Wedding Budget!

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  • teenio7
    teenio7 Posts: 104 Member
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    I think we spent around $5000, for around 70-ish people, including the week-long Alaskan cruise honeymoon (I never did crunch the final numbers because when I was done, I was DONE!) but I saved as much money as possible:

    -DIY decorations - origami cranes, origami lilies placed in FREE wine/liquor bottles spray painted our wedding colors
    -DIY food - we did an outdoor BBQ with chicken, burgers, and hotdogs, my dad's cousin loves running the grill and we asked him if he would do it instead of getting us a wedding gift. I bought most of the condiments, chips, etc. with coupons a couple months before for cheap
    -DIY desserts - I made cake pops the week before, they were easy and a total hit - also did a dessert spread where I asked close friends and family to bring desserts
    -My dress was around $500 at David's Bridal. It was perfect! I recommend maybe looking at David's Bridal to get an idea of what you want, then looking online for a used dress (you'll probably save 50% at least)
    -Start shopping NOW! I purchased a lot of my candy buffet candy and everything else when it was on sale and used coupons for everything I could
    -Check out and join the wedding forums so you can get stuff for cheap off other brides after their weddings - some brides will even group buy stuff to share
    -My cousin was my photographer and did it for FREE! I also asked guests to bring their cameras and we got a lot of fun candid shots from our guests
    -My bouquet was origami lilies I made myself (same with bridesmaids flowers) - we didn't have any real flowers
    -We got married in an old renovated theater - was only a few hundred dollars and beautiful
    -We had an outdoor reception at a state park that was cheap cheap - and included the grill on site so we could BBQ
    -DIYed my own invites, Save the Dates, and Programs

    Step 1 is to see what's the most important to you and what you won't skimp on, then try to save money on everything else.

    I was a super happy bride and look back on my wedding with only happy thoughts. DIYing everything with my family and friends help made us all come together closer and it was fun!

    Do you have any pictures of you decorations? I think those sound awesome and I'm planning my wedding in June. Thanks!
  • Karmynzahringer
    Karmynzahringer Posts: 192 Member
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    For photo's my husband is a photographer, so all of his friends that he works with brought their cameras and took pictures throughout the evening and gave us disks. Photographers way over charge for weddings, so if I were you I would find an amatuer, pay them a flat rate and get a disk.

    Its great that you were able to have your husbands friends do that, but as a professional wedding photographer myself I totally disagree about "charing too much" . A lot of people do not realize the hours that go into a wedding. A good photographer may only be on site for 6-8 hours, but will spend triple that at the office, editing, perfecting, and ordering/printing your photos. They will also spend numerous hours before and after the wedding keeping contact with you and forming a relationship/learning what you want out of your wedding day. After the cost of good sold, travel expenses etc, I may end up with around 20.00 per hour for my photography services on a 1500-2000 dollar package. The bride ends up with priceless memories at the highest quality. I am getting married in May and If I had to cut my budget, I would cut anything and everything before the photography. A good photographer knows how to make beautiful images even with less than perfect settings/decorations etc.!
  • em9371
    em9371 Posts: 1,047 Member
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    We got married at Lake Bled in Slovenia (in my profile pic), it was totally amazing would definetely recommend it, just depends how many people you plan to invite.! our families are complicated and I couldnt be doing with any drama at the wedding so we just invited both sets of parents, my sister and close friends, think about 16 people came out overall. I know a wedding is important but im not one of those that has to spend £10000's to have a perfect day, I didnt even choose my flowers till the morning of the wedding!!

    total cost was around £4000-4500, i have friends who got married over here who paid that just for a venue or photographer!!!!!
    the actual wedding package was £1500 that included pretty much everything - photos, flowers, cake, horse and carriage trip round the lake, rowing boat across the lake to the church, champagne, and 2 ceremonies (legal one in slovenian, plus normal english one in church)!!
    1 week in slovenia in a 5 star hotel which doubled up as honeymoon £800. our family and friends came for the first 4 days and were happy to pay for themselves and treat it as a holiday!!
    Food and wine for wedding reception was about £200
    Dress £700. Bridesmaid dress / shoes, accessories etc £200. Grooms / Best mans suits £300
    Rings £500 (mine is platinum, doms is tungsten due to his job!)

