Celebrity culture bumps up wedding costs

A national obsession with celebrity marriages has sent the average cost of a UK wedding soaring, new research suggests.

According to TK Weddings, 59 per cent of brides-to-be want their guests to think that their wedding was the best they have ever attended. Only 26 per cent are concerned that their guests see how in love they are.

Incredibly, the cost of the average wedding has now reached almost £20,000, having doubled within the last decade. Television and magazine coverage of celebrity weddings has apparently been instrumental in this trend, as couples are now trying to recreate the glamorous scenes they see and read about.

The average British wedding now costs an outrageous £60 a minute, the Daily Mail reports. Many couples have taken on second jobs in order to fund this extravagance.

TK Weddings managing director Tamryn Kirby said: "It's easy to get carried away when organising a wedding. Hopefully couples will have written a budget early on in the planning and will have stuck to it.

"But as the day gets closer and panic sets in, it's easy to start haemorrhaging money."

The most outlandish wedding this year has perhaps been that between Liz Hurley and Arun Nayar, which reportedly cost £3 million.