What is your budget?

MrsMelodyShah · July 2014

Hello, everyone! Congrats to you all on your upcoming nuptials!

I'm curious what everyone's budget is and where do you plan to splurge? My budget is $16,500 and I plan to devote the most money to food and alcohol (and my dress, but that goes without saying). Our wedding venue is "paid for" since a friend of ours has offered to host our wedding and reception in his backyard, so that frees up so much of our budget and we can have a little more fun with this than we would be able to if we had to pay for a venue. Both sets of parents are contributing - my fiance's parents are contributing $4,000 and my mother (single parent) will contribute $500 to $1,000. My fiance and I will provide the rest.

I'm soooo excited! Can't wait for the big day!

MrsMelodyShah · July 2014

Forgot to mention that our guest list is at just over 40 people. We would like a small wedding, with 50 or fewer guests. That's also helping to keep the costs of eveyrthing down.

Tiffany101015 · August 2014

holy crap! My budget is $8,000. I'm paying for this myself with no help from mine or the fiances parents. My fiance wants to help but financially can't.We plan on 200 people. Here's the brief budget...I'm deff. a budget bride!

$600-rental fee venue/ceremony space
$1500-DJ, Photographer, Photo-booth
$1500-Food (BBQ Style) A family friend does catering with BBQ & Pig Roasts so we just have to pay for meat and he is doing all the labor free
$1500-Alcohol,Pop,Water,etc
$500-Dress I found at davids bridal-yet to buy though
$75-Cupcake-I just have to pay for ingredients and a family friend is making them

so this leave approx $2325for linens,decor, etc.

Racheldh83 · August 2014

9,000 Venue is free..catering is $8 a person 200 people.. $150 per keg, photos $2000, dress $1000.. That's all I've got so far.. Was planning on spending less trying to see if we can..

nicole4793 · August 2014

My budge is $12,500, but that does not include my dress (I just paid cash for it in May) and the honeymoon (hopefully only $3,000-$4,000). $6,500 will be put towards the food, alcohol, cake package at our venue.

vegasbride2015 · August 2014

Umm, yeah. My budget is $7000. Just upped from $6500. Pretty sure I will be stressing out about it later. We are doing a Vegas destination wedding. Our splurge is a planned stay at the Trump hotel if I can book it at a good rate, and first class seats flying to and from. This budget is everything. Forgot to mention that we have roughly 13-15 people we are inviting.

BESpedoske · August 2014

Our budge will be a little fluid based on home much OT I can get at work, but the estimate is about 11,000 for the ceremony and reception and then 2-3K for the honeymoon (Disney World).

We have approx 115-125 that we are inviting, mainly because my fiance comes from a HUGE family and we want to invite them all.

Knottie1463426215 · August 2014

Our budget is $25,000...but in the end, we'll probably end up closer to $30,000. We're having a small wedding too--we're inviting 65 people--but we're getting married in Charleston and everything is so expensive (our venue alone was almost $5,000).

Lanna2014 · September 2014

Not going to lie, I feel kind of jealous right now. We are trying to keep it around $5000 - $6000. My dress is already paid off! My fiances cousin does alterations so she will be doing alterations for me at no cost. We are doing a fire hall reception. The hall is actually gorgeous when set up for weddings. Since my fiance is member of a fire hall that works closely with the hall we want, we are getting a great discount! Only $900 for everything except linens. I have yet to find a caterer though. That is going to be my biggest problem. We have about 230 people on our invite list. Most of it is family and about 40 are minors.

ryanandjoe4 · September 2014

we decided to budget for 10,000 but top dollar is 13,000... If you knew FI you would get it.. he will not budge over 13,000 and most likely we will spend less if not right at 10,000... but anyways, my mother is a photographer, so the guy she helps out is going to do it for us.. and we have a church planned.. that is about it..

futurecptkirk · September 2014

I'm so impressed with y'all! I had originally planned my budget and have recently discussed it again with my mom, wedding planner, and fiance. All of them told me I was certifiably crazy and now I had to increase it 10-15k. I am driving the struggle bus. Didn't realize it was possible to blow a budget so quickly.

mjk5415 · October 2014

Our budget is around $12,000. We are paying for most things ourselves, as this will be my 2nd marrige but my FI's first. If our families want to contribute they are more than welcome but we are not asking anyone to.

My dress is almost paid off, it was $1000 and I owe about $300 now. I have not included my dress in my overall budget.

