“Foreign weddings are draining my bank account.”

I used to find the idea of a foreign wedding exciting and glamorous. Now, as soon as I get invited to one I just feel worried about how much it’s going to cost – I’ve got three coming up. 

It cost me over £700 to attend a wedding in Spain last year and I’m still paying off the debt. For comparison’s sake, I paid around £150 to go to a similar type of wedding in the UK.

Sometimes, there’s a feeling that the bride and groom are doing you a favour by getting married abroad because you can make a holiday out of it. But that’s not the case when you haven’t got much disposable income.

I’m in my mid-thirties and own a house with my partner. This year our already sizeable mortgage repayments have doubled because of current interest rates. We also have a toddler at nursery four days a week. 

The only way I can afford to attend a wedding abroad is by getting into debt. Or by not going at all. Not going means that I miss out on friends’ major life events, but going can make me feel anxious and resentful about how much it’s costing.

We won’t be able to go on another family holiday this year because we’re using any available money (and annual leave!) to go to the three weddings abroad. For two of them, we’re able to bring our toddler.

But for one of them, we’ve had to ask grandparents to step in, which is a big ask. Not everyone has the same support network to fall back on and it definitely isn’t something we take for granted.

Ultimately, I know that it’s a couple’s choice where they get married. And that my financial situation is personal to me, and it was my decision to have a child, which does add to the logistics and cost.

I just wish there wasn’t such a lavish culture around weddings; it’s getting to the point where some people are being priced out of being able to celebrate their friends. It’s so frustrating.

How much does it cost to attend a destination wedding?

Hosting a wedding will usually cost the engaged couple, or their families, several thousand pounds. But there’s also a cost for attending a wedding, especially if it’s a ‘destination wedding’ taking place overseas.

According to 2024 research from Aviva, people spent an average of £978 attending a ‘destination wedding’ last year. Of the 2,000 people surveyed, almost 20% said that they felt obliged to attend when asked why they decided to go (this doesn’t take into account whether the wedding was taking place in the UK or abroad). 

The research listed Spain, France and Italy as the most common destinations for weddings abroad and found that three million people are planning to travel from the UK to a destination wedding in 2024.