glitznglam0587's Chocolate wedding

welll i really do think that $12,000 is possiable we are doing it on $8,000 and everything is turning out very nice. to some people 12,000 is not a lot and to some 12,000 is a heck of a lot. we are paying for half of the wedding and my parents are paying the other half his parents thought it was an outragous price sooo GOOD LUCK

I know what oyu mean. My mo said she would give us $10,000 for the wedding, so we decided we would try to save $5,000, which is hard at the moment because we have a 7 month old son, I am stay at home, trying to work from home, and FH just started going back to school and working part-time. I have been stressing because everything in San Francisco Bay Area is SOOOO expensive. We just got the good news that his Aunt and Uncle are going to pitch in, so now we are in better shape. My mom and I are trying to figure out ways to cut costs, but don't want to cut it with florals and photography. I am still in shock as well at how much weddings cost! It sucks! Good luck, I will let you know what ideas we come up with!

Well our wedding budget was $10 000 and now it's looking like it will be a total of around $12 000. It's really stressful since my fiance and I are paying for the wedding ourselves and we have a 10 month old. I just had to decide what things were the most important. The majority of our money is going to the dinner (we have about 80-90 guests) and the reception site was free when they do the catering. The other two big bills are photography and flowers. Everything else, I've tried to do as cheap as possible. I bought all my decorations on ebay. I'm doing my centerpieces myself. I've found people to pick things up for me since the delivery prices were so expensive, etc.
Is there anything in particular that you would like to save money on that i could help you with?

I totally understand how all of you feel!! Like jenberg we started out with a $10K budget but I feel like it's going to cost us more like $12K.  We are also taking care of majority of the costs, but lucky we have been getting great deals on the things that matter most!  Our reception location costs us $2500 and seats 250 and we're using every seat!  The only way we're able to pull this off is due to taking on a lot of projects ourselves and the money we saved on catering! Our catering will only cost us $1875 total. For us photography was the most important thing, but we still need to find a reasonably priced one.  As for flowers because they are soooo expensive we are A. chosing centerpieces and decorations that don't require a large amount of flowers and incoporating a lot of candles to set the mood; and B. buying all the flowers from a Wholesale warehouse and having either myself or the coordinator arrange all the centerpieces, decorations and bouquets.  Utilizing your friends and family members talents is a big plus!  

Whatever you do......DON"T get discouraged!!! Just try to stay as patient as possible and do lots of research! It's very possible to plan a Filet Mignon wedding on a hamburger budget!

Good Luck to all of you!!

I bought everything at michael's and it probably cost no more than $20. The box was about 10-11 each letter was .99 cents the paint white and green were only .39cents a tube and the ribbon was $3.99.....so right around a resonable amount. I had the flower at home already (they are being used for centerpieces). I highly reccomend walking around michael's, JoAnn's, or a craft store of your choice (maybe even Wal Mart) and just see if something inspires you (thats how my idea came out). Look at other people's pages too, some of these girls have the best ideas!

You are probably going to be able to have as nice of a wedding as you'd like as long as you stick firm to your budget. I did not set one and ended up returning things for lower cost items. I love your ideas so far so just spend as much time calling and surfing the net to find what you want for the best price.

We are desperately trying to keep the costs low too. I believe it is possible. We are paying for the Wedding ourselves however his parents are taking care of the Rehearsal dinner and my mom is taking care of the gift opening the day after the wedding along with the bridal shower with my sisters.

It is possible but you have to be creative. Spend where you need to spend and save where you can save. Check out my site for the photography idea, it'll save tons. Some other ideas are we made our own invitations, seating chart and cards. I also made my guestbook and painted my own cake topper. By sticking with a simple cake with not a lot of detail can save money too because some places charge more for the extra work. These are just a few but I have tons of ideas as I've planned most of this already. Drop me a line if you have any more questions. Good luck. :-)

I know isnt everything so exspensvie nowadays? i think my fiance lives under a rock. he has no idea how much things cost. He wanted a backyard bbq with hotdogs and a few kegs. i had to explain to him that it would be so dissapointing to me not having a dress, and all the works. so he says our budget is $8000.  i know this doesnt sound like a great way to start a marriage but i'm going to try and buy things here and there behind his back, not telling him how much they cost. lol . we got our reception hall for $34 a person, that includes everything, open bar, food, the hall itself. so for 150 people plus taxes and everything that totals up to around $6500. so i have to either skimp on everything else or just start buying things little by little and keep them a secret. because of those davids briadal commercials he thinks i can buy my dress for $99. lol. i made sure i made the date far enough in advance to start saving. it's october 2009. Good luck with everything!!