Did the UK pay for the prince's wedding?

Question

From piggate on the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle:

The caption reads:

33 million on a fucking wedding

8 million on fucking security

50 grand for a fucking wedding cake

90 grand for fucking trumpets

300 grand for fucking music

Knowing the taxpayer picks up the bill,
- Fucking priceless

"Random guy on facebook photoshops something together" is not a notable claim. Immediately giving your own answer doesn't *make* it a notable claim. — Ben Barden, May 22 '18 at 15:08
@BenBarden You need only demonstrate *"a lot of people have heard of the claim"* to establish notability https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/864/faq-must-all-questions-be-notable In this case, the claim has 20,000 shares. — Evan Carroll, May 22 '18 at 15:13
One thing to remember about claims like this (and renders the claim slightly irrelevant) is that money doesn't disappear when it is spent. Would piggate prefer that the monarchy sat on the money and didn't spend it? — Steve Smith, May 25 '18 at 13:41
@SteveSmith Presumably, they would prefer that the money goes to people who produce -- teachers, factory workers etc to be spent as they see fit. And, not just some relic of Christian theocracy that thinks it's deserving because of their blood. — Evan Carroll, Jun 25 '18 at 18:49
@Evan Carroll according to the question image, a lot of it is: to "factory workers" who make wedding paraphanalia (e.g. wedding dresses, food and trumpets). Jamiec 's answer has more detail. — Steve Smith, Jun 26 '18 at 08:35

score 9 · Answer 1 · answered May 23 '18 at 11:14

Unfortunately, there is unlikely to be a complete exhaustive accounting of the cost/income from the royal wedding, so we are left to gleam some information from fairly inaccurate reporting.

Even more unfortunately, this sort of breakdown usually comes from the tabloids, who are not exactly known for their accuracy. But here goes.

The Express reports that

Reported total cost of £32M, including
- £400K Givenchy dress paid for by the bride herself
- £30M security bill picked up by taxpayers
- £90K for 20 silver plated trumpets
- £110K for flowers
- £26K for sausage rolls & tea for the 2,640 members of the public invited to watch outside the chapel (how very English!)
Reported boost to the UK economy of £500M

The Sun has a similar breakdown

£32M cost made up of
- £90K for 20 silver trumpets
- £50K for the wedding cake
- £110K for flowers
- £300K glass marquee hire
- £26K for sausages and tea (Such a specific amount for saussy rolls and tea!)
- £30M for security
- £300-400K for the dress
"expected to provide a £500m boost to Britain’s economy – thanks to tourism and merchandise."

A Town and country mag article before the big day had a slightly different take, but the costs are broadly the same (it seems much of it is based on reports of Willliam & Kate's wedding 7 years prior) but once again state

Morality aside, the 2018 royal wedding is expected to provide a £500 million pound boost to the country's economy in the form of tourism, commemorative merchandise, and essentially "free advertising for Britain."

tldr; The tax payers appear to be footing the bill for security, for some pomp and ceremony and for some light refreshments for a select few "important people" on the day, and are being repaid roughly 15x by an increase in tourism and souvenir sales associated with the royal wedding.

Related: Is the British monarchy economically beneficial?

"for some pomp and ceremony and for some light refreshments" I fail to see any evidence of this? — , May 23 '18 at 12:19
@Orangesandlemons I was referring to silver trumpets, glass marquees and sausage rolls. — Jamiec, May 23 '18 at 12:37
Both articles were pretty explicit about the bride paying for her own dress, but made no mention of the couple paying for these items. I think we can safely assume they came from the public purse - but you're right its not specified. In any case whether taxpayers paid it or not its the income seems to outweigh the expenditure - so its rather moot. — Jamiec, May 23 '18 at 15:33

score -3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 22 '18 at 14:22

-3

The Sun reports

Meghan is expected to have paid for her own dress, while taxpayers footed the bill for security.

The The Independent seem to indicate that most of the costs are paid for by the family,

The cost of security is of note, because it is the bill that will be paid by the taxpayer.

And it goes on to say,

The cost of the big event has been estimated at as much as £32m by wedding planning service Bridebook, with security costs predicted at more than £30m. Other estimates have put the security bill at closer to £24m.

But they do make note,

The Royal family will pay for the remainder of the wedding from their own funds - however, as they also receive funding from the public purse it makes it more difficult to quantify how much of the money being spent on the wedding comes from the taxpayer.

;tldr: Security comes straight from the tax payers, the royal family is inherently a mooch on society and so it's likely you could make the argument everything they did was an expense to taxpayers. Though ceremonial, it is still more or less the lifestyle of a monarchy.

edited May 22 '18 at 14:22

DenisS

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answered May 21 '18 at 19:39

