It now costs a staggering amount to attend your mate’s wedding

Wedding season can be great fun, but it can also leave you with a massive hole in your pocket.

Everyone has that one summer where all the couples they know seem to be getting married within a matter of weeks, and it’s great if you’re the sort of person who enjoys celebrating the happiest moments in your friends’ lives.

It’s less good if you’re the sort of person who really doesn’t like spending a lot of money.

If you’re sat there asking “How expensive can it really be?”, you may want to sit down before reading the rest of this article.

According to a new survey from Provident, it will cost an average of £1,015 to attend a friend’s wedding in the UK, or roughly twice as much for an overseas ceremony.

Yes, you read that right, average. If you’re a best man, or part of the wedding party, you can expect that figure to go up.

The figure takes into consideration the obvious things like accommodation and gifts, but also costs you might not have foreseen such as travel, food and drink at stag parties. Oh, and those extra expensive whiskies and cigars you decide you just have to buy on the day itself, because it wouldn’t be a proper celebration without them, right?

These things add up – for a recent example, I was forced to fork out extra to change my travel plans last-minute after the Beast From the East struck just before my friend’s stag – so if you’ve got an amount in mind, it’s fair to assume what you actually end up spending will be higher.

Read more: How to boss planning a wedding as a bloke

There is some help in store, though, in the form of Provident’s ‘Save the Date’ calculator.

If you include your role within the wedding (regular guest, or something with more responsibility), and include all the things you expect to pay for, they’ll give you an estimated cost.

Their figures come from a survey of more than 1,000 British wedding guests, so they should give you a rough guide to how much you’ll be forking out.

Once you’ve figured out the total, and added together the costs for all the weddings you’re attending this year, you might want to take a few minutes out to scream. And then figure out how many times you can re-use that suit.

(Images: Unsplash/Pexels)