Luxury Weddings

What is your budget?

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Re: What is your budget?

  • I wanted to add my cents (haha) in.

    We are working on our budget right now, and it will be around 75K for 120 guests. I really doubt we will spend it all on the wedding though, whatever is leftover (Hopefully around 25K) we will use for our first home for furnishings(10K) and put some in savings (15K)....
    Life Is Sweeter With Icing on Top... Daisypath Wedding tickers
  • Our budget has gone up and up and up! First $50k, then $75k, now we'll be lucky if it stays under $85k. This is for about 100 guests. That's not including my dress/alterations, our rings, or the honeymoon. My friends and immediate family members think I'm insane since we are paying for it ourselves, but if we're not going into debt then who cares!! :-P
  • edited August 2012
    Ours is coming in at around $75,000 for 200 guests on Long Island.  This isn't including my e-ring (let's just say my FI teases me since I have the equivalent of a new Benz on my finger Wink), and our wedding bands are costing about $5,000.  Also doesn't include our honeymoon which is a week in Italy and week on a Mediterranean cruise.  Sounds crazy, but this is about the norm where we live.
  • We are having our wedding in the Canadian Rocky mountains in a 5 star resort so the costs of our wedding are higher than average do to accommodations and service costs in the area. Our budget is just over 35K but we started with 24K (This doesn't include our rings or honeymoon). It rose once we realized what everything we wanted was going to cost. We are not even having an open bar just wine. And I'm an artist so all the decor, guest gifts and stationary (letterpress) I have done myself. If we had paid for those items our budget would be 7 to 10 K higher for what I wanted. We want a very elegant and sophisticated day. That being said the average wedding cost in Alberta, Canada is high due to the cost of living (there are lots of things that we would love to have at the wedding but can't due to our budget restriction - like not having a planner or florist) but I feel this board is better suited to my budget that the rest. 
  • MobKazMobKaz member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    edited August 2013
    This thread is a year old, Lakelouise.
  • I'm an NYC bride.  Budget of 75k with 230 guests.  We went over budget (almost to 100k).  I felt bad (both of our parents split the cost) but it was expected...most people who get married around here (NY/NJ/Long Island/CT) spend about that much

  • In Response to Re: What is your budget?:
    holy sh*t at the people spending $80 000-$100 000, that's like 1/2 of what our mortgage for our house is. If my parents said we could have a sh*t ton of money I would use it for my student loans. Even $40 000 would pay off my student loan or my car payments! Question to all you luxury brides, do you own homes and live debt free? If not, how do you justify (in the scheme of things) spending the equivalent of a HUGE (in some areas of the country) downpayment on one day? I'm honestly trying not to snark, I'm legitimately curious.
    Posted by bridezillatobe2009
    As an FYI- a large part of budget is area costs. For example, if you look at the Westin E menus it breaks down price by areas for their catering costs. A chicken dinner is 32/person in PittsburgH and 92/person in San Francisco.  20% down on a house here is close to 200k. If the COL is higher, so are all costs, from catering to photos to alterations AND salaries. So I fail to see why someone in San Francisco would have to justify my budget to someone in Arkansas.
    If you are referring to the city in southwestern PA, I fixed it for ya ;-)

    "Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends time and space."




  • In Response to Re: What is your budget?:
    holy sh*t at the people spending $80 000-$100 000, that's like 1/2 of what our mortgage for our house is. If my parents said we could have a sh*t ton of money I would use it for my student loans. Even $40 000 would pay off my student loan or my car payments! Question to all you luxury brides, do you own homes and live debt free? If not, how do you justify (in the scheme of things) spending the equivalent of a HUGE (in some areas of the country) downpayment on one day? I'm honestly trying not to snark, I'm legitimately curious.
    Posted by bridezillatobe2009
    As an FYI- a large part of budget is area costs. For example, if you look at the Westin E menus it breaks down price by areas for their catering costs. A chicken dinner is 32/person in PittsburgH and 92/person in San Francisco.  20% down on a house here is close to 200k. If the COL is higher, so are all costs, from catering to photos to alterations AND salaries. So I fail to see why someone in San Francisco would have to justify my budget to someone in Arkansas.

