The whooping cost of Royal Wedding

LONDON: The royal wedding on Saturday hogged the global spotlight and it wasn’t just a spectacular event – but a costly one too!

According to U.K. wedding site Bridebook, a wedding planning service, the cost of security, including snipers, undercover police and a counter-UAV system, could be about $40.1 million, or 94 percent of the total wedding budget.

Kensington Palace had earlier released a statement saying: “As was the case with the wedding of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (Meghan Markle and Prince Harry), the Royal Family will pay for the core aspects of the wedding, such as the church service, the associated music, flowers, decorations, and the reception afterwards.”

If you disregard security costs, it’s still a pricey affair. England-based luxury wedding planner Aimee Dunne tells CNBC Make It that expenses like food and beverage, the dress, flowers and a glass marquee for the reception will cost about $2.7 million (£2 million). That’s 73 times the cost of the average wedding in the U.K.

As for who’s picking up the tab, the royal family announced that it will pay for the “core aspects of the wedding,” which include the “church service, the associated music, flowers, decorations and the reception afterwards.”

But the security cost that was reportedly 90% of the total amount was paid from the taxpayers money, according to the BBC.

Every year the Royal Family gets a chunk of money from the annual Sovereign Grant, paid directly by the Treasury.

The grant is calculated on a percentage of the profits from the Crown Estate portfolio, which includes much of London’s West End.

This year it’s worth £82m.

For the 2011 marriage of Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge, the English public contributed an estimated $27 million, which allowed for thousands of extra police officers at the event.