Wedding Budget

scary stuff! What is your budget?

For a 200 guest wedding my budget was 13 to 14.5K. As of today I am right at about $10 with 2 months to go till the wedding. I would have hit my original budget, but family has just started helping.

Shop around for the best prices, don't settle for the first price you get. I have saved us hundereds from doing this.

Happy Planning!

Thanks soon2beshep wow you r doing well. Ours is only for 70 people so we r going really bad compared to you. Some of our costs have come from more expensive wedding rings I want but my engagement ring ring was my fmil so we saved there. We are also paying for all bridal party clothes and accommodation as it's a destination wedding. I will try to shop around a little more, thanks for the advice

When we first sat down and talked about the wedding, we wanted to stay around $10k.  But we really had no clue what things cost and when you say the word wedding the price sky rockets.  So we are now  somewhere between 20-25K for 150 guests...kinda blew our original idea out of the water.  Like you said, we can afford it, just did we really want to spend that much on a wedding..

i think whatever ur spending depends on what ur getting for that price, so we all may have similar budget ranges but some people might be getting more or less for what they are paying, and where its at makes a big difference as well, so its kinda hard to compares urs to others budgets because it really does depend on whats included and if u have preferred vendors or not....im not too sure yet what mines is, were trying to stay under $16,000.. our venue is costing us $10,000 for 190 ppl and pratically includes everything, except DJ, cake, flowers/centerpieces and any extras you want.... so im guessing itll be about $16k or a lil less (hopefully lol)....if u think urs is too much, ur just gonna have to trim places no matter how hard it is :/ i trimmed so much to keep it under $16k but at the end of the day I realize my wedding doesnt make my marriage and im ok with it, but in the same sense you only get married once, so may it worth it, if its $15k but everything u dream, then just do it, you will make more money eventually but ur wedding is only one time, dont look back and regret not having ur dream wedding. I would suggest looking around more, u can get cheap flowers at wholesale shops rather than regular floral shop. I seen my red roses at costco, 100 for $75, but at this wholesale flower shop they were 25 for $12,  which comes out t $46 for 100 roses, thats about $20 i saved, if i get two hundred thats $40 saved :) you see its nice to shop around more...goodluck girl.

Soonmrspeak yes I know what you mean our original budget was around 10,000 but everything costs so much. We want to buy a house so everything we don't spend on the wedding we will spend on this so the less we spend the better

so i totally wrote down the wrong flower pricing lol its 100 rose for $48 lol so id be saving $27 lol....calculating in ur head is a bad idea in wedding planning lol ;)

Thanks ladies nursekc909 you are totally right. We have gone the cheaper options with something's and not with others. Everything just adds up. I am not getting any special cars etc and have asked a family member to make the cake so we are saving money in a lot of areas. I think maybe it just costs that much around here.

We decided to get married around where we grew up which is a country town as my fh thought this wld be cheaper. I had my doubts and as it works out most things don't seem to be cheaper as there is no competition and cant really get flowers from flower market as they will be dead.

You r right we just have to make a decision how important each element is and if we Want to spend money on it. I just spoke to my fmil about it and as she said we and our families have had a horrible year and this is a great reason to celebrate!

Our original budget was $10k but after researching costs and making purchases we increased it to $18k, but no more than $20. We're going to have approx. 128 guest w/ open bar.

I think some of your extra expense might come from paying for your bridal party's attire. In my experience the BM dresses are on average $150 as our the tuxes. If you have at least 6 people in the party, 3GM's and 3BM's then that's almost $1,000 right there.

We started with a budget of $20,000. How quickly that inflated!! I was pretty sure I had everything under control until all the little(but BIG) expenses started popping up. Like the stamps to mail the invites, or gifts for the bridal party. We are also paying for everything ourselves and hosting a rehearsal dinner which is costing us around $1k just with the tent rental and my mom is making the food. Every time I send out a vendor payment I cringe a little. Now that I'm in the middle of planning I ask myself if it's worth it.. I mean really. It is a very important day yes, but one day. Then I think.. it's the only time you'll ever get married. and we should go all out and make it everything we dreamed of, or FH tells me he wants to add someone to the guest list. It just gets out of hand quickly. We will end up spending probably around (gulp) $40,000 total when all is said and done.. ugh. Makes me kinda wish we just went to an island and got married!!!

we was only doing 150 but it is over that because my mom wants to invite everyone so she is going to pay the different but we start 2 yrs ago so it do seem like we spend alot of money because if was not all at one time so now we will be finish paying everything by June 4th

We have budgeted a $25,000 wedding, INCLUDING what my parents have given us. We are having a wedding of 300 in total (200 at the dinner and 100 for dance only). We are under budget and I am happy. At this point, we only havet o come up with 8,000 for our final payments, and my parents have given us 10,000 for the dinner, hall and toonie bar.
We are having a Stag and Doe which should cover at least $4000 or more.
I'm feeling as good as you are girl!

