Wedding in Hungary: good to know if you don't live here
However Hungary is not a typical destination wedding location, since the start of our website in 2009 we see more and more engaged couples wanting an unusual, extraordinary and unforgettable European country to host their wedding. Therefore a wedding in Hungary is something you have to consider if you feel the same. In our blogpost we collected some features, which might be different from planning a wedding in other countries.
Average wedding planning time
In Hungary a Hungarian engaged couple needs approximately 1 year to plan their wedding. The pricing policy of the wedding venues and vendors aligns with this, so it's very likely that you cannot get pricing for 2025 at the beginning of 2024 for example. Of course, you still can get the actual prices they have and you can count with a price increment with a maximum of the yearly official inflation rate in general.
Food and drinks
Eating and drinking are the important part of a Hungarian wedding. A typical wedding catering offer in Hungary includes the following items:
welcome drinks and bites;
wedding dinner of 3-5 courses:
unlimited open bar including spirits;
midnight snacks;
staff menu including non-alcoholic drink package.
All these items used to be paid by the wedding couple.
In general you can choose from different service types like buffet dinner, plate service and the mix of these two, but at some places you also might see special form of food serving like French-type (shared platters), food-truck, BBQ.
At the majority of the restaurants (especially in Budapest) you can find international menus, but in the countryside there are lots of places, where they run traditional Hungarian cuisine.
There used to be a discount for kids based on different age ranges and of course you can order non-alcoholic drink package for them too.
Wedding cake
Wedding cake in Hungary is separate from the above-mentioned dessert (part of the wedding dinner) and it is served later in the night. Actually, the cake cutting is a big show and it is considered as one of the highlights of the wedding day. So this is what the wedding venue expects when talking about cake cutting. If you wish to do it based on different traditions, it's OK, you just need to tell it to your wedding planner or to the wedding venue. In general wedding cakes are made by separate cake-shops, but in some special cases the wedding venue / restaurant itself also can provide this.
Wedding decoration
Decorators in Hungary are managing almost all aspects of a wedding decoration: flowers, textiles, candles, vases - some of them also provide stationary and fairy lights. Cost-wise it is one of the hardest things to reply the question "how much does a wedding decoration cost in Hungary". It depends on so many factors (in a nutshell: quantity and type of flowers, date of wedding (floral seasons), difficulty of logistics at the wedding venue (access permits, time frame, accessibility by truck, etc.)). The wedding decoration budget is always finalised after some meetings (online or personal) and countless e-mails.
Photographers, videographers
In some countries photographers are the "part of the show" meaning that they instruct people throughout the day. In Hungary this role is rather played by the wedding mc (see later). Most of our photographers are capturing moments and instruct the couple only at the minimum required level during the photo session. They used to arrive in the middle of the bridal getting ready and they go with the flow of the wedding day. They used to leave after the last "programme" around 1 am. Same with the videographers. There are studios where photographers and videographers are working together and you can order both services, but in most of the cases they are separate vendors offering only one of these services.
Wedding mc
Wedding mc or the wedding master of ceremonies is a special vendor only known in some counties. We have a blogpost about him/her HERE.
Climate, weather
Hungary has four seasons and continental climate with hot dry summers and (theoretically) snowy winters (which are dryer and dryer nowadays). At the same time it is at the collision zone of three European climate areas: continental, oceanic and Mediterranean. Owing to this its weather is quite unpredictable. If you wish to read about this topic more, click HERE!
Currency and payments
Official currency of Hungary is Hungarian Forint. Most of the wedding offers used to be in HUF or in some cases in EUR. It is important to check/ask if the prices you see in the offer include or exclude all taxes. Some vendors used to indicate net prices (don't ask why, we don't know) and since VAT varies from 0% to 27% the final amount can be much higher at the end. Service charge is also an item, which might appear in the offer/final invoice with a degree of 12-15% and it's not the same as tip. So if you are glad with the work of the waiters throughout the wedding night, feel free to give them some thousand of Forints.
All the wedding vendors can accept payments through (international) bank transfer and this is the method of payment we propose to everyone. The deposit payable upon contracting is around 20-30%, and the outstanding amount is due right before the wedding or on the wedding day. For Hungarian clients default terms of payment is cash on the wedding day for this latter, but feel free to modify if this sentence is included in a vendor's contract and ask to change it to "bank transfer on the week before the wedding".
Some of the vendors might have PayPal account (rare) and at the venues, hotels and restaurants you can pay with debit/credit card, but this is not really an option at other type of vendors.
Wedding ceremonies in Hungary
We have a separate blogpost about this topic HERE and another is about the rules of marriage of foreign citizens in Hungary HERE.
Wedding in Budapest, in the countryside and at Lake Balaton
We plan to write separate blogpost about these topics too, so stay tuned, FOLLOW US in social media to not miss these wedding planning contents!