How is that for austerity, Britain?

I live in the UK and I am as much in the dark as you about the cost to us tax payers. I have read that the only part we will pay for is the security and the rest was to be financed by 'the family'. How true this is I have no idea. I have read that the Middletons have paid a substantial amount towards their side of things, including hiring the entire hotel where Kate stayed the night before the wedding. I have seen a figure of £250,000 mentioned for the Middletons bill. That is some amount of money and way above what most 'commoners' could afford. The total cost must be in the tens of millions.

As Rollo said, the wedding was quite costly but was paid for by the family. I think I heard that security cost $30 million or something like that. But consider the revenue the wedding brought in! Thousands of tourists came to Britain so be near the wedding (I doubt many of them actually saw it) and they spent money on hotels, food, novelties, souvenirs, clothing, taxis, etc., etc. To say nothing of the money they spent on British airfare. The wedding is estimated to have brought billions of dollars to Great Britain, so it was a bargain for the people. Personally, I don't know why people want big weddings but this one brought a lot of money to the country.

The wedding itself probably cost 40 million or more, but no real figures are available. Back in November, when they announced the date, the Royal Family announced their intention to pay for the wedding. This is what their official announcement said: "The marriage of Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton will take place at Westminster Abbey on Friday 29th April 2011. The Royal Family will pay for the wedding, following the precedents set by the marriages of The Prince and Princess of Wales in 1981 and Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip in 1947." Of course, that doesn't include security or the honeymoon. Taxpayers regularly foot the bill for the Royal Family's travel and security expenses. Why? Because two-thirds of Brits want to keep the Royal Family, that's why. If they want to keep their monarchy then I guess they'll have to support it. The biggest source of contention is that not every worker in the UK got the day off or extra pay for working. They didn't declare it a bank holiday for all which would have meant that employers would have to pay all of their employees for taking the day off and oh boy, are there whiners out there about that. People only protest when they don't get what they think they're entitled to and they thought they were entitled to the day off with pay. The entitlement attitude is why austerity measures need to be implemented both in the UK and here.