National Wedding Survey 2021 Results

Hitched, the UK’s most popular wedding planning destination, has published the results of their National Wedding Survey 2021.

The National Wedding Survey has a brand new format for 2022. Previous editions of the survey looked at estimated spend for the next three years, whereas the 2022 survey has captured data on actual spend from newlyweds who married in 2021. The data has been gathered from an online survey fielded by Hitched from November 2021 - January 2022, with over 2000 respondents.

Editor Zoe Burke added:

“It’s so promising to see that weddings are coming back with a bang - we’re seeing couples investing more in the experiential details of their day, such as the venue, and focusing on the guest experience as a priority. It’s clear after the challenges of the previous years, couples want their weddings to be more meaningful, and this is wonderful to see.”

Highlights of their findings include:

• average cost of a wedding, excluding honeymoon and engagement rings: £17.3k - with nearly half of couples going over budget
• average cost of photographer: £1.2k
• 91% of couples hired a professional photographer, the highest percentage out of all suppliers
• 32% of couples hired a professional videographer
• average length of engagement: 20 months
• average size of wedding: 72 guests
• August was the most popular month to get married in 2021
• December was the most popular month to get engaged in 2021
• almost half of 2021 weddings were originally planned to take place in 2020, but were postponed due to Covid-19
• overall, spending has increased since pre-pandemic levels