We will be looking at venues in the next 2 weeks, the ones we are going to see range from $4000-$6000. They are ceremony/reception sites that you rent for the entire weekend and includes tables, chairs etc. Plus ceremony site and tables and chairs for the ceremony and access to any of their decorations. I am to OCD to trust other people to set up my decorations the day of my wedding while I am getting ready, so this type of venue is perfect for me. I will have access Fri to decorate, rehearse and we can even have the rehearsal dinner there Ceremony/reception sat and then I can have family go back Sunday to remove anything that may have been left behind.

I haven't even begun to think any further than that, LOL. I have information for everything I need to plan but I want to do my research so we can get the best companies and best deals.

vegasbride2015 · October 2014

Our budget jumped the shark again. We're now up to $10k. My father is paying for the wedding venue (ceremony and reception). I didn't want to go that route, but he made some good points, that he really wanted to do this for us and to see him tear up about how proud he was of my relationship (I was married before), meant the world to me. I am typically a very stubborn person who wants to do everything on her own, but this helped so much, so I thanked him profusely. I wasn't going to have him walk me down the aisle, either (not sure exactly why, it was the "I'm a second time bride" thing mixed with stubbornness), but now this changes it all. I will ask him if he would walk me down the aisle (again LOL).

rox2112 · October 2014

Our budget is teeny. Shooting for a destination wedding with around 5k for 25-30 guests.

vegasbride2015 · October 2014

rox2112 said:

Our budget is teeny. Shooting for a destination wedding with around 5k for 25-30 guests.

I feel you on that. Our original budget was that. It's just doubled. I'm thankful my dad is helping out bigtime. FI's parents have offered help too, but not sure we will take them up on it just yet. It can be done though!!

lulu0405 · October 2014

We're hoping for less than $50,000. Paying for it ourselves!

heynowgirl · October 2014

We're trying to stay under $10k. We're paying for the majority ourselves. My mom will probably help with my dress, and his parents are taking care of the rehearsal dinner...other than that, it's going to be all us.

[Deleted User] · October 2014

Lanna2014 I'm right there with you! We are planning around $5,000-$6,000 tops. FI and I are paying for everything on our own. We are incredibly fortunate to have friends that are able to help us. One of my best friends is a photographer and has offered to do our photos for free. Another friend of ours just opened a bakery and has offered to make our cake for us. We plan on doing as much as we possibly can ourselves to save most of our budget for alcohol (both of our families are big drinkers) and great food.

lulu0405 · October 2014

OMG 30, not 50!

AnnoymouseBride124 · March 2015

We are at 21k and we are having 260 guests! We are having our reception at a baseball stadium and serving up really fun food-funnel cakes, hotdogs and smores bar among other things. I can't wait for 10.10.15!

adverb · March 2015

Getting married in Vegas as well and my budget is 5k for 20 people.

1000 - Food

600 - Alcohol (still not sure if we get a bartender & fully stocked bar or just buy our own, this is worst case scenario)

300 - Cake

1000 - Photographer

1500 - Venue (we're getting married in the MGM Balcony Terrace suite - this is for 2 nights)

500 - Dress

Even though we live in Florida, airfare isn't costing us that much because I have lots of points and a SW companion pass!

anniecm5 · March 2015

Mine's kind of flexible I guess since I've had no idea what a wedding costs so I didn't know where to set it. Our limit from parents is for 15,000 and said that anything we go over will be for FI and I to pay for. We are having 100 people) So far it looks like...

10,000 - food (in budget)

2,500 - venue (in budget)

1,000 - my dress (in budget)

alcohol costs? no idea how much this will end up being but this and cake probably will round out the budget

1000 - photographer (us)

1300 - DJ (us)

my shoes and accessories (me)

3000 - honeymoon (us)

Favors & decor - me! lol

I wish we didn't blow so much of the budget on food, but this was actually the cheapest caterer I could find that included table/chair rentals for the ceremony and reception, cocktail hour, seated dinner, etc.

eilis1228 · April 2015

Our budget is $25k for everything, including rings and honeymoon. Our current estimate for final costs is about $26k... hoping that it doesn't creep any higher. Our max for the wedding is 125 people, and we're hoping for 100 or less. I'd say about half our budget is towards the venue (which includes the food, the bartender, the linens, and the DJ in the cost) and the photographer.