    If you are referring to the city in southwestern PA, I fixed it for ya ;-)


    There is a Pittsburg Ca as well.
    image

    Previously Alaynajuliana


  • We set a firm 10k limit but then kept the guest list to 40 (35 attending) so we could do the live band, premium, open bar, and really good, high end food.
  • I just Googled some of these $$$ in to my currency (£££), wow you guys spend a lot! I'm guessing it's ridiculously expensive for everything you want over their? Or you're having alot of people? My wedding is only 55 people (we have really small families) we're having a 4 course sit down meal in a big stately type hotel, a buffet for the night do, etc. Overall it's coming to around £8, 000 which is more than what I wanted to spend anyway haha. I wanna know how much you all earn, not what your weddings cost haha ; p xx
  • wittetobewittetobe member
    First Comment
    edited November 2013

    Hi ladies :) I'm new to the boards and enjoying catching up on threads, especially the budget one.  My mom is paying for a huge chunk of my wedding and my fiancé and I are covering certain expenses.  We set a budget of $25,000 with a little wiggle room up to $27,000.  I live in Southern California so many of the venues I looked at were extremely expensive.  My e-ring is appraised at just shy of $10K but we used diamonds from both of our moms for the main stones so my fiancé only had to buy one small diamond to finish out the 3 stone look and the teeny tiny ones around the band. 

    We're expecting a guest count of 160-175.  We're splurging on some items and cutting corners on others.  I'm fairly crafty and so are my friends/family so we may make our own centerpieces and décor.  I'm opting for cupcakes from my favorite bakery instead of a traditional cake, which is an automatic savings. 

    I love hearing what others brides are spending for many reasons... it gives perspective and validation to certain expenses that some feel are unjustified (expensive sash or headpiece, flowers, etc.)  and I also like hearing everyone's stories.  My fiancé and I are just shy of 30, he's debt free and owns a home, while I have some credit card debt and student loans and am living at home still. 

    As far as a honeymoon goes, we're doing a honeymoon registry in hopes of saving a bit of out of pocket expenses on the trip.  We've got the toaster, spatula, towels and more so why not focus on the honeymoon?  We are spending 12-14 days traveling around Italy next summer and plan to spend $10-12K on the trip. 

  • We're fully able to pay for it ourselves.  Instead of someone buying us a toaster or a spatula, we're registering for travel.  It's all a matter of opinion on what's tacky and what's not.

  • My original budget was $60,000, but it's looking like it'll end up being around $80,000. That's not including the rings (probably about $18,000 total), rehearsal dinner (probably $2,000 total), or honeymoon (probably $10,000-15,000 total).
  • majesty318majesty318 member
    5 Love Its First Anniversary First Answer First Comment
    edited November 2013
    My parents are giving us $20K and we were hoping not to spend more than $10K of our own. However, we are paying more than we originally budgeted for videographer, and I was planning to save a bit on invites but now we have fallen in love with some that are a little more. So I think I will be happy with budget of $32K now, not counting rings, HM, or RD.
  • We set our budget to $30K. We would prefer if we keep it below that, though. The venue we love is at the top end of the budget so we are thinking of having a Friday evening wedding since it is $20 cheaper per guest. Our venue includes everything though: ceremony, reception, tables, linens, food, etc. We will probably go a bit over budget, but we are going to try not to. We are from NYC, and want to get married in NYC - it can def be done without blowing like 80K [I think the average NYC wedding is like 75K these days].
                                 Anniversary
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  • It's looking like our budget is shaping up to be about $40K in DC for about 180 guests. We are prepared to go to $50K, but that's only for adding on new SOs to the guest list or last minute unexpected things. But hopefully the last 10K will just go to the honeymoon. That does include wedding rings but not e-ring or honeymoon. My parents are splitting many of the wedding costs with us, since they have a crazy number of guests, and my FI parents are paying for the RD. We will be putting between 20-30K of our own money in. We splurged on food, drinks, and venue, but are DIYing the decor and we aren't spending very much on cake. 30K was a hard personal cap for us, we would have slashed the guest list (mostly my parents random friends and some of ours) if we didn't get a contribution from the parents.

  • We spent around 18K on a wedding at Red Rock Canyon in Nevada - a destination wedding. The thing that made it "luxury" was really that it was for us and ten guests. Everything is relative, had we stayed at home it probably would have been 2 and half times more due to a huge guest list. Everything is relative, and I never count other people's money or judge their priorities.
  • Doing a destination wedding and hoping to do it for $30-40k. I have no idea what stuff costs yet so I might be waaay off. We are paying for it ourselves. I am expecting 120-150 guests. 