    at the end of the day, you dont have to spend stupid amounts of money to have a fabulous day, I wouldnt change one thing about my day it was the best :heart:
    choose what is most imporant to you, for example location, dress, photographer and spend more in those areas, and make savings in other areas to balance it out :)
  • clairebear_79
    clairebear_79 Posts: 5 Member
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    Ours was about £700. I used to work at a wedding venue so even though I used a different venue, my photographer, minister and piper were FOC. My SiL made the cake in lieu of a present. The bestman paid the kilt hire for the groom. FiL paid for the toast. My dress wasn't a traditional wedding dress. If you're prepared to be flexible, you can make your money stretch.
  • Karmynzahringer
    Karmynzahringer Posts: 192 Member
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    Oh and as to our budget, we are planning on spending around 4-5k, the majority of that going to the photographer and dj and food. Decorations are DIY, we are doing a vintage/country theme and getting married on my grandparents farm (saves a ton) and having the reception in a huge old barn! I made the bouquets and boutineers out of fabric rosettes and old brooches and will add some daisys and babysbreath to fill them out, so saving a ton on flowers. Sticking with beer on the reception and if they want something else they can bring it!
  • Boardergurl
    Boardergurl Posts: 206 Member
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    I had a destination wedding! We had 65 people come. We got 4 free trips (i just had to pay taxes so 1000 total)
    Our ceremony at the resort was 900 (we legally got married in canada first was 150 bucks)
    Flowers 300
    Photographer was 700
    My dress I ordered on line and with alterations was 300 bucks
    boys wore linen pants/shirts from old navy
    girls got dress from a local store
    We had a dinner on the beach (which my travel agent ended up paying for that was 5000) We were just going to do the buffet and meet up at the bar after.
    We then had a party where we live about 4 months later. We had 250 people there
    Hall rental/speakers/bbq was 600
    we didn't have a dj we made a folder on our ipod and hooked it up to the speakers
    We had a pork roast and hamburgers, potatoe wedges and salads (600-700 total)
    We had a 2$ bar and pop/juice/coffe water was free
    We had a cake made from a friend that was 150
    I bought plastic/nylon table clothes and decortaed
    I printed pictures from the wedding in mexico and put them along with bowls of candy on the tables
    My family also all made different snacks and cakes
    I had things like hotwings, mozza sticks, asian party packs for midnight snacks
    All in all I think with EVERYTHING (rings, clothes, party) we maybe spent $9000...
    His parents gave us 5 we made 2000 on our bar and got about 5000 in gifts.
    We actually came out on the top!
  • amicklin
    amicklin Posts: 452
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    Um, we got ALL of our decorations from Dollar Tree (candles, ribbon, tulle); got our flowers bulk from a local grocery store (saves a TON), we rented his tux, did my dress on payments, didn't have any alcohol at the luncheon (costs WAY to much to do that) and worked 'deals' with anything else we needed.

    Our rings were the clearance/ outlet items. Know Zales and Helzberg both have outlet sections on their websites.

    We wanted to pay for everything ourselves. So, it was just a very small - simple deal. Perfect for us :)

    Oh, I found a photographer at the local Photo club at the local college.. MUCH MUCH cheaper that way.
  • RubyDarling
    RubyDarling Posts: 171 Member
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    Our budget is AUD10,000 and we're probably going to exceed it by a little bit. We're hiring an 1860s homestead for a weekend, and inviting 20 guests.

    We're skimping on:
    - dress (bought from China)
    - no bridesmaids, flower girls, groomsmen or pageboys (means not having to pay for their attire, jewellery, gifts etc)
    - no flowers (I'll make origami flowers instead)
    - invites (I'll DIY some, and get some Vistaprint ones)
    - food (ours is only $45 a head because we're getting married in the country)

    We're not skimping on:
    - photographer
    - venue
  • karenjoy
    karenjoy Posts: 1,841 Member
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    I got married for the second time in 2009 and it cost us about £12,000 but I did a TON myself. We had a fabulous Wedding,
    I went to a Wedding the year after that cost over £70,000 and they SPLIT up after 9 months!
    My daughter is getting married on the 24th of this month, and her budget is under £5,000, I am doing all the flowers and table decorations, I have made all the order of the days, the table planner, the place names etc, the Dress is from Light in the Box and cost £125 the bridesmaid dress also from Light in the Box and was £75, we got lots from eBay, pre loved things, all really nice and cheap. I have pulled in favours from friends who are making the cake, doing the video and our Wedding photographer is doing it as a favour for a LOT LOT less than his normal charges, I have a friend with a chocolate shop who has done me a fabulous deal on hand made champagne truffles for the favours, we have a student make up artist doing it cheaply, the same with the hairdresser. They are getting married in the week so its cheaper, getting married in the sane venue as the reception so no transport cost. Its going to be fabulous x
  • brandyosu
    brandyosu Posts: 257 Member
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    We blew our budget 3 times. We originally set it at $5,000 and had NO CLUE how much everything was going to cost. Then we bumped it to $10,000 and again to $15,000 when we picked a reception site. Eventually when it was all said and done we ran about $25,000. So, not the cheapest wedding on the books but far, far from the most expensive. As far as saving, we were fortunate that in that period of time I was making large bonuses in my high travel high stress job (which I've since left - it was worth walking away from the money to have my life back) so we paid for everything as we went.

