Guest Count/Budget?

firemedicrr · October 2011

I was just thinking about this and was curious:

how many guests did you invite/are you planning to invite to your wedding, and what was your budget (if you're willing to share that on here)? Did you do a plated dinner or something else?

Just thought this would be interesting to see how everyone did this/is going to do this since FI and I are currently looking at our options here

Thanks ladies, hope you're having a wonderful hump day!

Rethany · October 2011

We have 300 on the guest list. 15,000 dollars is how much we are contributing. FI's stepmom and dad are helping out here and there and my parents are helping out a little as well. Nothing major from either though. We are having a buffet style dinner catered by the fire hall that our reception is at.

ggirl2001 · October 2011

We were lucky because my parents helped us out. We invited around 80 but it was a destination for everyone so we had about 44. My venue had a minimum that we had to meet of $6500 or else we were charged $2000 room fee. Due to that my parents upgraded from buffet to sit down just in case we didn't meet it. We also added extra apps too. We ended up being over the minimum which was good. Our guest list was easy since both our families are so small so we found the venue before I even created a guest list, we also definitely knew we wouldn't have 100% attendance. Oh and by getting married on a Sunday we saved $2000 on the venue.

calindi · October 2011

We're having 150 people, and our venue costs $4000 for the full day rental (tables & chairs included, but we're renting separate chairs since I don't like the ones they have) and our catering budget worked out to be around $110/person (including linens, serving staff, flatware, serving ware, glassware, etc.) and we're budgeting another $15/person for booze since we're supplying it ourselves. Approximately $5/person for favors.

The total budget includes things that aren't decided by the number of guests, like my dress & shoes, makeup/hair, decorations, flowers (okay, table arrangements matter since if you have more guests, you need more arrangements, but these can be literally any price), groom's attire, bridesmaids & groomsmen, ceremony costs, officiant costs, etc.

I have a spreadsheet that I used to figure out and keep track of the total budget (estimated and actual) and it automatically updates the total per head and the amount additional per head it would be to add more people (you don't have to re-rent the venue, for example, but you would need to pay more to the caterer, get more favors, etc.). If anyone would like a copy of this spreadsheet, I'm happy to share it. It's been a HUGE help!

crownsuperstar · October 2011

Our total cost of the entire wedding cost $14,500. That included food, dress, flowers, venue, DJ, photographer. We had a guest list of 200 but only 120 showed (training, duty, and deployment) prevented some of the guest from showing.

We did a cocktail hour and then a buffet meal which was really nice. I didn't want to mess with plated meals since I didn't want to have to keep track of who wanted chicken, fish or steak. We were lucky and that our venue included the wine, beer and liquor in the cost per person but if some one was under 21 we paid an adjusted price for them.

I didn't go crazy with the flowers since we got married outside in a really nice area that backed up to the dunes and beach. The reception was held on the 16th floor of the hotel and it over looked the ocean and they provided candles for the tables. We just added some seashells. I didn't want to take away from the view since the three of the sides of the room were floor to sealing windows.

firemedicrr · October 2011

I would -love- a copy of it... email? I'll send you a PM

ggirl2001 · October 2011

Crown I can't quote without my phone being lame but did we have the same wedding haha? Mine was at the penthouse level, floor to ceiling windows, all tables had a view of the gulf of Mexico. I did not do flower centerpieces instead I used the fishbowl with sand the venue provided and bought pillar candles and sea glass to spice it up.

BinxRose · October 2011

We are inviting about 300 people (my parents are divorced and re-married, and generally large family. FI also has large family). So based on that number, our wedding will cost about $15,000. We are trying our best to keep it low, but it's difficult with such a larger guest list. Here is what we are doing/did: *Bought my $600 dress from a sales rack for $100 (the style is discontinued) *Rather than renting linens, buying them wholesale from linentablecloths.com *Buffet style dinner from our favorite mom-and-pop diner. Before tax and 15% grat, it's $10.50/plate *DIY-ing my invitations (saving us probably $100) *DYI-ing my bouquets and corsages (saving us probably $300) *Our venue is a pavilion, renting it for $950. It does not include anything, so we can pick whoever/whatever we want for food and alcohol. *Speaking of alcohol, we are hiring our own bartenders and buying our own alcohol to serve. Saving us at least $2,000 because obviously venues upcharge. *Rather than a big cake, we are having a homemade dessert table (cheesecakes, pies, cakeballs, cookies). My stepmom is a great cook/baker so she is making most of it. Probably saving us about $300 ETA: Also, our centerpieces will double as our favors, since they will be candy in our colors

amh04 · October 2011

My budget is $7,000 and we are having mabye 75 guests max. We are very lucky that my parents are paying for the wedding, mostly. There are somethings that we've had to pay for or will be paying for. (Normal things the Groom is supposed to pay for - we're paying for and other things, like favors, hair, makeup, shoes, gifts) We originally thought we could get more 'bang' for our buck by doing finger foods/carving stations but it ended up being too much. So we are doing 2 passed hor'dourves (sp) and a plated dinner instead (everyone will have chicken I don't know if we will have an option to offer). I got an amazing deal on my flowers (I love flowers!). We are doing a church wedding, and then the reception venue was $500 to rent for the time (there is an earlier wedding - so she discounted it for us by half!) and then the food/beverage minimum is $2,500. We have to pay a corkage fee (roughly $500 for 75 people) and we supply our own alchohol which is great because we've been buying it when it goes on sale at the NEX.
Overall - we really want to keep it low-key, fun, and country classic.

firsttimersluck · October 2011

Our budget was about 10k for 70 people. We went schnazzy on the rentals, because I wanted those darn chivalri chairs! :P and square plates... I like square plates.. Idk why..

aaaanyway, We did a "family style" dinner which apparently is the new hot up-and-coming trend for big events and weddings. It was great because our catorer had been dying to try it out so since we were her "firsts" she didn't charge us the extra cost required for it.