I would say it's pretty average, and with your guest list is quite on target. Our initial budget was $20,000, and we'll def be over it for $3,000-4,000.
I've added all up a couple of months ago, and if was at $21,000. We are a paying a lot per plate because it includes open bar for 5 hrs, we had to have it, but then again our guest list is small, just like yours, around 80 people. We are paying $108 p/p. Other stuff is pretty average I would say, as well. Last month when we met our florist I (finally!!!) found out that my FH has to have excellent flowers, so this alone added like $1,500 to what I initially budgeted for this item ($800), I am fine with that. We are paying for the wedding ourselves, with a bit of help from our parents which will cover the difference, so if I don't count the help then we're almost right on budget :)

Oops...I meant 11K not $10.

FH and I didn't allow our parents much say so in the wedding as far as guest are concerened. If we did that the wedding would have been closer to 400. When my younger bro got married 3 years ago they let her parents and my parents have way to much involvement and the wedding ended up being over 500 guest. On top of that...the firemarshall almost shut down the wedding.

Along with some of you ladies I am using a hall for the wedding. It included everythig, but flowers. They even threw in the DJ. Our biggest expenses were the hall (8,200) , the photographer (1,900), and our rings (850). Everything else I was able to handle. Between Micahels, Joann Fabrics,  Etsy, AC Moore Crafts, and the Dollar Tree I saved a bundle!

Wishing all you ladies a Happy Planning as usual!

I'm a serious budget bride. When I first sat down with FH we planned estimates of what we thought things may cost. At the end, we came out to almost 12,000. He almost had a cow and a pig. But when I started making purchases, I was actually saving. For my venue, I budget 3,000 but I'm only paying 800.00. For photography I budget 900... but I'm only spending 400.00. I found between my networking and bargain shopping, it will save me a lot of money! I even have two dresses but my actual wedding dress was only 99.00.

Our budget for about 200 people is $9000 that includes EVERYTHING. We are having an open bar also. I'm just trying to find the best deals I can and doing a lot of projects myself. I'm doing a lot of research before I decide what I'm going to do. It doesn't seem to be to hard of a problem to stay on budget. Everything is right on what I had initially planned before I started booking.

yup i feel you girl :) we chose our place thinking it was the cheaper choice but I ended up finding out it wasnt :( but like u said everything adds up :/ i went the cheapest i could in other places but it still seems so expensive, ha ha.... i too had to cut fancy transportation and stuff...well girl goodluck I hope u find a way to cut ur budget so its a little cheaper, it is pretty hurtful to look at what it cost lol like u say u can afford it but it still is hurtful to spend it ha ha :) well like i said its one day u can never do over, u always have time to save for a house. Save where you can but get whats gonna make ur day special, and pray in the end its not too expensive :D

Thanks Ladies,

We all seem to feel the same way! I think you also get caught up in the hype of a wedding and forget about what it really is. I think I will just be really careful on all the extra seemly little things I buy. So hard you want a perfect day but dont want the huge pricetag that goes with it.

I know what you mean about things adding up and up and up! I had a bit of an unrealistic idea that I could do it for about $6,000. We didn’t really have a budget, just tried the best we could to find a cheap but classy option every time. For example, we wanted a church that was beautiful on the outside and the inside. We went to several in the city, all cost between $400 - $750 to hire with the officiant included. We weren’t entirely happy with that. Then a week or two later I was talking to a friend who asked if we’d looked at a particular church in a very close suburb to the city. It was only $150 with pastor and SO beautiful!! So it was worth looking further and asking around.

I just added up what we spent then, and all I could think of came up to $9272.25. It might have been a bit more than that, but definitely not $10,000.

My Dress - $500
My Shoes - $40
Bridesmaids dress(x2) - $80 (I made them)
Bridesmaid shoes  (x2) - $20 (I decorated cheap ones.
Pastor/officiant & church - $150
Afternoon tea afterwards - $150 (a lady in the church did drinks, and we made old fashioned cookies!)
Centrepieces for 8 tables - $72
Food - $2669
Reception Venue hire - $250
Photographer – $2400 (this was our splurge)
Videographer - $1000
Icecream buffet - $151.25
Personalized rock candy - $420
Alcohol - $800
Bridal party gifts - $65
Cootie catcher menus - $25
Fan programs - $0
Makeup for all - $160
Hair for all - $280

We did a lot of other things ourselves. Decorations, pom balls, favour bags etc were all made out of old book paper etc. Oh and we didn’t have flowers at reception, and my flowers were made out of dresspattern paper. :) Everyone loved them! See my blog for piccies if you like.

We definitely still had the wedding of our dreams. :)

(oops, sorry it's so long :-S)

Thanks Hannah,

So things I have already paid for or booked in.

