anyone else feeling this way?

heroeswearbrown

Okay, so I've been thinking lately about the fact that very few things in my wedding have I or will I pay full price for. It could just be good planning, good timing, or my inheritance of my mother's uncanny ability to find a good deal, but every time I get on here, on twitter or on pinterest there are hundreds of articles, tips, lists and suggestions on how to save money on a wedding.

Well, here's my thing. I have not actually applied a single thing I've read to my wedding budget planning and my humongous wedding will still come in somewhere between $4k- $6k.

I mean, first suggestion is to cut your guest list. Not an option for me. I come from a very very very very large family, and to be honest, we kept the invite list to as minimal as we could. And we're still inviting something like 250 people.

Second suggestion usually is to consider your priorities. Okay, so this one I did actually follow but not really. Instead of deciding that this was splurge-worthy and that was unecessary, I started out with a bare basics list of desires and went from there. I have a few items that are on my "If we have any budget left over" list, but for the most part, I thought about all the things that I wanted or considered necessary to a wedding and went from there. I've not had to cut anything from my wedding ex post facto because we couldn't afford it.

Third suggestion is to negotiate. Here's where I start to wonder where the people who write these lists are from because every vendor I have dealt with in the past year has been very firm on their contracts, services, and prices. But that hasn't stopped me from getting extactly what I wanted.

Suffice it to say that my wedding should cost well over $6k at full retail price, but due to savvy shopping, and a boatload of time, (16 months) I will have a pretty amazing wedding on a budget and I'm proud of that.

Can anyone tell that I bored at work?

Minnesota11

We never really followed a lot of the guidelines on how to do the budget but we are happy with everything we have planned and dont feel like we are over spending at all.  We got some amazing deals on everything with it being in January.  We actually had some of our vendors says to us dont be afraid to negotiate with us we are really flexible that time of year and we got 15% off our entire catering bill which was a big help.  I think with our location they are just happy to be doing any work that time of year.  Not many people want to get married with a foot of snow on the ground, but we both love the snow so it fit and let us be able to have our dream wedding at half the cost of doing it during a different time of year. 

missv19732000

If we were having EVERYTHING I actually wanted we would be spending about 15K, but we aren't. When I got married back in 2004, I pretty much got what I wanted and we spent about 12K and that included a honeymoon!  This is my 2nd marriage and we cannot do a honeymoon right after the wedding.  The ceremony, reception, photo/video, dress, etc. is costing about 9K total.  I'm sure if I lived somewhere else in the country, besides Miami, it would be a whole lot less. I just wonder why someone would spend 30-50K just on a ceremony and reception!  I see it on those wedding shows all the time.  I think it's unnecessary, but maybe that's just me.

heroeswearbrown

Well and I see it on here some times too. I mean I spent $500 on my dress and sash and even that seems a little high for me. I can't even begin to imagine spending more than $1k on a dress I would wear for less than half a day. But I'm also the kind of person who can hardly fathom spending more than $25 on any one single article of clothing anyway.

missv19732000

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-club-boards_january-2013-weddings_anyone-else-feeling-this-way?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding Club BoardsForum:808dddd9-a33d-4d5f-8a47-f091dcd1c99fDiscussion:7e6bf00b-7f9f-447c-821e-729b5523b364Post:67cec44a-ae85-46d6-9c71-bddb70887ccd">Re: anyone else feeling this way?</a>:
[QUOTE]Well and I see it on here some times too. I mean I spent $500 on my dress and sash and even that seems a little high for me. I can't even begin to imagine spending more than $1k on a dress I would wear for less than half a day. But I'm also the kind of person who can hardly fathom spending more than $25 on any one single article of clothing anyway.
Posted by heroeswearbrown[/QUOTE]

I hear ya...I'm right there with you when it comes to clothing!  My wedding dress cost $299 and I thought that was way too much, but could not find anything less expensive that I liked.