$5,000 Budget, Need Help!

Hiring a wedding planner is going to eat up more of your budget than you can afford to lose. $5k is definitely doable for a small intimate wedding. I would consider alternative venues like state parks or VFW halls, they can be very inexpensive and that would leave a higher portion of your budget for food and drink. You could also consider a courthouse ceremony and a nice restaurant dinner for all of your guests. Keep in mind that Mexican, Italian, and BBQ tend to be the most affordable catering options. Opt out of optional items like favors and unnecessary decor.

Hello! With a $5,000 budget I believe that's possible to have a wedding. This website has a lot of options when it comes to talking with vendors and they give you quotes on what to expect when planning a wedding. My fiance and I are doing a hotel wedding because it fits within our budget and everything is provided for you including the wedding planner and it feels like all of the stress that you had gets taken off your shoulders. Our wedding is going to be hopefully less than $15k but why the price is so high is because of our guest count (what I learned in my area is if your guest count is lower, the less expensive things tend to be). If your venue doesn't come with a wedding planner I know in my area (MN), wedding planners are expensive! Or maybe a community hall for your wedding, or you could do a DIY wedding too! For food, maybe a local restaurant that caters at a cheap price! The style of your wedding I think should resemble who you and your fiance are as a couple, also you can search for a lot of themes on Pinterest as well (Pinterest is my go-to for ideas). The possibilities are endless when it comes to planning a wedding!

Personally I would say not to hire a wedding planner. That would take up a majority of your budget if you did that. My FH and I are paying for our wedding 100% on our own as well. The best way to find the best deals is to ask around and do a ton of research! I cannot even begin to tell you how much FH and I saved by asking our friends if they knew someone who could be vendors. Our DJ is a friend of one of my FH's best friend's and he gave us a $1000 discount on his services for our ceremony and reception from what he normally charges. Our bartender is a friend of my FSIL's. She offered to bartend for free and just asked if she could put out a tip jar (which of course we told her was fine; and of course we are going to tip her $150 at the end of the night from my FH and I). Our photographer is my sister's best friend and charged us next to nothing for her services, and our baker is a coworker of mine's wife (who owns her own baking company) and is making our cake free for us. My coworkers entered my FH and I into a contest she holds each month where she makes a wedding cake free for a couple and my FH and I won. The only vendors we have to pay full price for are our venue itself and our caterer.

As far a decor goes, I DIYed a much as possible for our wedding. I did purchase our wedding invitations but I made our Save the Dates & our RSVP cards myself and saved a ton of money doing so. We also decided on decorating our venue ourselves b/c if our venue did it, it was going to cost us an extra $1500. I ordered our tablecloths from table cloth factory online and our centerpieces I made myself with items I bought from Etsy, A.C. Moore and the Dollar Store. We're getting our plates, napkins and utensils from Amazon for our buffet at the reception. One of my FSIL's and I handmade all of the bouquets for the wedding; we used fake flowers that look crazy real to lower costs & b/c my FH has terrible allergies and real flowers bother him. Our favors are also going to be handmade. We are doing a dessert bar at our wedding that will also have to-go boxes so guests can take items home with them, which will act as our wedding favors. My two FSIL's, my sister, my FMIL and my grandmother will be making the items for the dessert bar the 2 days leading up to the wedding.

I do think it is possible to do a wedding for under $5k. Although it may be difficult, it can be done. You just have to do a lot of research, as around and be open to DIY-ing things. Now, I will say that my FH and I's wedding is not under $5k b/c we splurged on our venue and food, but I've helped my friends plan their weddings for $5k or less. You've got this!

Wedding planners would eat up your entire budget so stay away from those. Talk to married friends, family and even check out the planning options on here. They are all I used and they were super helpful and free! Keep your guest list small. 50 guests or under. Check your local and surrounding cities websites for community buildings/houses they rent for events. Most are super cheap to rent for residents and usually include tables and chairs. You can DIY your own bouquet and decor using items from Dollar Tree and checking out Hobby Lobby and Michaels sales. David's Bridal always has sales on dresses, I got mine for $99! Check out local restaurants for catering, consider buffet style vs plated. Use a play list instead of getting a DJ. Local photography schools for a photographer or maybe you know someone that's great with pictures although if you want to splurge on something, this is definitely the place I would choose to do it because memories last forever! Good luck! It can easily be done.

