and spent well on those people than stretched to accommodate a list that will not all travel.

They are different services and you may only need one. Full planning means we are with you from the first idea: concept, budget, venue, every supplier, the timeline and the day itself. Partial planning picks up a wedding you have already started. Venue and vendor sourcing is just the search and the introductions. On-day coordination is for couples who have planned it all themselves and want somebody to run the final weeks and the day so they can be present at it. Planning is charged at €60 per hour plus VAT, and coordination starts at €750 for a half day or €1,400 for a full day, plus VAT. Worth knowing: some venues, particularly exclusive-use estates abroad, require you to appoint a professional planner before they will confirm a booking, so it is sometimes not optional.

Broadly: May, June, September and early October around the Mediterranean, and May to September in the UK if you want summer, with October to March if you want the venue to yourselves at 30 to 40 per cent less. We have set the whole calendar out, with temperatures and the price differences, in the timing section above.

Personal relationships, not directories. The suppliers who matter most, photographers, videographers, caterers, florists, bands and DJs, hair and makeup, celebrants and transport, are booked on reputation, and the good ones in any region are known to the people who work there. That is the part we do: we have spent years building those relationships across Spain, Italy and the UK, and we know who is reliable in August, who is worth paying more for and who turns up early. If you are sourcing independently, ask for recent work at the same venue, check they carry insurance, get the cancellation terms in writing, and be wary of anyone who will not give you references.

It is one of the first questions we ask a venue on a viewing, and it should be settled before you sign anything. Some venues include a marquee in the rate, some charge for one, some have an indoor space that genuinely works, and a few have no real answer at all. What matters is that the plan is one you would actually be happy with, because if it rains you will be using it. We also plan for it operationally: a call time for the decision, who makes it, and how the suppliers are told. On a destination wedding this is more important, not less, because a last-minute marquee hire in rural Puglia is not a phone call you want to be making yourself.

Broadly: eighteen to twelve months out, set the budget and book the venue, and start the legal paperwork if you are marrying abroad. Twelve to nine months, book the photographer, caterer and band or DJ, and send save-the-dates. Nine to six months, florist, hair and makeup, transport and accommodation blocks for guests. Six to three months, invitations out, menu tasting, outfits fitted. Three to one month, final guest numbers, seating, running order and supplier schedules confirmed. The last fortnight is chasing, confirming and sending everyone the timings. Destination weddings shift earlier throughout, because paperwork and travel need more lead time. We manage this schedule for our couples so the decisions arrive spread out rather than all at once.

We arrive first and leave last. In practice that means being on site before the first supplier, checking the ceremony and dining spaces are set as agreed, receiving deliveries, briefing the venue team on the running order, and holding the timings so nobody has to look at a watch. If something goes wrong, and something usually does, you should not hear about it. A florist arriving late, a musician cancelling that morning, a delivery to the wrong gate: those are ours to solve. What couples tell us afterwards is not that the day was flawless but that they were able to be in it, which is the whole point.

Most venues take a deposit to secure the date, commonly around 50 per cent and usually non-refundable, with the balance due somewhere between a month and a week before the wedding. Suppliers vary: photographers and bands often take 20 to 30 per cent up front, caterers tend to invoice on final numbers about a fortnight out. Our own fees are staged across the planning period rather than taken in one lump. Two things worth doing: put every payment date in one schedule so nothing lands unexpectedly, and pay by card or bank transfer with a paper trail rather than cash, particularly abroad. We build that schedule for our couples and remind you before each date.

We would say yes, particularly for a destination wedding, and it costs very little against what you are spending. A policy typically covers supplier failure, deposits lost if a business folds, damage to attire or rings, and cancellation for reasons outside your control such as serious illness. Read what is excluded: many policies do not cover simply changing your mind, and cover for extreme weather is often narrower than people assume. Buy it when you pay your first significant deposit rather than later, because it will not cover anything that has already happened. If you are marrying abroad, check the policy covers events outside the UK.

It depends entirely on the venue and it is one of the first things we check. Some run a genuinely open policy where you can bring anyone. Some have a recommended list that is a suggestion. Some require you to book catering and bar from their list, which is a requirement rather than a recommendation. A few charge corkage or forbid you bringing your own alcohol altogether. None of these is a problem in itself, but they change what a venue actually costs and how much freedom you have, so they belong in the comparison before you fall in love with a place.

