Actual Cost of a Wedding

I still have 10 months till my wedding so haven't purchased too much yet but I anticipate to spend between $7-10,000 when everything is said and done. Right now we have only spent about $1800 and that was the down payment on our venue, my dress, our wedding bands, and decorations. Our venue does the catering and if we have our anticipated max 350 guests the venue will be $5350. We are saving in other areas with my FH's aunt who used to be a wedding planner do our flowers, my uncle using his DJ equipment to do our wedding as his gift to us, and three family friends who will be our photographer, videographer, and baker.

View Quoted Comment

That's AWESOME! Very nice of them to help you out! My greatest expenses are the venue of course (around $5250), the food (probably close to $3k) and the alcohol (also $3k). I'm going to try to do the flowers myself to save a little bit but I'm not sure there's any other way for me to cut corners! I HAVE managed to find some good deals with vendors, though.

View Quoted Comment I am so glad to hear this! It’s my second wedding and his first and I sometimes wonder if I should really be spending so much 😊

My wedding is in 13 days and I’m estimating to about $3k over budget , it’s a DW and we are planning and paying for everything.

Because of that things like parking at the airport, excursions during the week festivities all added up that I forgot to factor.. regular things I budgeted for that invited hidden expenses or I waaay under budgeted for or just random expenses included: rehearsal dinner, bach parties, bridal spa party, personal spa appointments, service charges and delivery charges, airport baggage fees, the Chuppah and catering staff. I’m sure there are other misc things but I have a full itemized budget I’ve been carefully tracking expenses on, but from the $3k over those were the stand out hidden culprits.

We budgeted 4k, we’re closer to 5k now. 20% tips add up a lot, every staff member you hire for the day of your wedding gets a tip. Your hairdresser, your servers, your dj, everyone wants a tip.
Shipping costs are also a huge moneysink. If you need something online try to use an Amazon Prime membership or at least try to buy everything all at once for that free shipping. Shipping costs literally cost us $200 and it could’ve been avoided.
DIY projects add up in cost, if you can find it already made for cheap just do that. I wanted to make a petal curtain, my supplies cost a lot and I wasted a lot of time trying to make it. I ended up buying one for $10 that looks better than mine. It was a dumb mistake.

View Quoted Comment Our biggest cost was venue/food/alcohol at $9569.45. We used an inclusive venue with an open bar. The second greatest cost was photography including engagement photos, around $2500 so far. This didn't include an album or prints. The 3rd greatest cost was HMU including trial (I paid for everyone) $1049, including tip. The 4th highest cost was the DJ/guitarist at 850. Florist was 712. Only the tip for the HMU is included in there. Our honeymoon suite was included in our package for the venue.

Our initial budget was $20k. We put a deposit on an all-inclusive venue for a total of just under $17k it includes ceremony and reception sites, dj, 8 passed hors d’ oeuvres, buffet dinner, premium champagne & cider toast, premium liquor open bar, uplighting, tables, floor length table cloths, flatware/silverware, upgraded chiavari chairs, wedding cake, photo booth, centerpieces, open bar and invitations for 100 guests. We didn’t factor in photographer, videographer, and everything else that goes along with wedding planning. Now it’s going to be more like 32k

When we were looking into everything I made a spreadsheet and rounded up quite a bit on everything. We did an all inclusive venue so that part was super easy but I even rounded that up to account for extras like the fruit plate and olive bar we added. Then I put in estimates for the flights, hotels and daily spending money for food and extras. I even put the daily spending into separate envelopes and if we didn't spend all the daily money it stayed in the envelope so when we got home all the extra went towards a new couch. We spent about $7,500 all in for being in Vegas/AZ for a week with the wedding, attire, flights, hotels, food and everything. We budgeted almost $9,000.

View Quoted Comment It was my husbands first wedding and my second and we paid for it all so we did what we wanted to do. Enjoy it!!

View Quoted Comment

Oh my gosh taxes haha. The food and city tax for our caterer ended up being like 13% - I totally get that it has to be there, but I definitely wasn't expecting it.

Some people forget to include the wedding license. In my state it was 70 that's for them to file and for us to get a copy.
I'm maybe 1000 dollars over my budget. We are having 25 people total. Fully catered. It's a backyard wedding so that saved a ton!! We couldn't find a jp that would perform a pagan ceremony so we hired our friend who is officiated. I bought my dress at good will for under 200. I bought all of the bridal party outfits, about 150 each. We're all doing our own hair and makeup. My photographer is booked for 3 hours for $150. That includes edited pics, a flashdrive with all edited and non edited and rights to print. The food is being done by a local catering company called bringing you Vermont, and they're doing the cake too!!! All the food plus cake cost a little over 500. I bought a bunch of different alcohol from the supermarket that was about 200-250. I am doing favors of seeds that were super inexpensive.

View Quoted Comment Our budget was also 10K, but that was before I looked into the details. Just a venue and catering will put us at 10,000 and that’s with us trying to look at our least expensive option. So, yes, we will definitely be going over.

Budget- $5,000

Total spent: $4,800

2 weeks out from wedding. Everything has been paid in full. Don't expect too many last minute expenses.

View Quoted Comment

That makes me sick just thinking about it! haha I work for a wealth management firm so I am very OCD about planning and knowing where my money is going. Wedding planning is giving me grey hair at the ripe age of 23. LOL

We budgeted about $15k.
I think in total we probably came in right about that. I'm not sure how much the ILs spent on the reception but on my budget of things I know we spent, it was about $13.5k, but I know things didnt get marked down (welcome bags for example bc my mom wanted to make those so she bought everything for it).

View Quoted Comment I know you should tip your entire staff that catered (servers/chef/bartender) and DJ. I’m not sure about photographer and officiant.

We said $10k but I think we’ll be slightly over. Our wedding is on the smaller side at about 60 people total.

View Quoted Comment Yup! Our tax on our bill to the venue was $6k and I definitely hadn’t factored that in from the beginning.

My budget was 13k and I think the max will be 15k and that's pushing it with still needing flight tickets, and the little things as the wedding gets closer.

My budget is $10k, and we should be around that number, but no more than $11k, with 150 people on the list. Decided to DIY a few things (decor, flowers, favors) and get help from friends and family (ceremony music, invites, hair/makeup) to cut costs. One thing I didn't think about was paying for the rehearsal dinner. I have a lot of out-of-town guests, and am planning to make it a welcome party also, so I need to reserve a space and additional catering for that.