    We own a house together and I have 5k left of student debt (will be paid off within the next 6 months, yay!). We are spending exactly what we can afford, and since we're doing a destination wedding, we're spending $40K on a 7 day party with our closest family and friends!
  • edited February 2014
    FiancB said:
    It always surprises me when people come onto the luxury weddings board to say "wow I can't believe you're spending so much!". Err... nobody goes to the budget board to say "wow, you're so cheap!". I'm not having a luxury wedding but lurk sometimes and that always gets me. 

    Enjoy your weddings folks, whether you're spending $1k, $10k or $100k :)


    To be honest, I am quite impressed with brides who are able to have amazing weddings on a tigher budget. I have seen some awesome creativity on here and it's quite inspiring. I certainly spent quite a bit on my first wedding, but definitely scaled back and focused on my priorities for my second wedding. I think a lot of brides on here get lost in the industry push to have everything be a "dream come true" and "magical" for their wedding day. I know I did. So, point is the bolded- it's going to be great no matter what!

    edit: spelling

     







  • Just wanted to say - I'm right outside of NYC. Our budget is 35k. It can be done! 
  • Our budget is 30k (w/out dress, rings, HM or RD) but I wouldn't have thought that would qualify (or quantify) being on the Luxury board. I figured my budget is average.
  • Yikes.  Our budget is 120k not including rings, dress, accessories, hair, makeup; but it seems that we're going to be coming in over that unfortunately.  Chicago is just so expensive, it's awful.  We're not even having a big wedding (inviting ~220, so expect ~200 guests), it's at a very mediocre venue, and there have already been a ton of things I've wanted to do but haven't been able to afford.  And I don't mean to say that I wish we had a bigger budget..I'm more just frustrated that our dollar doesn't seem to go nearly as far in Chicago as it would in many other cities.  Like I'm sure a lot of you ladies with smaller budgets that live in smaller towns will be having weddings that are much more "luxurious" than mine will be.
  • Ours rang in right around 40k (not including RD, rings, or HM) just outside of Boston on the ocean. Not sure if that's luxury, but it was a really nice wedding and we didn't have to scrimp or pinch too much.  It's relative- luxury to some and budget to others.  I certainly had a strict budget that I did keep to!
  • lschwar2 said:
    Yikes.  Our budget is 120k not including rings, dress, accessories, hair, makeup; but it seems that we're going to be coming in over that unfortunately.  Chicago is just so expensive, it's awful.  We're not even having a big wedding (inviting ~220, so expect ~200 guests), it's at a very mediocre venue, and there have already been a ton of things I've wanted to do but haven't been able to afford.  And I don't mean to say that I wish we had a bigger budget..I'm more just frustrated that our dollar doesn't seem to go nearly as far in Chicago as it would in many other cities.  Like I'm sure a lot of you ladies with smaller budgets that live in smaller towns will be having weddings that are much more "luxurious" than mine will be.
    @lschwar2 I feel your pain. We spent about 125-130k on our wedding in Chicago. Not including rings, honeymoon, etc. And I felt like plenty of vendors were outside my budget. What is your venue? Why is it mediocre?
    BabyFruit Ticker
  • lschwar2 said:
    Yikes.  Our budget is 120k not including rings, dress, accessories, hair, makeup; but it seems that we're going to be coming in over that unfortunately.  Chicago is just so expensive, it's awful.  We're not even having a big wedding (inviting ~220, so expect ~200 guests), it's at a very mediocre venue, and there have already been a ton of things I've wanted to do but haven't been able to afford.  And I don't mean to say that I wish we had a bigger budget..I'm more just frustrated that our dollar doesn't seem to go nearly as far in Chicago as it would in many other cities.  Like I'm sure a lot of you ladies with smaller budgets that live in smaller towns will be having weddings that are much more "luxurious" than mine will be.

    I ran into this as well when planning my wedding in Maryland/DC area. I purposely kept my guest list around 120 because of family issues/drama, but had I invited everyone may parents wanted to invite, it would have easily hit the $150K range. That was back in 2004, so I'm sure it's even more now. Though I never entertained the idea of a larger wedding when I got re-married, I cannot even imagine having to deal with the costs again. Once was enough.  

     







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