Our budget was 5k as well but we are widow/widower who found love again, tho this is slightly different, but here is how we made our 5k budget work and we had a guest list of 120. We wanted only what was important...to say I do in front of family and friends. It is doable. We had only a moh and bestman and they were husband/wife so we gave them a joint gift certificate at a fancy brunch restaurant. We married at our church...major savings and had a sit-down plated meal. We hired a caterer who bought in servers who served and cleaned afterwards $700. instead of having the headache of buying decor and figuring what to do with that afterwards, we rented a decorator for $600 and she decided the church for the rehearsal dinner, the wedding and the reception hall and she returned at the end to clean up, all we had to do was show up. (Best $$ spent for stress free decor) We had no alcohol (church) plus we don't drink, favors were cupcakes that came with the wedding cake (5 different flavors of cupcakes) from Bundt cakes for about $150. I found my wedding gown online for approx $100 with everpretty. (I went all out with the long train and gown when I married my late hubby), I found my new hubby tux online with tuxedoonline.com (found them here on we) for about $200 and that included the shoes. I purchased my bouquet at hobby lobby and spruced it up, I purchased 2 invitation kits from Michaels during a 60 percent off sale, bought extra ink from office Depot, designed my invite and printed at home, in all including stamps the invites costed approx $100. We had 2 photographers and had our digital pictures in our possession by the time we woke the day after..$300, we had a musician who I provided the list of music we wanted played, $300. We had our wedding on a Wednesday night and everyone was home snuggled in their beds by 930pm. Our wedding was adults only. We had a month of wedding planner of which I had everything all layed out in my note and handed it to her and she was so happy, she gave me a huge discount, she was paid $300. We had table assignments with escort cards which I also made at home. It was perfect. I believe we went over about $800 and that was for wiggle room but I'm frugal and was dead set on the budget we had agreed on. Most guest thought we spent well over 10k. Our theme was wedding🥰. Also as I prefaced with this may be slightly different but we were 56/66 at the time so at our age we wanted what was most important to us.

The area you are looking at can be kind of pricey. We looked in that area as well since I'm from Pennsylvania and he is from New Jersey. We ultimately didn't go with that area because the venue we loved was in Scranton, PA. I also would think the time of year you are considering could have really cold weather. Pennsylvania isn't known for nice warm weather during that time. April probably be the only month I would actually consider having an outdoors wedding. Knowing that area I think it will be difficult to stay within a $5,000 budget. A lot of the venues we looked at there had minimums on food and beverage above $5,000. My suggestion would be to look for a restaurant or fire hall for a wedding venue. Or pick a date on a Friday or Sunday as they are generally cheaper.

I would push the wedding to later in 2021 so you can save a little more. Then you'll have more time for research too and not feel so pressured to book vendors. $5,000 is hard, I'm not going to lie. I wouldn't hire a wedding planner, the ones I talked to started at $3k for full wedding planning but charged up to $10k. Our day of coordinator cost $1k alone. None of our vendors or venue entertained negotiation because they were being booked frequently enough that they didn't have to. I would look into a weekday wedding, prices are usually way cheaper then. I was in a wedding in 2014 that cost $3,000 total. They skipped engagement pictures & save the dates, ordered invites from Walmart & did online RSVP, the ceremony was in a public park with their church pastor, reception was in a local gym (I believe a church owned the gym), they didn't have alcohol, her mom made cupcakes for dessert, and they did all DIY food. I personally hated the food & wished they did a cheap meal like BBQ (you can get that for around $10 per person) instead. They had a friend be their DJ, had VERY limited decorations, didn't have professional hair & makeup or provided guest transportation, no favors, etc.

View Quoted Comment That’s what I’ve been noticing in this area. I don’t mind driving a little if it means a cheaper venue! I just started looking around Doylestown because I really like that area. The reason we originally wanted to stay in the Lehigh Valley is most of our guests live there and we didn’t want to inconvenience them. I’d be okay having a completely indoors wedding, but we are leaning more towards April. What areas outside of the Lehigh Valley do you suggest checking out?

View Quoted Comment Yeah, pushing it seems like a good idea. I know things are supposed to be booked in advance so maybe we just need more time. I want to ask a couple people in my family for help planning because I feel like I can’t do it on my own. I’m not sure why I’m nervous to ask though! We’re not opposed to a weekday, do you think more people would say no if we did that? There’s a few bbq catering businesses in my area that I’m interested in, but I don’t want to reach out until I have a venue. I guess I just need to do more research. The more we find and more prices we get quoted that we can’t afford, it kind of makes us just want to elope!

