Average Dallas Wedding Cost? POLL

Jen6862

With a lot of new brides on this board I'm wondering if people would mind sharing what the cost of their wedding was in DFW. I think you can add to the poll without posting your $$$ if you don't want to. This would include contributions from parents, everything from the venue to the wedding bands. (Not including the Honeymoon).

This would be a great way to let future brides know what they might need to budget. Honestly I had no idea the cost of things when I started and our $15K wedding budget ballooned to $25K. I don't mind sharing this information--but I've never been shy about money. LOL. Probably my mom's fault--neither is she.

fallbride1109

Well I voted but adding my wedding band pushed me up a category! 

I've shared what mine was before, as well as the fact that I only paid for about 10% of it.  It's no secret that my ILs paid for the wedding and wanted to since it would be their only chance to host a wedding.

If it had been solely up to us and we had been paying, we would have had a DW probably in Napa with just our parents and wedding party, had dinner afterwards, spent a day or two with everyone in SF and then flown to Maui for our HM. 

Jen6862

I know, I wasn't exactly sure how to set the budget frames... maybe I should have done it in $5,000 increments, but then it would have been crazy long! Thanks for sharing. Mine was also closer to 26,000 so it went up a frame as well.

aeliza06

I voted in the 5-15k since this is a large range for budget brides. I think a 5k wedding is way different than a 15k wedding, but that's just my opinion. We budgeted for 7k as we are paying ourselves. We are spending around 10k including wedding bands BUT we are lucky and have been gifted with a few things (honeymoon, entertainment). This puts us at the same budget we had before, but we have now been able to invite more people (now inviting 130, was around 90 with previous budget). 

btweety04

We budgeted around $7k as well and spent closer to $10k. Then the HM was another $10k itself.

MarieSD

I initially wanted to spend 10k, but a variety of factors kept increasing the cost. I think it ended up being around 17k, but honestly I stopped tracking my expenses toward the end as dilligently because I found it too depressing.

For reference, we had a Saturday night wedding/reception, buffet dinner and open bar at a DIY-type venue. We invited 150 but only had 70 attend. We decided to upgrade our dinner menu, though, so we didn't actually save anything for having fewer people.

I felt I got a good deal on the venue, our liquor, my videographer, my dress, our wedding bands.

Our DJ was average-priced ($1300).

Things I splurged on: ($32pp), photographer ($2k), a shuttle for guests ($1k), and a DOC ($1700).

juliebug1997

We had an open bar and five course meal for our reception and that was about $9k alone.  The flowers were $1100, the church was about $1500 (musicians included). We didn't have a know photographer ($600?) or DJ ($500?), but we still had a great time and got very nice pictures.  There were other little things and I don't really know how much the bands were (Bill bought those, but didn't really contribute much towards the rest of th wedding).  My parents and I paid for everything else associated with the actual wedding day, down to the Jason's Deli lunch that we ordered for every one who had to be at the church early.

cwaggoner07

My parents gave 13K, and we are planning to throw in around 6K, but that includes a 3K honeymoon.
His Dad threw in 2.5K straight up for the RD, but we are spending less than 2K and using the rest for random wedidng things and spending money for the HM.

Overall, not including HM, but including RD, I would say just under 20,000. We are splurging on a band (3K, which is pretty cheap for a band I hear) and alcohol, skimping on flowers ($100, bouquets only) and invitations (printing off Wedding Chicks, only have to pay for paper and stamps).

professorscience

I voted in the $25K-35K range, but I don't think we were too much higher than that.  We also invited around 350 guests and had around 250 attending.

Jen6862

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_texas-dallas-ft-worth_average-dallas-wedding-cost-poll?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:102Discussion:0fa7fc34-0029-4067-95b2-39905f7815e6Post:581a31fd-6ee0-4a38-9ed2-0128c570f63a">Re: Average Dallas Wedding Cost? POLL</a>:
[QUOTE]My parents gave 13K, and we are planning to throw in around 6K, but that includes a 3K honeymoon. His Dad threw in 2.5K straight up for the RD, but we are spending less than 2K and using the rest for random wedidng things and spending money for the HM. Overall, not including HM, but including RD, I would say just under 20,000. <strong>We are splurging on a band (3K, which is pretty cheap for a band I hear)</strong> and alcohol, skimping on flowers ($100, bouquets only) and invitations (printing off Wedding Chicks, only have to pay for paper and stamps).
Posted by cwaggoner07[/QUOTE]

I think we might have way underspent on bands, mine is nice and from Zales Outlet, but only cost $199, my fiance's was super-cheap at $99 but it already has a chink in it. We should probably have spent a little more. <img src="http://cdn.cl9.vanillaforums.com/downloaded/ver1.0/content/scripts/tinymce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-laughing.gif" border="0" alt="Laughing" title="Laughing" />

cwaggoner07

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_texas-dallas-ft-worth_average-dallas-wedding-cost-poll?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:102Discussion:0fa7fc34-0029-4067-95b2-39905f7815e6Post:e36a8b27-5fd6-4070-83eb-ca234d55ada9">Re: Average Dallas Wedding Cost? POLL</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Average Dallas Wedding Cost? POLL : I think we might have way underspent on bands, mine is nice and from Zales Outlet, but only cost $199, my fiance's was super-cheap at $99 but it already has a chink in it. We should probably have spent a little more.
Posted by Jen6862[/QUOTE]

Oh No... we didn't spend that on wedding bands HA. We spend that on a music band (vs having a dj).
I didn't even realize that was worded weird. :)

Jen6862

Hehe... my bad.