Give people as much notice as you possibly can, then make the decisions easy for them. We hold room blocks at a range of price points rather than one hotel, because a wedding party usually spans very different budgets, and we lay out the options on a simple page or card with the invitation. Transport is the part couples forget: if guests are drinking and the venue is rural, somebody has to organise coaches or minibuses, and that needs booking early in high season. For a destination wedding we would also suggest a welcome drink on the first evening, so nobody arrives cold to the wedding itself.

Frequently, and they vary far more than people expect. Some venues have no curfew at all. Others require music to move indoors at midnight, which is fine if there is a good indoor space and a problem if there is not. Some rural properties have agreements with neighbours that cap volume from a set hour. Occasionally a venue will support a late licence application. Ask the question early and get the answer in writing, because a curfew you discover late can reshape the whole evening, and it is one of the few things that cannot be worked around on the day.

If your guests are travelling to be with you, yes. It is what turns a wedding into a weekend, and it is usually the part people remember most fondly, because it is relaxed in a way the wedding day cannot be. A welcome dinner also solves a practical problem: everyone meets before the ceremony rather than during it. Costs vary, and some venues price additional days separately, often somewhere between €2,000 and €3,000 for a full event. It does not need to be elaborate. Long tables, local food and a bar is enough.

Collect them with the RSVPs rather than chasing later, and be specific: allergies, intolerances, vegetarian, vegan, religious requirements. Then get them to the caterer in writing with the final numbers, and make sure the kitchen understands severity, because an allergy and a preference are different things. Abroad, do not assume the vocabulary translates cleanly. We confirm dietary requirements in the local language and check the actual dishes rather than the categories, and we make sure the service team knows which guest is which before anyone sits down.

Whatever you decide, decide early and say it clearly on the invitation, because the alternative is a series of awkward individual conversations. If children are coming, they change the shape of the day: a long drinks reception is difficult for small children, and a late dinner even more so. Practical things that help are a shaded space to retreat to, food served earlier, and someone to look after them during the meal and speeches. Some venues can arrange childcare; many cannot, and it is worth asking rather than assuming.

Transport for guests, supplier meals, corkage, cake cutting fees, overtime if the day runs long, and the second day if you are hosting one. Beyond that: your own travel and accommodation, a viewing trip if you are marrying abroad, alterations, postage on invitations, and the tips and thank-yous at the end. Individually these are small. Together they are routinely thousands, and they are the main reason 56 per cent of UK couples overspend their original budget, by an average of around £4,800. We put them in the budget from the start and hold a contingency on top, rather than discovering them in the last month.

Not per guest, usually. What makes it cheaper is that fewer people come. A hundred-guest wedding in Puglia costs more than a hundred-guest wedding in the North West of England; a forty-guest wedding in Puglia often costs less than either. Be honest with yourselves about numbers before comparing countries, and remember to count the costs that do not appear on a venue quote: flights and accommodation for you, a viewing trip, and the welcome dinner or farewell brunch that most destination weddings end up including.

No, and most couples do not. The usual approach is to complete the legal marriage quietly at a register office at home, then hold a symbolic ceremony at the destination. It is identical in every visible respect, and it removes any risk of foreign paperwork going wrong. Where the legal process is workable, as in Italy and Portugal, marrying on the day itself is a genuine option and some couples feel strongly about it. In Spain and France, residency requirements make a legal ceremony impractical for most visiting couples.

A document confirming there is no legal reason you cannot marry. UK nationals obtain one from a Superintendent Registrar after giving notice at their local register office, and most European countries ask for it before a legal ceremony. Other nationalities should check with their own embassy, as the equivalent document differs. It has a validity period, so it needs to be timed rather than obtained as early as possible, which is one of the things we schedule for couples marrying abroad.

Yes. Most of our work is in Spain and Italy, but we plan and coordinate weddings across the UK too, and a good number of our couples do both: a small ceremony abroad and a celebration at home afterwards for everyone who could not travel.

Yes, and a good number of our couples come to us exactly that way, with the venue secured and everything else still to do. We take on the suppliers, the budget, the timeline and the running of the day, or just the final weeks and the day itself if that is all you need.

Fewer than you invite, and it is worth planning around that from the start. Couples marrying abroad typically see a meaningful proportion decline, particularly older relatives and families with young children. Give people as much notice as you can, be clear about likely costs early so nobody is embarrassed, and treat the final number as a range rather than a figure until invitations have been out for a few weeks.