How much is your wedding costing you??

Rainbow17 · December 2010

How much is your Desi wedding costing you?

I always heard that the average wedding costs $30,000. My wedding is far exeeding that number... and the funny part of that is I'm not even having a ceremony, only reception with cocktail hour. This is the breakdown of my costs so far:

-Getting married in Miami, FL
-250 Guests (which is relatively small for an Indian wedding)
-Getting food outside catered to have Indian food

$30,000 for forkage (use of ballroom space) plus 5 hour open bar
$8,000 for Indian food outside catered

Don't know how much anything else costs... I'm scared to even think about it considering that I'm already at almost $40,000. I'm saving $ by not having my FI come out with a horse, no mandip, or anything else related to the ceremony. I'm not having a bridal party, so no bouquets. In fact, the only flowers I think I'll need is for the centerpieces. If I can get away with nice cheap flowerless centerpieces I'll take it! I haven't even though about the wedding dress and jewelry. Again, I'm saving money by not having a separeate wedding dress and reception dress. Also, not having mehendi or sangeet. Also, instead of flying all the way out to India to buy these items I'm going to Jersey (which I hear is the next best thing).

Where else can I cut corners? As much as I would love to have a planner, I am trying to find a way to cut costs.

neetuandsachin · December 2010

During my venue search, I realized that a lot of hotels and country clubs were charging me a per head "penalty" for using outside catering. I ended up looking at both venues that had an indian chef onsite or historical venues that allowed outside catering for a nominal fee but require me to rent out my own linens and china as well. I ended up going with a historic venue - even with all the rentals I will be coordinating, it ended up costing less than the hotel/country club's minimum charge. I guess in my case, the savings outweighs the hassle of having to coordinate with more vendors.

Do you have the option of choosing a venue that has an Indian chef? Or, if you are set on your venue, are you willing to cut down the number of hours of open bar? Maybe not serve the last hour of your reception?

DFWIndian · December 2010

Here is mine.
I'm Christian Indian so I don't have all the things you guys do. I will have a Mehendi, but it's not included in the wedding costs.
~budget is $40,000
~ guests: 400-500
~ Fort Worth, Texas
~ Catered from the hotel itself.
I researched venues, photographers, and video to find good people at a decent price. We have been cutting back on a daily basis to save as much as we can. We are using the centerpieces the venue gives us. Just doing basics on other things. We are going to India, but it's for my cousin's wedding so it worked out for me being able to buy things. Plus, my mom wants to get a lot of gold and it's worth the trip to get it from India as compared to here.

rsmehta · December 2010

I definitely agree that things add up quickly. We have 250 people and our budget is about $50,000. I must say that I think we are going to be over this by at least 5-10 K, although I am trying my hardest to keep it down. Things just add up so fast!

Bells- your way to cut down is amazing. I will definitely have to use some of those to help budget.

Some other things I have found to save is that I am using the same flowers for the ceremony as the reception. We have 8 large arrangements for the aisle for the ceremony, and I am having the florist place these on tall vases and using them for the reception. We are also using the same candles from the ceremony for the reception.

Also, we are having something called a dummy cake. Not sure if anyone has heard of this (I had not till recently). It is a cake made out of styrofoam so that when people look at it, it looks real. There is a piece of real cake on the bottom tier so that when you and the groom cut it, it is real cake. Then there is a sheet cake in the back that they use as the real cake to serve. From what I understand, no one can tell the difference (the guests would never find out) and its saving us about $400! Goodluck!

SonaliPop · December 2010

If you are having a Hindu wedding, don't have as many flowers - use murtis down the aisle on pedastals. That's what I would do. For a floral touch, I'd put small garlands around each murti. I'm not sure I'd blow too much on flowers for the reception unless the space really needed it. I may go for lighting instead.

raangoli · December 2010

We definitely saved a lot of money by making the invitations ourselves. We really enjoyed the process of designing and putting them together, it made it way more personal. But it really is a labor of love and you need to make sure you leave enough time to get it done.

We did all of our own paper goods - menu, program, placecards, etc.

We also reused the floral centerpieces for our aisle and had two different types - one submerged orchid in 3 different high vases which was cheaper than the traditional floral that we used as double duty for the aisle way.