[Deleted User] · May 2015

We're trying to keep it under 15,000, as we're paying for it ourselves.

1000--photographer (includes engagement shoot and access to edited files)

8000--food

1500--alcohol

800--my dress

350--cupcakes (in lieu of cake)

1000--DJ

800--rings

Which leave 1550 for paper (most of which we're doing ourselves), flowers (which a friend offered to do as a gift--we will pay her for her kindness anyway), favors (which we will most likely double as placecards), and other various decor/expenses that come up.

The venue is free, as we're using their on-site caterer and they waived our ceremony fee due to a date mix-up. So far, we're looking pretty good!

MorgPie · May 2015

Our budget is capped at $20000. FI and I are paying for this ourselves. We do have a bit of help is certain areas:

My mom is gifting me with my dress and providing our guests with our favors.

FI's parents have offered to pay for the rehearsal dinner (as is apparently tradition) and our band (which we were planning on paying for but were so grateful when they offered.)

We initially began this process with the hope of being more in the $12000 range but getting married in the San Francisco Bay Area is almost like torture! We have so many amazing options here of venues, delicious food, creative sources for vendors, etc. But it is SO EXPENSIVE. Ultimately we were able to save much more than we anticipated so we raise dour budget to accommodate the quality that we both were looking for on our wedding day. Our venue & food alone is our original budget, and we are evening getting married on a Sunday!

We have been able to cut corners with the help of some wonderful friends.

Our band is a 5 piece jazz band -- a steal at $1200!!

Our photographer is the father of one of my closest friends. He is only charging us $650.00 for the entire day and all the rights to our photos.

Incidentally, my same friend who's father is our photographer is a pastry chef and is doing our dessert buffet. I am putting her to WORK with mini cupcakes, a small cutting cake for me and FI, french macarons, sugar cookies, and petite fours. She is amazing! We have already done one tasting and everything was delicious-- just as I expected. We are paying for the cost of materials and ingredients plus $150 for her (and we will be doing a little something special for her too on top of that) but it is an amazing deal.

My good friend is a stage manager and she is so on top of things I had to ask her how much she would charge to be my day of wedding coordinator-- and she isn't charging me at all! (Because she is crazy.) So I get to feel the very carefree emotion of no stress just knowing that my friend will make sure everything is in line on my day FO FREE.

I am making our invitations and all our paper goods for the wedding which is also saving a poop ton.

But we are totally sticking to our budget which is amazing!

MrsMelodyShah · May 2015

I posted this way back in July and things have changed! We are overbudget now and will probably end up around $20,000 total, maybe a little over. We splurged, what can I say. Our guest list increased from 40 people to 70 people, so that increased costs for things like catering and rentals. I'm still so excited to get married! Only 4 months to go, ladies!

Thenewmrsfrance · June 2015

About 200 ppl, 12,000 Max

So far,

Venue 2000

DJ, Photo & video 3500

Dresses & accessories 1000

catering 3500

Alcohol 1000

Misc. 500

Fiancé and I are paying for it ourselves.

Tiffany101015 · June 2015

I've had to edit mine a little. My linens are costing me more then expected but thankfully my bridesmaid offered to take care of the cake...her uncle does them professioally!

$600-rental fee venue/ceremony space
$600-DJ, Photo-booth
$550-Photographer
$2200-Food
$1500-Alcohol,Pop,Water,etc
$120-Bartenders
$316-Dress I found at davids bridal- sample!
$100-Add bustle to dress
$50-Bustier/Slip bought off swap
$450-Linens
$14-Invites I got CHEAP because I coupon shop
$100-Postage
$150-Flowers for bouquets,corsages,etc
$130-Groom Tux
$20-Program Materials
$200-Groom wedding band
$150-Hotel room wedding night

So I have $750 left to buy more decor,gifts for maids, etc.

bittyautumnbride · August 2015

Our budget was originally $5,000, but we've gotten it down to $2,000 - $3,000 after everything.

kasasr1024 · August 2015

Goal was 10K, it's looking close to 12-13K before honeymoon

I've been really bad at entering everything in to the knot or wedding wire budget so I only have a rough estimate of what we've spent.

ryanandjoe4 · August 2015

I figured ours out, we wanted to only spend 10K but we were willing to go to 13K.. I think in total we went to 10,800.. so not too bad, since we didnt keep up with the budget either..

What is your budget?

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