Budget chat: How'd you fare?

SewInLoveWithDMB · October 2013

Note: You don't need to post your actual amount spent.

Where did you go over? Where do you go under? What was exactly on budget?

SewInLoveWithDMB · October 2013

Have been writing checks for final payments and now have (basically) all numbers.

Big surprise: We went over my original "this is what I think it costs to throw a wedding."

We'll be fine though, no cc debt and everything is paid off. But, we still went over.

In the beginning of planning, I made a spreadsheet with an educated guess of what I would like to spend for each item.

Went over budget on:

Shoes (not by much though)
Hair fascinator
Garter
Flowers overall (by about $200 - not too bad for entire bottom line)
Invitations (wanted letterpress)
Favors (Didn't calculate shipping in estimate)
Flower girl/ ring bearer gifts (the number of children increased.)
Cake cutter (as in, just bought one the other day and wasn't planning on it originally)
My wedding ring
Programs (again, darn shipping)
Photographer

Came in under budget:

Veil (wore my sister's = free)
DJ
Videographer
Photo Booth
Flower girl/ring bearer accessories (borrowing and found good deals)
Save the Dates
Candy Buffet overall (wanted to do it for $300, came in at $220! Woohoo!)
Table menus
Table numbers (FI made them from found wood/trees)
Escort cards
Make up (doing myself)
Hair (found an affordable person!)

How about you?? Any regrets?

joellennitsche · October 2013

To be honest I didn't really have a budget but still wanted to keep it as budget friendly as possible since my parents paid for it. And honestly I don't know where we are at since they have done all the finances for it. Is say somewhere between 8-10 thousand.

rkbo · October 2013

Ha! Back in the beginning when we first started planning, we were at 40 people on the invite list and a $5000 budget...That changed dramatically...now we are sitting at 128 people invited (87yes's) and approx $18k in costs. Fortunately we have been buying things for about a year and we will also have zero cc debt when it is all said and done.

ErinDandJohnH · October 2013

We are a bit over budget but not bad. My biggest regret for over budget was flowers. It was twice what we wanted to spend. Oh and after I told my fiancee' that my dress was under budget he took the money that was suppose to be for the dress and alterations and allocated it to something else. :op

rustytammy · October 2013

Funny, I was just going over this. I am still waiting on final amounts on the catering and flowers. I'm under budget on about 50% of the items. I'm over on my dress, alterations were much more than I anticipated!!! I'm also over on the gifts and decorations. I've really busted those two line items simply because I ended up having to rent/buy more items than originally thought.

It has also helped that my FIL's have stepped up at the last minute and taken care of several items! I think we will come pretty close to what I budgeted for. However, I cannot say that we are cc debt free! I've added about $250 for wedding items to that.

HisGirlFriday13 · October 2013

We also flew by the seat of our pants and didn't really have a budget. We were super budget-conscious, though, and kept everything on the way cheap end.

Initially, FI and I were splitting the cost 50/50 with my parents, but about a month ago, they stepped in and volunteered to pay for the whole reception, including flowers, which was just amazing.

Our total budget for everything less than $6K.

ETA: words I forgot that make the sentence make sense.

simplykayla · October 2013

Our original budget was about 5k. A couple months ago FI's car needed a major repair, taking nearly 1k out of our wedding budget. Luckily, we were able to cut some things and come in under budget on some things to compensate, and then a couple little bonus checks from FI's job helped to pick us back up where we needed to be. We ended up coming in at just about our budget limit.

We did, however, move money around as individual things came in over or under budget. We didn't end up needing most of our decor budget, as the venue we chose ended up providing all decor. So we were able to move that money over to adding appetizers to our catering.

My dress was under budget, but alterations went over budget.
Photographer and catering were both perfectly in budget.
I went over budget on my accessories (shoes, jewelry, etc).
Invitations were well under budget.

Unfortunately, most of it did have to go onto FI's credit card. With a new baby, moving, and the wedding all in one year we just didn't have the money on hand to cover everything. But now that everything is settling down we've come up with a good repayment plan to pay off that credit card quickly.

hardlyhannah · October 2013

I don't really want to think about it. I am pretty sure we are over on everything. BUT - we are still in decent shape and the cc debt we have is on a zero interest card that we will be able to pay off in full by the end of the promo period.

shannyb41 · October 2013

We didn't really have a budget. My parents were giving us a certain amount which we ended up using all on the reception. FI parents paid for flowers, limo and rehearsal dinner. We are cover DJ and photographer. I paid for my dress which, with alterations, ended up being a little more than I wanted to spend but I love it. Other little things added up. We didn't really have any idea what things would cost until we dove in. We didn't go crazy though...no debt or anything so all is well. haha

09McSteph03 · October 2013

I am so glad to see that others flew by the seat of their pants.

No real budget. I spent more on the dress and DJ than I thought I would.

shaylagirl · October 2013

We're under the "budget" we set for ourselves (or, at least on the big ticket items when I did a "guesstimate" total a few nights ago).

We did go over on some things; my dress, alterations (not that I had ANY idea what to budget for that!), his ring and our "cake" (which is cupcakes and a round cake).

But, we did that because my parents picked up the reception tab.

I honestly don't plan on sitting down with receipts, because I just don't want to know.

I know we're going to be at or just under what we originally budgeted. That's good enough for me!

Coeur · October 2013

Still likely to be fluctuating in some last minute choices and finalizing, but so far for the things that come to mind:

Things that went over what we expected:

Catering/food costs (we initially had a price point in mind, but totally changed our tune and ended up rearranging our $ ideas to ensure some fantastic food)

Chairs (this was a weird one, just really didn't expect the chair rental fees to add up so significantly!)

Photographer (people had prepared us for this expense, but I really found myself deeper than I'd like when we started comparison shopping for photographers; those packages are quite a bit expense)

Things that fell under what we expected:

Reception band (we didn't expect a live band to be as affordable as it turned out to be, lucky for us)

Reception Decorations (I expected this to really add up, but once you figure out the look you have in mind, it can come together pretty neatly; there weren't many 'little extras' like I expected there would be... although I suppose there's still time for that)

Flowers (fiance's family had some major connections to the local floral industry, and we got some big lucky breaks!)

I suppose I could do a line-by-line break down of wedding expenses and what we expected, but I'll save that analysis for when the dust settles after the wedding. We basically picked the few things that mattered most, got those sorted, and then stuck a budget on the rest of the events. Bottom line, I swear, stick 'wedding' on anything and it instantly triples in price. Want a champagne glass? 20$. Oh, a weeeeeedding champagne glass? That's 60. A lovely centerpiece? 35$. Oh, wait, it's going to sit on a table in a weeeeedding? It's 100$ centerpiece. Sigh.

Coeur · October 2013

SewInLoveWithDMB said:

Table numbers (FI made them from found wood/trees)

By the way, that's really awesome that your FI made the table numbers from wood pieces - very cool idea, and neat of your FI to do that! Just saying.

SewInLoveWithDMB · October 2013

Coeur said:

SewInLoveWithDMB said:

Table numbers (FI made them from found wood/trees)
By the way, that's really awesome that your FI made the table numbers from wood pieces - very cool idea, and neat of your FI to do that! Just saying.

Thanks! They're pretty cool.

Budget chat: How'd you fare?

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