Inspired by Paying for Your Wedding: What is Your Budget and are You Happy with It?

FaithCaitlin · July 2011

Feel free not to respond if you're not comfortable sharing!

My parents gave me $10k. I think we'll wind up going a little bit beyond that by a few thousand dollars (but only because my mom wants "extras"). I'm very happy with my budget. Although I live in a fairly wealthy and expensive area, I found a great, fun, affordable venue, as well as talented but reasonable vendors. Even if I had a bigger budget, I'd be doing the same things!

So, what about you? Are you happy with your budget? Are you getting most everything you hope for? Would you say your budget is "average" for your area?

My budget is certainly not average for my area. It's about half of the "average".

Again, just being curious!

joie424 · July 2011

I had a very high budget and felt extremely blessed to have it. I thought that we would have a very low budget but my parents were extremely gracious. My MIL also chipped in for the flowers which was a HUGE help.

Purple&7 · July 2011

My budget is $8,000. I'm happy with it! This is below average for weddings in my area which are usually twice as much. I'm lucky to know a few people in the wedding industry that can help me out with various things. I think we may end up coming in under budget which would be great!

agape1cor813 · July 2011

Our budget was originally going to be $10,000, but after my cousin had a wedding where the budget was 3x+ as much in an area that was less expensive, my dad was like "we can spare an extra $5,000 because we live in such an expensive area." We ended up being $2,000 under budget when everything was said and done.

sessionswedding · July 2011

FI and I have a budget of about $6800. I have no idea what the value of the flowers and food that FMIL is giving us for free are (she's a caterer/florist, so she's getting all wholesale prices - I have no idea what we'd spend retail for the same type of stuff she's giving us free). In our area of the country, we are about average for our wedding budget, but I definitely would have liked to have some more money so that we could have a different reception venue.

ETA: We are paying ourselves.

amongthelilies25 · July 2011

We didn't really sit down and figure out a budget.... we just knew it was a small budget. i dont have a lot of family that can help and FMIL doesn't have a lot of money either. I would say we are right around $6,000 maybe a little bit over including all of our attire and wedding planner.

I am happy with our budget... i think that is a little under then the "normal" here for the area. I think we are going to have a really lovely, simple, romantic wedding with our budget. (: there is nothing too extravegant but our theme is simple romance. (:

LeahVB2011 · July 2011

My budget was $5,000. We had 2pm wedding so the reception was light. Cheese cubs, crackers, fuit, vegetables, and cake. The venue was free thanks to DH's family. We caught a sale for all the flowers at Michael's and Hobby Lobby including all the bouquets and bouts. Plus a family friend offered to make the cake and another cut us a deal with the food. We did manage to stay on budget for the wedding.

I wish we had not been on as strict of a budget. I would have loved to had real flowers and to have gotten other things but it was a beautiful wedding for what we had to spend. I don't know what the average budget is for a wedding around the area we got married but I'm pretty that mine was half the average. Especially when talking to vendors and trying to get them to understand my entire budget was $5,000 not just the budget to that area.

SoonToBeGenao · July 2011

Wow I wish I lived where all you girls live. The budgets you are all working on could never ever pay for even a fraction of a wedding here in long island. Our original budget was to try to stay under $20,000 however, our guest list kept growing and we kept upgrading things. When all is said and done we'll probably be between $25,000-30,000. FI and I are paying for the whole thing ourselves too (yuck) But in New York, having a New York Italian wedding- we are actually under the average. Many people pay $40,000-60,000.

I am very happy with our budget because I am proud to say that we saved so much and are able to have everything we want! We decided to do an afternoon wedding which is $83pp when an evening wedding was around $150 or so per person. That was basically our only sacrafice. Other wise we are getting everything we want and its perfect

SuMmErKuTiE · July 2011

We went about $10k over what we originally thought in the beginning process. Things got stressful for a while and were tight, but we were never broke and got help when needed, and built back up our savings account right after and have just moved into our new house, so I don't feel like anything was sacrificed to have the wedding and honeymoon we wanted. If we weren't in a place where we could have purchased a house or have savings, we would have cut back on things.

faith415 · July 2011

My parents told me to give myself my own budget because they knew mine would be lower than what they were planning on spending. Originally the budget was going to be 10k, but my parents added some things that they wanted to be "nicer" so now I think we're going to be closer to 12 or 13K.
That's way under the average for my area, which is typically at least double that. Plus, we're doing a NYE wedding, so the prices for everything are like time and a half. I'm completely happy with the budget. I tend to be the one who tries to make things cheaper, while my mom is the one who keeps choosing more expensive items!

mrandmrsbrist · July 2011

My parents and IL's each gave FI and I $2,500. So we had $5,000 to work with. I'd say we've contributed between $2,000 and $3,000 of our own money. If we needed to contribute more, we would have, so I guess we didn't really have a budget.