And while some people might not like it, I opted for a plain wedding band rather than a blinged out wedding band. That definitely saved a chunk of change!

LeilaR · December 2010

Our budget is $60.000 but we will do everything we can to keep it below that number. Guests are at 400 max..so far we have 385. As for invitations, we're going for simple, non traditional ones. Our flowers, caterers, photographers, and videographers are what we're spending a lot on...

RSMEHTA- I know what you're talking about (dummy cake)
I went to a bridal expo and saw the booth. It's actually a pretty cool idea..
Not many people eat cake either. As for us, we are probably opting for a traditional sri lankan cake -IF we can find a place that makes it.

AquarianDragon · December 2010

The average American style wedding is $20-30K. Because of this, FI's aunt has suggested a budget of $50-60K for our wedding. One of his coousin who married this year threw out $75-100K!!!

Nina, I'm shocked that your venue is $30K.... this seems so outrageous!

My question regarding cost is how does one come up with a budget, if you have no idea about what things costs, especially when wedding stuff in America doesn't really focus on the non-Western sorts of celebrations.

All this wedding planning gives me a headache!

ssarangi · December 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/cultural-wedding-boards_south-asian-weddings_much-wedding-costing?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Cultural Wedding BoardsForum:430Discussion:f37abdce-a4e8-4dfa-9e9e-6415d3ba6b56Post:1703f581-d34c-41ea-beb9-ba4f66db20a0">Re: How much is your wedding costing you??</a>:
[QUOTE]We definitely saved a lot of money by making the invitations ourselves. We really enjoyed the process of designing and putting them together, it made it way more personal. But it really is a labor of love and you need to make sure you leave enough time to get it done. We did all of our own paper goods - menu, program, placecards, etc. Posted by raangoli[/QUOTE]

I really like the idea of DIY'ing our paper items. Did you have a south asian theme/color for them? do you have any recommendations on websites or vendors?

bridetobeee · January 2011

I totally feel your pain on the budget. I am having a wedding in NY so the costs here are ridiculous. I decided not to use a hotel and used a historical place instead to cut costs. Although, this is a huge pain since we have a ton of rentals to deal with. I am making my own favors, get creative on this! Most people throw away favors anyway so buying some candy and attaching a small photo with a thank you message may be an affordable idea. I heard that Costco/Sam's Club make wedding cakes?? One of those wholesale stores and apparently, they look nice and are way more affordable. Also, I heard buying wholesale flowers saves a ton of cash but setup may be an issue if you don't hire a florist

tesha23 · January 2011

my budget was $35000 and get this we,re having 75 people whihc is really small for an indian wedding, ... but for some reason i seem to be goin over my budget, i think its the photographer and the dj that really taking it over ..... where are you ladies going for your honeymoon?

kpwedkk · January 2011

Our budget was $75k, for 300 people giving them at least two meals. There were 2 additional ceremonies before the wedding as well for the bride's mehendi/henna and rubbing of the haldi ceremonies. Also, this was to bring down certain people from around the country, and out of the country - priests, dancers, musicians, and grandmas

Also got married in Arizona... where there is virtually no setup of a good list of vendors to go to for all of your Indian needs. There was a lot of interviewing of vendors to determine which ones worked, and didn't work together. Also, as a result, they all recommend each other for services for upcoming weddings

It is important to have a timeline and a budget. Be flexible if you can, certain times of the year, are more expensive than others. Also keep your mind open about venues. If you have your heart set on one, and it's completely outside of your allocated budget, keep looking, and keep that in backup plans.

Don't be afraid to ask venues for discounts on certain things as well, like if you are using their prefer DJ service, or their catering service, or their decorations for your event. At least the decor is not brand new to them, so they shouldn't be minting it at every wedding they host.

Also, make sure that you get contracts of specific details of what is needed to pull off your wedding and reception. The more details you have, the better, in case something doesn't show up, or is damaged etc. (I had an excel spreadsheet of all items expecting, and a day of coordinator in charge of making sure that all vendors were accomodated in her timeline)

I'm sure there is more things, but here's a short list

How much is your wedding costing you??

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