Curious and Very Not Proper Etiquette

PirateintheSky

Answer my poll!

nhelene

My maximum was $15K and I'm waiting on my last 2 RSVPs to determine the final budget, but it will be somewhere around $14600, so I'm pretty proud of myself right now.

waltzingmatilda13

Our max was $7,000. We had a 40% decline rate and actually spent about $6,000.

PirateintheSky

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_curious-very-not-proper-etiquette?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:20b66b0e-bedd-43d6-9044-d0a69f578d61Post:8efe060d-f84d-4b2c-8c4a-f9ff515f3e5d">Re: Curious and Very Not Proper Etiquette</a>:
[QUOTE]My maximum was $15K and I'm waiting on my last 2 RSVPs to determine the final budget, but it will be somewhere around $14600, so I'm pretty proud of myself right now.
Posted by nhelene[/QUOTE]

I haven't really finished all the buying stuff yet.  But if my budget goes as planned (which I'm pretty meticulous, but realize there is probably a variety of things I'm forgetting or that will come up last minute), I should be right over 14K, which will mean FI and I can pay for it all by ourselves without ending up begging on the street for money afterwards! FI's family has a ton of money, but they made it very clear if we were to accept it, they would be in control.

loop0406

I'm right at $14,550

brilibby4

We are still early in the planning process but are trying to stay under 10K

aMrsin09

I can't see the poll, but judging by the answers...

Everything, down to my shoes and our rings, etc came in just under 7,000 ish.  I say "ish" because some was paid in US, some in AUD and the rings were in Euros and who wants to fuss with exchange rates.  If we take out the rings we were probably closer to $5,000 ... for a 14 person wedding.

mwhitson14

We spent about 3K.

PirateintheSky

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_curious-very-not-proper-etiquette?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:20b66b0e-bedd-43d6-9044-d0a69f578d61Post:08ac7c98-c006-4a11-b765-75a49c61935d">Re: Curious and Very Not Proper Etiquette</a>:
[QUOTE]We spent about 3K.
Posted by mwhitson14[/QUOTE]

Props to you! My FI's parents would shun us if we had only spent 3k.  They aren't stuck up, but they would think we were rude and not ready to get married if we started purposely excluding aunts and uncles, weren't providing dinner and/or having professional photography done.

kristen8040

Budget of about 25k, more towards 30k now.

mwhitson14

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_curious-very-not-proper-etiquette?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:20b66b0e-bedd-43d6-9044-d0a69f578d61Post:47693cf0-7116-4da0-8d47-f9e3a092a93e">Re: Curious and Very Not Proper Etiquette</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Curious and Very Not Proper Etiquette : Props to you! My FI's parents would shun us if we had only spent 3k.  They aren't stuck up, but they would think we were rude and not ready to get married if we started purposely excluding aunts and uncles, weren't providing dinner and/or having professional photography done.
Posted by PirateintheSky[/QUOTE]

Ha yeah. We are in a small town so it was pretty easy not to spend a lot. We did have a full dinner but no bar (church wedding/reception) so that saved us a chunk. My one regret in being so cheap is our photography; we had an amateur to save money and I was very disappointed with our pictures. No one was exlcluded though; we had 160 on the guest list. All family, even extended family, was invited.

nhelene

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_curious-very-not-proper-etiquette?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:20b66b0e-bedd-43d6-9044-d0a69f578d61Post:1c278b24-ae10-4863-aa7f-1f123f053138">Re: Curious and Very Not Proper Etiquette</a>:
[QUOTE] My one regret in being so cheap is our photography; we had an amateur to save money and I was very disappointed with our pictures. Posted by mwhitson14[/QUOTE]

That was my one splurge... although my 'amateur' photographer was going to charge me $1000 for just photos, the professional charged me $2500 but I get an album and a few other 'extras'.

I have some self-image issues so I definitely wanted to go pro, but I'm worried I'm going to hate the photos no matter what because they're of me  :( 

mkrupar

It looks like we'll come in around 9 or 10k. Part my dad's money, and part our money. No one's going into debt though, which is the ultimate goal. :-)

ohwhynot

We spent right around 7k, including rings, dress, and all.  I think our final number was 115 people.  We provided a buffet dinner and open bar. 

temerityjane

We started with a budget of a certain number split half between us and half what my parents offered.

It changed when my parents decided not to offer a set amount, but pay for the recception as a whole instead, and I also came into a lot of extra work, which lead to a lot of extra money for the budget.

We don't have a "set" budget anymore, only that (at least for our part), we're paying cash only. No credit cards or loans or anything like that. So our budget is whatever we have saved by that date.

PirateintheSky

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_curious-very-not-proper-etiquette?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:20b66b0e-bedd-43d6-9044-d0a69f578d61Post:1c278b24-ae10-4863-aa7f-1f123f053138">Re: Curious and Very Not Proper Etiquette</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Curious and Very Not Proper Etiquette : Ha yeah. We are in a small town so it was pretty easy not to spend a lot. We did have a full dinner but no bar (church wedding/reception) so that saved us a chunk. My one regret in being so cheap is our photography; we had an amateur to save money and I was very disappointed with our pictures. No one was exlcluded though; we had 160 on the guest list. All family, even extended family, was invited.
Posted by mwhitson14[/QUOTE]

I have no real idea how you did this.  Like at all.  I am so super envious. 