Evan Carroll

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I'd note that "funding from the public purse" comes largely from the profits from [the Crown Estate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Estate), which the monarch handed over to the treasury in exchange for said funding. Whether this counts as "mooching" is, as such, hard to assess. – ceejayoz May 21 '18 at 20:18
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And probably any accounting should include the "Superbowl effect" where the event (supposedly) generates enormous gains in commercial revenues and subsequent tax receipts. – Daniel R Hicks May 21 '18 at 21:05
@DanielRHicks But then you open the door to having to account for opportunity costs: just because the wedding was profitable for the government (let's assume that), doesn't mean that it was the most profitable thing that could have been done. It's not even necessarily the most profitable *and* most popularly uplifting thing. The negative connotations some attach to the Crown Estate are related to these opportunity costs: being profitable doesn't mean being (even remotely close to) optimal, morally or economically. – zibadawa timmy May 22 '18 at 05:35
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This comes across as more an anti-monarchy rant than a well researched answer. Specifically if you're going to assert that "The royal family are a mooch on society" that requires some sourcing that the income from the royals is outweighed by their expense. – Jamiec May 22 '18 at 07:01
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The "security" wasn't solely for the couple or the famous guests; a large number of the public were expected to show up and they required policing. – Lag May 22 '18 at 11:50
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@zibadawatimmy - What I'm saying is that, in fairness, the event should be regarded the same as something like a sports event where often much of the cost is footed by government entities. – Daniel R Hicks May 22 '18 at 12:30
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The last paragraph is unnecessarily provocative. Tone it down to be factual. Security of *most* public events comes from the taxpayer, btw. Soccer games "mooch" in the same way... – Polygnome May 22 '18 at 13:16
@Polygnome Most public events have professional entertainers, or athletes, the Prince is neither. He's the beneficiary of familial feudal status and the serfdom of others. He provides nothing. It's as if a plantation owner is selling tickets to see the art and accomplishments of the slaves. There is no contribution. He doesn't just receive from the public, he receives for nothing other than being. – Evan Carroll May 22 '18 at 14:18
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@EvanCarroll You could make a pretty solid argument that the British Royal Family are "professional entertainers". Plenty of folks seem to have seen the recent wedding as an entertainment event. – ceejayoz May 22 '18 at 14:44
Because people watch it? Hard to tell whether that's a solid argument because we can't exactly isolate it. Give any other undeserving family name recognition and billions of dollars of wealth and spend 30 million of public funds for a wedding, see if that gets more less views..? Regardless, that would hardly make that undeserving family public entertainers in my eyes, but I think it would be required to have *any* argument (never mind a strong one) one way or another in the favor of the prince/monarchy. – Evan Carroll May 22 '18 at 14:57
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@EvanCarroll your bias is showing. Any time you start saying things like "doing this difficult/impossible/expensive thing is required to have any argument in favor of..." it's pretty clear that you're advocating strongly for the other side. – Ben Barden May 22 '18 at 15:13
No, the argument that people watch the wedding therefore the people who participate in it are entertainers is false if other weddings were more watched. The argument is that exceptional viewership makes you an entertainer. In order to test the claim, we'd have to have equal status bestowed to the family, and the wedding to hold that constant and test for viewership. Unless you're going to argue that simply having wealth makes you an entertainer which makes you deserving of the wealth and therefore not a mooch.... Sounds pretty silly though. – Evan Carroll May 22 '18 at 15:15
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"The argument is that exceptional viewership makes you an entertainer." No, that's a straw man. It needn't be exceptional, nor need it exceed some other entertainer's draw. American soccer is still "entertainment" even if it pales in viewership to European football. An indie film is still "entertainment" even if The Last Jedi beats its box office record. It is readily demonstrable that the royal wedding was a form of entertainment - even the US media had wall-to-wall coverage, folks held viewing parties, etc. – ceejayoz May 22 '18 at 15:22
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@EvanCarroll _He provides nothing_ - as if entertainers or athletes would provide anything... – Common Guy May 22 '18 at 15:28
@ceejayoz That's the circular argument. Rich kids were born into wealth because of the feudal status of their family. They have wealth and throw expensive events that others can't and people find that entertaining which makes them "professional entertainers" which for the purposes of this argument means you think they're *not* mooching: I clearly acknowledged early on *"he receives for nothing other than being."* You've argued his "being" is "entertainment." – Evan Carroll May 22 '18 at 15:29
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Trying to pull this back on-topic... it remains the case that "the royal family is inherently a mooch on society" is a *very strong claim* that is also at least somewhat off-topic for the question and has *no support at all* in the answer itself. It makes the answer worse, and should be removed. If you want a space in which to rant that the royal family is a mooch on society... this is not that space. – Ben Barden May 22 '18 at 15:51
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@Evan Carroll Saying that Prince Harry has feudal power or has serfs and comparing him to a slave owner is certainly stretching things. Serfdom was declining in England in the late middle ages and Queen Elizabeth I freed the last remaining serfs in 1574. Slaves in Great Britain were freed in 1774, except for Scottish coal miners freed in 1799. Slavery was abolished in most British territories 1834-40, and in the territories of the East Indian Company in 1843.. – M. A. Golding May 22 '18 at 19:35
Sure, no doubt -- Harry himself is neither a slave nor serf holder. He's the heir of an estate that was created by slaves and serfs. – Evan Carroll May 22 '18 at 19:38
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If somebody else would like to write an answer containing the same facts but without the bias, it would probably get upvoted. – DJClayworth May 22 '18 at 21:05
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The police are obliged to police all big events. If you organise a huge demonstration against the monarchy and attract the same number of attendees, the cost would be the same. – RedSonja May 23 '18 at 06:59

Did the UK pay for the prince's wedding?

2 Answers2