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I think it depends on your crowd. Do most people have M-F jobs? Or do you have a lot of guests in retail so a Saturday off would be the same as a Thursday off? I think with enough notice, people make weekday weddings work. Obviously Saturday is ideal, but not everyone can make that happen.

View Quoted Comment It’s really helpful to see how you made it work! How did you find your caterer for that price? that’s what we’re having the hardest time with. I think it might just be the area we’re in is too expensive. I don’t know what’s outside of our town so I’m not sure where to start with an extended search! Also, how much research did you do to find your photographer? That’s another challenging vendor for us.

Do you want your ceremony and reception at the same place? When we were looking in that area we looked in Easton and Bethlehem so we were looking more north than Doylestown. I am not sure what would be close enough to that area that would be much cheaper. There is Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown, but I am sure how much they charge to rent the space. They have several different banquet halls.


https://www.millersymphonyhall.org/host-your-event/wedding-special-celebrations/photo-gallery/

View Quoted Comment We are trying to keep our guest list at 50, but I know I’m going to get backlash from my family about not inviting more people. Several of my cousins invited me to their wedding but I’m not inviting any of them to mine and I’m worried how that’s going to come across. Our general rule is immediate family only and closest friends. All the DIY stuff is a really good idea and doesn’t sound too hard...I never wanted a DJ anyway so I’m okay with creating that myself. Whatever we go with I just want it to be a day we can look back on and be happy about! Thanks

View Quoted Comment Thank you for all the tips! My thoughts have been racing lately trying to figure out how all this is going to work, it’s reassuring to hear that we can make everything happen with our budget

View Quoted Comment I didn’t even think about having the reception at a restaurant. That could work really well for us, and I already have some ideas of places that we like!

View Quoted Comment Most of them do have M-F jobs, but if we decide on a weekday of course we’d give lots of notice.

View Quoted Comment I used to perform there, so I actually already know what some of those private rooms look like. It is really nice there. Their website doesn’t seem to list prices, so I’ll try to give them a call! Thanks!

View Quoted Comment I'm in North Florida and I did a ton of research. There were a few factors that affected the prices of my vendors with the biggest one being that we married on a Wednesday evening and I asked very close friends for recommendations based on what I wanted to spend. I didn't hire any friends, all my vendors had a business. We saved on the photog because we wanted to print our own pictures so we were given the full rights to our pictures digitally some the same evening and the remainder the next morning, good and bad. Our 2nd shooter shot and gifted our pictures to us the same night, again digitally. We didn't do garter/bouquet tosses well... because we are a little older as well as some of our guests and I didn't want anyone breaking a hip but mainly that wasn't an important aspect of our wedding. We had a few single folk there. We allowed two speeches, one from the bestman and mine thanking everyone. Our caterer prepared a dinner that most would enjoy on a Sunday after church meal (basic meal but delicious) along with a fruit/cheese tray for vegans, so I knew they were full, no salmon or steak, but baked and fried chicken along with veggies and a starch, tea, water...so nothing over the top or requiring special ingredients. I'm no fan of a lot of frosting so oped for a naked nothingbundtcakes.com (found on WW and the business had recently opened shop here) and they delivered and setup and they didn't have to decorate as my hired decorator was on point with her decorations. My stylist/mua was another expense ($400 incl trails) and I worked with her for about 8 months for us to get to know each other, so it was a perfect hire. I initially tried a mua found here on ww but it didn't work out (I came out orange and I'm a brown-skined lady and one of the lashes fell off when I got in my car...lol) and in the end I also sent her a card thanking her for her services as she was sweet as apple pie but we both agreed it wasn't the look I was going for and we both agreed we could not take that chance day of...that would have been too stressful. #research was the key, but I did get a few ideas from Pinterest and no disrespect to Pinterest but it can have one going way over budget, so I browsed the suggestions, priced it out and it just didn't fit my vision or budget. The caterer restored the church kitchen to it's original state...spotless. overall my only weird thing that happened is the musician wanted to sing and being that provided both lyrical and instrumental music, I had someone to ask him to fade out the secular song he began to sing...in the church...lol...however he was very apologetic.

View Quoted Comment You're welcome 😊

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You will get feedback no matter what you choose. The important thing to remember is that it is you and your FH special day.