How to pay for a wedding in 10 years

Important information - the value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invest.

Whether couples choose to tie the knot in traditional style or say their vows barefoot on a Caribbean beach, weddings remain an expensive affair.

Research suggests that the average cost of a wedding has reached a record £20,822 in 2025 — with the price tag standing at £26,583 once the cost of the honeymoon and wedding rings are factored in.¹

More couples now pay for their own wedding, but in a recent UK survey around 60% of couples said they were gifted money from friends or family to pay for their wedding.²

Even if you are sharing the costs with prospective in-laws, finding these kinds of sums at short notice can be a tall order. For this reason, it makes sense to start saving years before your children say ‘I do’. Planning a wedding can be stressful, from finding the perfect outfit to negotiating tricky seating plans, so ensuring you have adequate savings in place at least helps remove some of the inevitable financial strains.

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Don’t wait for the engagement party to start saving

As with all savings goals, starting early and saving regularly is the easiest way to build a decent savings pot. Saving over a ten-year period, or for longer, means you can invest in growth assets such as equities to help boost longer-term returns. If your children are already engaged and wedding plans are in train, then you may want to stick with cash savings. As recent events have demonstrated, stock markets can be volatile in the short term, but over longer periods they have historically produced higher returns than cash, helping ensure your savings keep pace with inflation, which pushes up typical wedding costs.

Starting a wedding fund might seem like an odd thing to do if your children aren’t even in a serious relationship yet. But even if your children decide not to get married, or choose a shotgun wedding in Vegas instead, these funds can be used for other purposes, such as helping them buy their first home, whether they are doing this alone or with a partner.

Set a realistic target — without compromising your own financial future

It’s easy for wedding plans to get out of hand. Long before the happy couple start planning guest lists, viewing venues or ordering flowers, have an idea of what you’d like to contribute to proceedings. Setting a target can help you know how much you need to save each month, and whether this is affordable within your wider savings and investment plans.

If you are looking at a ten-year time horizon and want to cover half the cost of the average wedding, then monthly savings of £75, with ‘modest’ investment growth of 5% each year, should produce a sum just over £10,000 over this period.³

Fidelity’s Stocks and Shares ISA Calculator can help you see how much regular and lump sum savings might grow over different time periods under various investment conditions.

• Go to the Stocks and Shares ISA Calculator

Utilise your ISA allowance

Tax-efficient stocks and shares ISAs remain an excellent option for those looking to build medium to longer-term savings.

All adults have an annual £20,000 limit, which can be saved into either a stocks and shares or cash ISA. There is no capital gains tax to be paid on any investment gains within ISAs. In addition, there’s no further income tax to pay on withdrawals or on any dividends or interest earned.

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Choose the right investment strategy

When opening an ISA you need to choose where your money is invested. On the Fidelity Personal Investing platform, for example, there are hundreds of different funds to choose from, covering a range of assets, geographic markets and investment styles.

The Fidelity Select 50 is a curated list of 50 funds chosen by investment experts, designed to narrow this choice and make investors’ lives easier. This is a high-quality list of funds, selected based on dedicated research and performance metrics. The list covers both actively managed and passively managed funds as well as investment trusts and exchange traded funds (ETFs). These funds cover different geographic regions and all major asset classes, such as equities, bonds, mixed-asset funds and even a cash option, allowing investors to tailor their choice to their own particular risk tolerance and savings goals.

Monitor your wedding fund

Calculators can show you how your savings might grow, but underlying investment conditions can change, as can your own circumstances. Check investments on a regular basis to ensure you’re still on track to meet savings goals. You may want to alter contribution levels, for example, or further diversify holdings as your investments grow. When wedding bells look to be on the horizon, look to move savings into less volatile assets. On the Fidelity platform, for example, there are cash fund options. This ensures that sudden stock market movements won’t leave you short before the big day.

Make the most of other tax-saving opportunities

There may be other tax savings to be made, aside from ISAs. Parents or grandparents who are concerned about future inheritance tax (IHT) bills should remember there are special IHT exemptions for those gifting money to pay for a wedding. Parents can each gift up to £5,000 towards wedding costs, which is deemed outside of their estate for future IHT purposes. Grandparents can gift up to £2,500 each, and if you have generous other relatives, godparents or family friends, they can each gift up to £1,000 which will be removed from their estate immediately for IHT purposes.

• Read: 5 tax hacks: how to make financial gifts without a big tax bill

Get the family involved

You may be contributing to the wedding, but don’t assume this means you’ll get a say in what the day will be like. The best way to avoid future stress around these issues is to start a conversation about wedding plans alongside your children’s wider savings and investment goals. Do they want a big wedding, for example, or would they rather have a nest egg to help them start married life together?

The average wedding might cost in excess of £20,000, but many tie the knot for far less and still have a day they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. Weddings held outside of the popular summer months and on weekdays, for example, can be substantially cheaper. Initiating such discussions can help avoid future tensions and ensure there are ways to help pay for wedding of your children’s dreams, without necessarily breaking the bank of mum and dad.

If you’ve got a burning question you want to ask, why not drop us a line. Ask us your question. 

• More on investing for life events
• Read: How to save for university costs — in just 10 years

Source:

¹ Bridebook, 14 March 2025
² Hitched.co.uk, 26 January 2025
³ Fidelity Stocks and Shares ISA Calculator, based on hypothetical investment of £75pm at 5% annual growth over 10 years