Rethany · October 2011

I guess I should have elaborated. It is about 13.00/person for food at the reception, tables, chairs, and basic tablecloths included. We are buying our own alcohol so that will also save us some serious cash.

I am DIY invites and programs which saves a ton. Got a cake for 200 dollars for 300 people (amazing.) We aren't going crazy on flowers because our outdoor ceremony will be enough of a view so more flowers are not necessary and we are just getting carnations for the centerpieces so that totals to about 350 dollars for flowers (also amazing.) Our ceremony site is only charging us 150 dollars for the day.

I'll be honest, I've saved a lot in some areas, but I've spent more than I wanted to in other areas. I'm glad that we have a pretty set budget though to go off of. It keeps me in line sometimes

crownsuperstar · October 2011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_military-brides_guest-countbudget?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special Topic Wedding BoardsForum:13Discussion:ba6e3d4b-3325-43d2-a162-58af40616d3bPost:2f40acd4-bb37-4950-8d4b-2ade586f6733">Re: Guest Count/Budget?</a>:
[QUOTE]Crown I can't quote without my phone being lame but did we have the same wedding haha? Mine was at the penthouse level, floor to ceiling windows, all tables had a view of the gulf of Mexico. I did not do flower centerpieces instead I used the fishbowl with sand the venue provided and bought pillar candles and sea glass to spice it up.
Posted by ggirl2001[/QUOTE]

HA!!! It sounds like the only difference is the ocean. We looked over the Atlantic Ocean however from that high up it didn't look dirty. HAAA

Yeah I just didn't see the point in flowers with the view. As a matter of fact the reason we chose Barry (our florist) is because he told us why add tons of flowers when the view was so wonderful. When I told H what he said about not spending extra money on flowers H asked if I hired that man on the spot. H makes me laugh a lot and during the planning I was always rolling!

Irishcurls · October 2011

If you're concerned about budget (who isn't), we found that the real kicker was headcount--H actually just rectified all our accounts vs. his spreadsheet and we found out we actually spent a few thousand less than our budget, but that was only because we account for 100% attendance and worked backwards from there--so we "saved" money in the last few weeks when a few more 'nos' came rolling in. Obviously it sort of starts hemorrhaging some all orifices at some point because weddings are spendy, but the biggest chunk of money is usually catering. I would say a pp price was our first criteria in choosing a venue.

firsttimersluck · October 2011

Our budget was about 10k for 70 people. We went schnazzy on the rentals, because I wanted those darn chivalri chairs! :P and square plates... I like square plates.. Idk why..

aaaanyway, We did a "family style" dinner which apparently is the new hot up-and-coming trend for big events and weddings. It was great because our caterer had been dying to try it out so since we were her "firsts" she didn't charge us the extra cost required for it.

CAB1217 · October 2011

We invited about 133 guests, and so far have 87 rsvp'd. If the remaining people rsvp, we will have a total of 101 guest. Our venue package is for 100 people, and anything over would be an additional $48 dollars per person. We are in good shape right now!

As far as our budget, we started with a $8000 budget, but that has since increased to about $9000. It better not get higher then that, cause we broke.

Venue includes a bbq dinner of beef ribs and bbq chicken, with sides and stuff. (We're doing a rustic chic wedding in a barn, which is why we're doing a BBQ!)
It also includes beer and wine, a band, the chivalri chairs, the ceremony, clean up, umm pretty much the works.

Beachy730 · October 2011

Our original guest list was over 300, but we made some cuts and invited 270. We ended up with 195 at the wedding.

I honestly lost track of how much we spent. My parents paid a large chunk and H and I paid the rest. Our venue had a $10k minimum for our ballroom, but that included food and alcohol and everything. I would say rough estimate we probably spent about $25k total.

emilye1227 · October 2011

We are inviting 250. We pretty much already know who will and won't attend (we sent out save the dates as well) and I think we'll be around 215. Currently, it looks like we'll come in just under $20,000. We are having a full sit down dinner. We did save some money with our wedding being on a Friday!

kara811 · October 2011

Unlike others on here, we kinda went backwards with the way we did things. H and I wanted to spend a lot less on the wedding at first, I looked then cheaper venues, BUT then I found the one place I absolutely fell in love with and we just had to go for it even if it was out of our price range at first. We never did set a strict budget, so H and I talked about it and he said to me, " do whatever makes you happy, you're worth more than anything in the world!" which is a dangerous thing to say to a woman! lol

We never did figure out how much money we spent in the end, but when I tried tallying it all up we came at just over $20K and 100 people attended our wedding. We saved $5K by having it during the day on a Saturday, it came up at about $120/pp(including linens, etc). We had apps, full lunch, chocolate fountain and cake, it was also an open bar(our families and friends are big drinkers, and we wanted to make them happy since so many came a long way for us). Other big things we paid for were flowers and pictures.

H and I paid for the wedding, with H covering a much bigger chunk than me. My parents paid for my dress and threw us an after party that night and H's parents paid for our rehearsal lunch and they also gave us a nice check the day of. Thinking back to it, it was a lot of money for just one day and we would never want to spend that much again, but it was all worth it to us. We had the best time and all our guests gave such great compliments.

Anyway OP, you and your FI should really just sit down and talk about what you are comfortable spending. Even if ours kind of got blown out of proportion, we knew we are in great shape finaces-wise,so it never bothered us that much. It's just a matter of what your priorities are! HTH and Happy Planning!

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