Cost of living: Wedding couples face tough choices as prices rocket

Each spring the wedding industry gears up for another busy season - but this year the biting cost of living crisis has left its mark across the sector.

Couples planning their big day and service providers are having to make tough choices as prices spiral.

One bride-to-be in Yorkshire told the BBC she had used savings put by for her new home to fund her dream wedding.

Meanwhile, a Leeds-based dress designer said the county's wedding industry was "in survival mode".

Bride-to-be Zoe Harrison, from Rotherham, got engaged to her partner in March 2022, and is currently planning a 70-person wedding for October 2023.

The 27-year-old said rising costs meant she had had to forego a honeymoon as well as dip into her future house deposit savings.

The average cost of a UK wedding has more than doubled over the past decade, according to Compare Wedding Insurance (CWI).

They took data from more than 5,000 wedding insurance policies and discovered the average cost back in 2012 was £11,441.

That is projected to rise to £24,109 in 2023 - up 11% from £21,725 just a year before.

However, CWI reports showed that despite the hit to their bank balances, the number of couples planning to tie the knot had not yet slowed down.

"If I had known when I started planning, what I know now, I would not have planned our dream wedding," she said.

"It's too late to do this now as we would lose too much money."

Miss Harrison said she didn't want to disappoint anyone by cancelling her wedding, which some of her family and friends have had to do, but she was now unable to afford her dream home.

Before the wedding she had hoped to have put a deposit down on a house by the end of 2023, but the wedding costs were higher than she had budgeted for and so she had to "dip into deposit funds to make up the difference", she said.

Anita Massarella began designing couture wedding dresses out of her Leeds studio 32 years ago and her bespoke designs have been featured in Vogue, Tatler and Bride Magazine.

She said couples getting married this year were reluctant to make "hard and fast decisions".

Despite her success, Ms Massarella said that increased energy prices had made "costs astronomical".

"But we can't sell anything in a cold building," she added.

Ms Massarella was also concerned about the rising cost of fuel needed to import fabrics.

"The problem for us is we do everything with natural fabrics which are expensive to begin with."

"On top of that I have British wages to pay", said Ms Massarella

"I simply can't compete with imported dresses made with cheap labour."

Dress-making is a "skill and talent that can't be lost in Yorkshire," she said, adding that the small businesses that make up the county's wedding industry were up to the challenge.

Bethan Howlett, director of Bureau Botany, said she was concerned couples wouldn't have such big budgets to spend on their wedding flowers this year.

She has had to take measures to protect her business against rising costs by adding a clause to her terms and conditions.

She told the BBC she was looking to increase her minimum spend to £2,000, whereas in previous years it had been £1,000.

According to Hitched UK the average couple spent £1,050 on wedding flowers in 2022.

Mrs Howlett has also told her clients that if prices continued to rise between the date they'd booked her and their wedding date she may have to look at their quote again.

"I import flowers from Holland and the rise in fuel prices to heat the greenhouses is being passed on to me," she said.

"I have to protect myself."

Julia Munder, co-founder of York-based Grace & Motion Videography, said she had noticed couples getting married in 2023 were choosing to have smaller weddings.

She said some couples who had already placed bookings, had since asked to make their wedding packages smaller.

"I never say no you can't downgrade or cancel, I don't want to trap people," she added.

However, the rise in cost of living has seen her technical costs increase.

"Support for young businesses like ours is limited," she said.

"If I didn't have the corporate side of the business and we just did weddings it would be tricky to survive."

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