    My advice, though, would be to identify those things which are most important to you and allocate the largest piece of your budget there. And then skip the things that you (and no one else) will care about. Example: chair covers. In 5 years, who is going to care whether you had covers on the chairs at your reception. Or for that matter, who's going to care even the next day (if they even notice to begin with - they are there to see YOU after all).
  • CrazyDaisysMommy
    CrazyDaisysMommy Posts: 472
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    I used to be an event planner so I definitely was using all the tricks of the trade to keep costs down. We were planning our wedding for August outside of Philadelphia and the best I could come up with was $12,000 for 125-150 people. In the end, we realized that it was a crazy amount to spend seeing how we just bought a house last February and we gut it, so we decided to spend our money on renovating the house and we eloped instead. We found a lovely inn near the Shenandoah mountains that had an elopement package for $1400. All we had to do was get the license and show up. And we were allowed to bring our dog. :smile:
    Congratulations!! Good luck with your planning and try not to sweat the small stuff.
  • jzaz903
    jzaz903 Posts: 306 Member
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    i just got married in September, and spent about 4k for 75 people. i did all the decorating and a lot of other things myself, and i found a REALLY budget friendly caterer in a local mom-and-pop restaurant. my dress was from DB(and $500) and over the course of a year-long engagement i shopped sales and couponed for things i needed from hobby lobby or joanns. my invitations were from vistaprint.com, really cheap but nice(sign up for emails, they're always running some sort of sale)
    HTH!
  • runnercheryl
    runnercheryl Posts: 1,314 Member
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    I got married for the second time in 2009 and it cost us about £12,000 but I did a TON myself. We had a fabulous Wedding,
    I went to a Wedding the year after that cost over £70,000 and they SPLIT up after 9 months!
    My daughter is getting married on the 24th of this month, and her budget is under £5,000, I am doing all the flowers and table decorations, I have made all the order of the days, the table planner, the place names etc, the Dress is from Light in the Box and cost £125 the bridesmaid dress also from Light in the Box and was £75, we got lots from eBay, pre loved things, all really nice and cheap. I have pulled in favours from friends who are making the cake, doing the video and our Wedding photographer is doing it as a favour for a LOT LOT less than his normal charges, I have a friend with a chocolate shop who has done me a fabulous deal on hand made champagne truffles for the favours, we have a student make up artist doing it cheaply, the same with the hairdresser. They are getting married in the week so its cheaper, getting married in the sane venue as the reception so no transport cost. Its going to be fabulous x

    Light In The Box is where my bridesmaids dresses are hopefully coming from. Have you got them already? If so, is the quality good?

    I've actually ordered a 'trial dress' for myself, just to see - it should be here in the next few days - but the more positive reviews the better!
  • Tiggermummy
    Tiggermummy Posts: 312 Member
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    I admit it was nearly 14 years ago....

    we had church wedding with 250 guests and we got change out of £3000.
    Definatly the more you can do yourself the cheaper you can make it.
    My friends made a lot of it possible.

