Wedding Gifts Cost Brits an Extra £129m per Year

Informations

• Publié par: first-direct
• Nombre de lectures: 15
• Langue: English

Extrait

Wedding Gifts Cost Brits an Extra £129m per

Year

PR Newswire

LONDON, June 11, 2012

LONDON

,

June 11, 2012

/PRNewswire/ --

While organising weddings may be expensive, it is not just the happy couple

who have to fork out for their nuptials. As we approach the wedding season,

research from online bank

firstdirect

reveals that, at a time when people are

looking to reduce their outgoings, the average amount spent on a wedding gift

in the UK has actually increased from £47 to just over £51 in the last year.

With the average UK wedding hosting 96 guests, this is a total gift value of

£4,896

1

per wedding, which could amount to a £1.2billion wedding gift bill for

UK guests over the course of a year. That's an increase of around £129m since

2011

2

.

The age group likely to give the most is 18-24 year olds who plan to spend a

whopping £63 on each gift. At the other end of the spectrum it seems 55-64

year olds don't splash their cash as readily and plan to spend £46, only slightly

less than 2011's average.

There is also a division between the genders, as men are far more ready to

splash their cash when buying a wedding gift, spending £61 on average

compared with just £41 for women.

Across the UK, people from

London

are the most generous wedding guests,

paying out on average £80 for wedding gifts, while people in the North East

spend the least, at just under £38.

Bruno Genovese, SeniorSavings

Product Manager said,

"

We all know that paying for a wedding is expensive for the father of the bride,

or the couple if they are paying for it themselves. However, it can also be

expensive to be a guest especially when you take into consideration the cost of

a new outfit, a stay in a hotel and drinks at the reception. If you're lucky enough

to have lots of friends and family getting married, now might be the time to

start saving."

Table 1: Average spend on wedding gift by region

Region

Average Spend

Scotland

GBP47.42

London

GBP80.28

North East GBP37.72

Wales

GBP49.46

North West GBP42.57

South West GBP38.71

South East GBP55.18

Midlands

GBP48.35

Yorkshire

GBP49.12

Eastern

GBP44.02

UK Average GBP51.01

Notes to Editors

1

£51 x 96 = £4,896.

2

Total number of weddings per year is 241,100 (ONS, 2010). Based on average

96 guests per wedding (You and Your Wedding,

December 2010

) each offering

a gift worth £51 total value of wedding gifts is £1,180,425,600 versus

£1,051,250,880 in 2011. An increase of £129,174,720 in one year.

The survey was carried out by Dynamic Markets on behalf of

first direct

between 25

th

and 27

th

April 2012

amongst 2,015 members of the UK

population aged over 18 years.

For the latest updates, visit the

first direct

Newsroom or follow us on Twitter.

first direct facts

Winner of the Which? Best Financial Provider award 2 years running

Top financial institution in the Which? Customer Satisfaction Survey with an all-time

high of 93%

Ranked first in the Retail Banking Satisfaction Study by J D Power & Associates for

two years running

Recently (

Feb 2012

) received 90% customer satisfaction in a survey carried out by

MoneySavingExpert.com

first direct

provides both telephone banking and online banking services to its

1.2m

customers. It offers a full range of personal banking products including its

award winning Current Account and offset mortgages.