What's your budget?

bahyatt323

Mine is 5K. Yikes!

88beautymarked

@bahyatt323 and @CheleLyn mine too! Don't worry, just keep track of all expenses to keep yourself inside budget. Shop around for vendors to find the best price for you, don't be afraid to ask them if they are willing to budge on price!

CheleLyn

I know one of the things that really helps me is where I live, it's just easier to do a wedding on a smaller budget. Also this isn't my first wedding and I learned from my last one (which was by no means extravagant) things that were more important to me that I wanted to spend money on. Examples: PROGRAMS, too many times I've been to weddings and they are just left or thrown away. That's a couple hundred savings there. FAVORS, the reception is the thank you. I'm leaving little boxes of after dinner mints but again I've seen favors just left at the reception or thrown away. CATERING: I shopped around and was able to find someone that is only $13 pp with three entrees, and it's BBQ so I'm in heaven. In my area, the general cost is $20-25 pp for 2 entrees BOOZE: we are providing our own and that saves SEVERAL hundred dollars.FLOWERS: I bought my "real touch" calla bouquets from a shop on etsy for about $5 per stem as opposed to $15-20 for real...which would just wilt and die and be thrown away. There won't be floral decor or centerpieces. Fmil has a ton of craft things and we were able to go through her things and realize that she has TONS of things perfect for us so we don't need to purchase anything. INVITATIONS: zazzle.com! I bought expensive invites before and where did they end up? Thrown away.

There are tons of ways to save money if one has to have a smaller budget. IMO you just have to prioritize where you want to spend your money and what isn't as important.

AJ4ever08

Hoping to stay under $2500, but def no more than $3500 for everything including a mini honeymoon. I think this is a do able budget for the style of wedding we want.  

melbelleup

Mine is roughly 20k... seems like so much but sadly things are expensive in Pittsburgh for some reason and I'm having a huge wedding

mcbaine

Quick Question...

When you guys talk about budget, are you including expenses like wedding dress, tux/suit, wedding bands, hair/makeup, gifts for the bridal party, marriage license, hotel room, cost of invites, stamps, etc...?   Or just venue, food, decor, officiant, photographer, music? 

CheleLyn

MIne includes everything plus a miscellaneous budget for things that I forgot about (the things I decided to get from Etsy mostly...garters, cake topper, something blue).

I did not include the cost of my rings or anything specifically related to the groomsmen. 

88beautymarked

Everything excluding our rings and honeymoon.

Chloeagh

Ours includes absolutely everything except catering and honeymoon (dad is paying for catering, mom is giving a graduation/wedding gift that will cover the honeymoon). Rings are sorta included in that. When we say 5-7k, we are trying to keep the wedding itself around 5 so that when rings (including E-ring, which was $500) are included, it is still under 7.

wabanzi

Our budget (18-19k) includes everything, rings, honeymoon, postage, etc.  However, it is a max budget and so far we have come in under (sometimes way under) on each category.  When our honeymoon was gifted to us (2 weeks in the Bahamas --MoH's timeshare) we upgraded our food :-), and now it looks like our invitations will be way under (budget was $700, including postage) and it will be closer to $125 (which is awesome b/c 50% of them will be mailed internationally), so I hired a DOC for $500.  

So it looks like we will spend our budget, but it's cool to get the "upgrades" as we save in other areas.

FiancB

I'm shooting for $8k. Around $11k is the absolute max because that's what I have from selling my truck but the cheaper the better. If we spent all that there wouldn't be anything left in our house down payment fund. I'm not afraid to drop some money to have a great wedding but I am trying to cut corners where they can be cut. Like right now I'm looking at paper flower bouquets, because that's an item I don't care that much about where a TON of money can be saved. OTOH for something I do care about like photography, the sky's almost the limit. 

My parents sort of offered to help. But my mom is hounding me for not having a church wedding, and she'll hate my dress, etc so really it's easier to just pay for it myself. We're in our late 20s and at that point that seems more appropriate. 

jrobirds

Ours is going to be around 5-6k. Luckily I have a lot of connections regarding catering, photography and DJing. I'll also be doing a ton of DIY projects!

nightstarlite

I am extremely blessed and my parents have offered to pay.  The budget is 25k for my wedding.

nda_roxybabe

About 15K, but that's including our travel and accommodations for Ireland.