Dress $1,000 with veil. (might cost a bit for alterations)
ceremony venue $310 (including chairs and red carpet etc)
Reception $450
Celebrant $450
Photographer $1050 (might end up costing more depending on package I choose)
hair $130
make up $70
Accommodation for bridal party $1140 (big expensive that I wasnt planning on paying but FH wants to mind u he hasnt added up how much it all costs)
Bridesmaids dress $674 (this is 4 ladies. This have not been bought yet but looks like this will be the cost, also not something I had planned for)
grooms suit ????
groomens suits ????
Food  $2760 (not confirmed but around this much)
Drinks ?? (not sure if will just pay for close family and bridal party or everyone. Hanni how did you get away with $800. Im scared my extented family are big drinkers)
invites  / save the dates $150
Placecards and programs $150 (was going to order from the same place so the same as my invites but cld do cheaper myself)
Theming $500-$1000 depending what I choose this is an expense I could cut out I just wanted to change all the linin to black and the lady was charging $20 a centrepiece. The roof draping costs $250 which is something my FMIL wants and it would look great but is an expensive. She has given us about $3,000 so far but so she sld get some say she is not inviting any guests etc.
Flowers - $500 (not booked or anything yet)
cake- max's sister is making

Off the top of my head thats the main things there will be other little costs like my shoes etc and I was estimating with some of the costs I dont know to come up with $15,000

Hanni your wedding looked beautiful and I just wish I was as creative as you. I have the other problem of it being a destination wedding and I can't take a lot of stuff with me ie centrepieces etc. But I could work something out. I will wait till I get the new quote from the theming company and decide what to do. Could change room back to white and will be a little cheaper.

Sorry I forgot the rings mine are $1200 (but maybe with the Aussie dollar they wld be cheaper now) and not sure what maxs will be yet.

All your prices sound pretty reasonable. Your dress wasn't an outrageous price, and your photographer is not bad either. I'd say that bridal party accomodation is definitely a big thorn.. but it's fair to make them pay since they have to travel far. I think that it wouldn't be unfair to ask them to pay for their clothes though, since you're paying accomodation!! It's very much the norm to have them pay for their own attire.

Oh rings, I forgot them too. Mine is only fairly simple... $185 and his was Tungsten which is so cheap and there are so many classy designs! We paid about $60?

With alcohol, we gave everyone a card (well, it was part of our cootie catcher menu, which was also our place cards, so that saved $$$) with 4 free drinks to get stamped at the bar! We were originially only going to give them 2 free drinks, but the lady who did our cootie catcher put 4 by accident. It didn't add up to too much coz we only had 60 ppl at our wedding.

Our parents gave us $3000 too. And Jason's mum made the cake, I forgot about that.

You're not doing too bad. I understand it is a little harder being so far away and without being able to bring decorations yourself. You're definitely more on the cheap size of weddings these days! As you can see, people can spend double what you are doing.

Only thing you could do to drop the bill a little would be to find a flower alternative (lots of cool things out there! Try looking at bouquets on Etsy!! cheap!) and maybe don't hire tuxes for the guys but do what we did, and by some nice pants, vest and shirt from Roger David that they can wear again and again. Cheaper too!

Hope that helps. But don't feel too bad. :) x

125 people. winter wedding. $15K which includes the honeymoon :)

I know this post is a little older...but holy crap...i thought I was doing well for spending just under 10, 000 for a 35 person wedding! It seems expensive now for the simple wedding i'm planning....

My wedding is not until October,1 2011 but so far I think we are going to be either right on budget of $10,000 or just a little tiny bit over.

Officiant - 195
Ceremony/Reception Site - 500
Photographer- 1500.00
DJ 678.00
Invitations - 333.35
Stationary - 50.00 ( this will probably increase as I forgot a few things)
Dress-449.99
FG Dress-109
Jr.BM Dress-119.00
Flowers/Decorations - 1298.00

This already brings me to 5232.34 and there are still so many things to be done that I have no idea how much will cost..

I am buying all 8 bridesmaids shoes, fg's shoes and ring bearer's shoes. Plus the outfit for my ringbearer, my own shoes, hair makeup and nails, have to purchase FWS clothing and shoes, bridal party gifts, plus we are having donation favors, so thats like another 200 - 300 there, renting a hotel room to get ready in, and my guest list is about 90 at $76 per person ( including food and open bar ) so thats atleast another 6k. honestly the list goes on and on and on and i swear come the day i still wont have everything figured out.

to answer your question in short, i think you re doing fine so far. deffinetly shop around as others have suggested. One thing that I had to learn was not to just purchase everything that I saw and loved.... I usally ended up finding something that I loved even MORE than the first thing, and it cost me less.

I dont think theres anything wrong with going over 2-3k, but with a 10k budget, and spending 25k id deffinetly want to be reevauluating everything.

Our budget is about 5,000 for 50-75 guests. I used the budget helper on The Knot and so far we will actually be coming in under budget. It's going to be all dyi except the clothes for everyone. One of our really good family friends is a photographer so we are only paying 250 there and her son happens to be a dj so it's only going to be around 100 for him. We are using another family friends land for the wedding and going to rent a tent for the reception, so that cuts down on cost of the venue considerably.

You are all doing so well at keeping to your budget. missmorgantobe under $5,000 is amazing.

Brittyx yes I agree 2 or 3 k is ok. Which is about all I think we will ba maybe 5 at the most as we are just deciding to pay for a few extras but we never included the honeymoon in our wedding budget

Hi,
$15,000 is a budget wedding and I think your doing really well sticking close to that...we are looking at $20,000 to $25,000 and have family doing lots of things for us...it is costly but if you can afford it just do what you want and it will be ok.

My budget is $5000.00  I need to stick as close to that as possible.