That's definitely the low end, even for Washington. A venue in my hometown starts at $5,000. But I'm glad we aren't going over the top and spending a ton of money.

iamjoesgurl · July 2011

Not including rings or the honeymoon, we spent about $10k which was right about what I wanted to spend. I am pretty frugal so it was hard to spend that much but the wedding ended up to be very nice and we are blessed to have been able to have it in an area that is not really expensive.

Special2011 · July 2011

As one of 4 daughters (7 "kids" in all), my parents didin't have a lot of money to give us. I had a education fund ($2500), my parents gave $1000 (maybe a little more) and then I'm paying the rest, whatever that comes to. So we're looking at around $6,000 for an evening church wedding and dessert reception. Like Joesgurl, I'm frugal and hate spending money- it is so hard to write checks for anything over $500. I've found great deals and am doing a lot of dyi projects, like flowers and food. This doesn't include the rehearsal dinner or honeymoon since he and his parents are doing that.

I am very happy with everything. If I had a little more, I might have had a real florist but only because we'll have to do that two days before the wedding. I think the average in OK is $25,000.

letyourselfgo · July 2011

We originally said 13k....but the cost is being drilled down....now we're at 11k...and I have two opinions on the entire budget thing.

1. I wish that we were having a bigger wedding than we are. Our guest list is capped at 250 due to budget restraints.

2. I wish that we were having a a no frills wedding, with not so much hoopla. Church ceremony, picnic reception in the forest. It's not going to happen. Sigh.

As it looks, we're going to go all out on the photographer, food, entertainment and florist. I believe that we could tone everything down. We'll see what happens.....

sprtychick10 · July 2011

$10k is what we are working with and it seems like so much! I too can have a tendency to be frugal with things for myself and my mom knows this. My parents have been very generous and my FI and I greatly appreciate what they are giving us.

GJones27 · July 2011

I'm so happy people on this board are able to have wonderful weddings with those budgets! Unfortunately, in San Francisco where I am from, I think it's nearly impossible to have a wedding on a 10K budget (living expenses are ridiculous). I think when everything was said and done, we ended up paying around 30K for 100 people. If we had tried a little harder, we could have gotten it down to 25K, mainly by reducing what we spent on photography and my dress. We had a lot of unforeseen costs, too, like having our wedding delayed over an hour due to forces beyond our control. I'm blessed my parents were able to pay for it; there's no way I could have afforded it!

azdancer8 · July 2011

When I first talked wedding budget with my dad, I gave him an estimate of what I thought it would cost based on the research I had already done. I thought I could work with about 15K in my area. He was thinking I was going to say 40K or something like that - and he likely would have paid that much if I had wanted him to! I eventually came in at around 12K for everything but the honeymoon, about twenty percent under my budget.

It was the perfect budget for us. We were able to have the wedding we wanted and not have to worry about cost. (I'm quite frugal to begin with, so I did a lot of comparison shopping to find the quality we wanted for the best price.) We also DIY parts of our wedding to help keep costs down, which DH and I had fun doing together. Even though my parents were paying, I never felt the need to "overspend" on anything just because I could. (Plus they were paying for my whole family to fly to AZ for the wedding anyways.)

loves2shop4shoes · July 2011

It's about 20k. FI and I are paying for the wedding ourselves.

Calypso1977 · July 2011

ours was 5K for wedding and rings. we then spent another 1K for the honeymoon.

i actually wanted to spend much less. i wanted a wedding with parents adn siblings only, with a nice dinner out. H wanted everyone, so we met in the middle and invited some additional family (but not everyone) and had a lunch buffet.

kcadonau · July 2011

my parents paid for our wedding so we had a budget of $5000. then MIL contributed money for our cake and flowers. my mom also got an inheritance from her grandpa so we ended up at $7000 so we really did pretty good

but the only way we did that was using my home church so we didn't have to rent it, and we also knew our caterer/florist and photographer, both of whom spoiled us. it was great!

Inspired by Paying for Your Wedding: What is Your Budget and are You Happy with It?

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