Although it probably doesn't help that I am chosing a venue that I absolutely love at $2,000 which comes with a contract caterer whose lowest price is like $65 a head.  But that does include the open bar and cake, so, Yay?

Three big Splurges:
1. Venue
2. Caterer (cause it comes with Venue or I would chose cheaper)
3. Photography (when I'm 90, and can't remember my name, I want to beable to remember this day.)

[Deleted User]

We were around 3K. Maybe less. But my family bought a lot of the food and I'm not sure how much they spent on that.

mwhitson14

nhelene, I felt fine with how I looked, it was just more that I felt like I had to direct her at every little thing, and as a result we didn't get a lot of just me and Shane, she took the same pictures over and over and over.

Pirate, lots of family and friends pitched in Venue was only $200, catering was done by a friend, $400, photographer, $250. Cake/cupcakes, $225. DJ, $100, officiant, $100. Dress, tuxes, $200. Flowers, $250. The rest was just little stuff here and there, so we may have even come under that. Not really sure. I didn't have a set budget.

PreppySailor

I can't see the poll either. We never really set a limit. We spent around 16k (canadian dollars lol)  not including rings or honeymoon.
Edit: i forgot to say that our photography was free because DH's aunt and her friend did that as a gift, and we had a plated meal and 6 hour open bar.

noodle_oo

Wow, do these under $10K budgets include photography, music, rings, hair & make-up, etc?  That's really good.

We are right around $20K I think for 75 guests.  Boston is really expensive.  But we did splurge on a few things like our photographer was $3500 (totally worth it) and having a videographer for $1300.  But I thought we did pretty well.

Thumper1148

We are trying to stay uder $6K, but that doesn't include our honeymoon.

laur2007

17000 is my budget but 12000 went to the reception alone. and that includes centerpieces, catering, open bar up lighting, and all that fun stuff. the budget looks like its coming in around 15500 though once everything else is added in

hz80408

We're at $22K not including HM or my rings for 275 invited

FutureMrsTR

This is so regional, obviously, but our total was just under $18K including rings and honeymoon for 75 people.

aMrsin09

See, that's where it's hard for me to tell what we spent.  Our photographer was $1200 AUD, but at the time, that was only about $800 US.  The same for all the Aussie expensenses. I can take those and cut them by at least a third to get US figures

So maybe we were closer to $3500 all up (without rings.  we would have bought those even if we did a JoP)

ohwhynot

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_curious-very-not-proper-etiquette?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:20b66b0e-bedd-43d6-9044-d0a69f578d61Post:c10a64df-d089-46e3-883e-716fc927c5de">Re: Curious and Very Not Proper Etiquette</a>:
[QUOTE]Wow, do these under $10K budgets include photography, music, rings, hair & make-up, etc?  That's really good. We are right around $20K I think for 75 guests.  Boston is really expensive.  But we did splurge on a few things like our photographer was $3500 (totally worth it) and having a videographer for $1300.  But I thought we did pretty well.
Posted by noodle_oo[/QUOTE]

Boston IS really expensive.  We had a budget wedding because, frankly, we're on a budget.  I do feel proud of how nice of an evening we were able to present to our guests, but I am not particularly proud of having such a (relatively) small budget - it is what it is.  If we could have afforded more, we probably would have spent more. 

My dress was only $125 and didn't need any alterations; Mark wore a suit he already owned; we were able to get an AMAZING caterer for an excellent price ($1900 for 115 people, including 2 kinds of delicious sheet cake); we rented a community hall and got our flowers from the farmer's market, etc. etc.

For a lot of "budget brides," there's a tradeoff between $$ and time & effort & hassle.  It would have been nice, for example, to not have to worry about cleaning up at the end of the reception; it would have been nice to not have to worry about getting silverware and napkins and coffee cups . . . that kind of stuff.  There were a lot of issues that, if we could have thrown money at them to make them go away, we would have. 

Amivy06

We are aiming to stay around 15-16k but we set our budget at 20k.

tidetravel

Ours came in around $6500 for 80 people. 

carolinagirlsu

I can't see the poll.
We live in Miami Beach; I really wanted a tradional catholic weddi8ng. My fiance just wanted to elope. After reading all of the "cost of wedding" most places had a Miami Beach average of 41K.  I made it a challaged that I could do it in half of the "estimated budget"   - 160 invited guest - 102 RSVP yes  and 22 days to go - I am pround to annouce that we made in 18K. 
I work in a hotel industry so I had to call in a couple favors - but we are in a 5 star hotel with a three course meal and 6 hours of open bar.
A tradional Catholic mass ceremony and rehearsal dinner. Initially if we stuck with the 20K - we were going to be able to go to the honeymoon. Now I can go to Saint Lucia. I am sooooo pround of myself.

PirateintheSky

My budget of 15k basically includes everything that is on the Knot budgeter (which includes gifts to family, rings, hair, "pre-wedding pampering", etc.).  It doesn't include the honeymoon or rehersal dinner which FI's parents are paying for. 

PirateintheSky

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_curious-very-not-proper-etiquette?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:20b66b0e-bedd-43d6-9044-d0a69f578d61Post:b30634f7-27bc-4960-bc78-7fdf03f2055e">Re: Curious and Very Not Proper Etiquette</a>:
[QUOTE]I can't see the poll.
Posted by carolinagirlsu[/QUOTE]

Why can't people see the poll?  Did I do something wrong when I posted it?