    I designed and made the inviations and order of services. Didnt bother with save the date, just sent the invites out in plenty of time
    I also designed my own wedding dress - a friend who had limited funds herself gave me the material for my dress.
    I was already living with hubby at the time, we had bought a house the previous year, so another close friend helped me
    in putting the dress together once we created the pattern so he wouldn't see it until the day.
    Another friend did button holes for all the guests as a wedding gift to us.
    different friend did my bouquets and bridal party buttonholes
    She also ended up doing a buffet with another friend as our wedding was held at 4pm, and the catering companies we approached seemed to struggle with getting things sorted, and they decided they could do it for a lot less than I could find it.
    my disco cost £100 for the night, the venue was £200.
    As we had a late wedding service we did a sit down buffet instead of a full meal.
    We did glasses of wine on arrival at the reception and then a cash bar.
    I bought a party pack and an artisic friend decorated the hall for me - so I had an arch of coloured ballons over the top table.
    and other really sweet things.
    We hired a 1930's london taxi as our wedding car. £100
    Hired suits for groom, bride's father, bestman & 2 ushers. I bought hubby's waistcoat as a memento for him.
    I had matron of honour, bridesmaid and flower girl. - bought blouses for them and we made waistcoats and skirts for them
    and bought shoes to match.
    Bought my shoes and hubbys at a market mine cost £10! his £50 (big feet!)
    Designed rings with local jeweler instead of a chain as I got fed up of being told my finger was too big for their range of bridal rings. two rings identical with engraving on the inside of the rings in white gold £500.

    We had been together for almost ten years but various things had prevented us getting married sooner, including hubby being out of work for over three years. We had so many friends who by that time were close to both of us we couldn't decide how to choose who to invite for wedding and who to just invite to just reception. So that is why we decided to move service until 4pm so we could just invite everyone to the whole event.

    we had one night in london hotel for wedding night.
    then we had two nights away at a theme park the following week ( we had no car at the time)

    and we went to walt disney world for our 1st wedding aniversary

    you can make it work - we didn't use a photographer we asked everyone to take lots of photos and we bought film for people to use and just asked for a set of their photos. its even easier now with digital photos.
    the only thing was I made a list of photos I wanted and managed to leave it behind so I did miss a couple of photos, in hind sight I would ask one person to call everyone together and get everyone looking in the same direction!!!

    Good luck
  • MissO﹠A
    MissO﹠A Posts: 906 Member
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    We had a very small shin-dig with 25 people. His family and my family with only a few of our friends. Neutral location since this made it easy to not invite non-essential people. It pissed off some people in my family who weren't invited; I didn't lose any sleep over it.

    Did the very romantic courthouse (short and sweet) thing as we viewed the 'ceremony' as the formality before the actual fun stuff -- the reception. We had a lunch reception at a local tapas restaurant, 5 courses with an open bar and our cake.

    We spent about $2600 - $2800 USD in total. Including dress, flowers, reception, cake and lunch with everyone the following day.

    If I could do one thing differently, I'd have opted for a photographer. We've got some nice photos but wish we had some professional ones taken.
  • mcljess
    mcljess Posts: 21 Member
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    We decided to have our wedding and reception at our good friends property. They have a huge yard and a big empty barn. Also, I dont know where you're based, but where I live I can have anyone do the 'ceremony' as long as a licenced JP pronounces us and signs on the dotted line. So I asked a friend of mine to 'marry' us and then my dad, a licenced minister will be our province official jp.
    I'm making wine, and he's buying beer from a local brewery, we're using wild game and salmon and crab that we've caught ourselves.
    After all the saving we decided to splurge on fire works :)
  • sarah_boombah
    sarah_boombah Posts: 124 Member
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    Wow you guys have done so well sticking to your budgets! My budget is $30 000AUD and I was hoping to stay well under it! Photography is $3k alone, reception is like $11k for 120 people. Dress is $3k, planning to do some d-i-y for invites, place cards etc. Im lucky my sister in law to be is a florist so hoping to save some money with that. My best friends sister (who is a hairdresser) will most likely be doing our hair so that will be helpful.
    Anyone care to share their tricks for saving money?? :happy: I think (from memory) the average Aussie wedding is around $35k.
  • LA723
    LA723 Posts: 98 Member
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    dont skimp on photography. The photos are what you will have years to come, not the cake and the venue!

    I agree with this. I'd say don't skimp on photography, dress (I did & regret it), entertainment or food. All of the other things (invites, location, centerpieces, etc) can be skimped on. You will have the photos for years, this is the only time you will wear a beautiful, ultraformal gown and be the center of attention and you want your guests to have fun and eat well.

    I think you can get an amazing dress without skimping or getting something of lesser quality, but you also don't need to spend $3000 dollars, you an save a lot on a dress by checking around and not being afraid of tailoring.

    Absolutely. But I was cheap with my dress because I *thought* it wasn't a big deal. Ended up, it was. If I could go back in time, I would splurge on a dress that I really wanted and cut corners elsewhere. Also, I tried to go with a college student photog and it really didn't work out well. Very unprofessional, missed appointments, etc. We got a professional photog and it was definitely worth the money.
  • LA723
    LA723 Posts: 98 Member
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