Anyone stressing about the wedding financially?

You are not alone! We jumped from $12K to $23K in a matter of 2 months. We too are fortunate to have family members helping out financially.
Luckily for us we have about 14 months to save up.

It is a very real feeling to see how much weddings really do cost at the end of the day, even if you're not doing anything super fancy. I used to think that only fancy weddings cost a lot but in reality it takes a lot of skill to keep costs down.

With your guest list high, your costs will be high as well.

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Initially I thought $15,000 was enough! What have you been doing to "save" money?

We're not going on any vacations until our honey moon, we try to not go out to eat as much (maybe once a week or two), we're not getting eachother gifts for holidays (instead maybe a nice dinner for both of us), I've been trying to work at my parents' business on Saturdays for some extra cash.

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Our limit is 150 but right now we have about 140 on our guest list... maybe 10-15 will decline if I average the typical decline rate LOL. That would save another thousand or two... I've already decided to eliminate favors and a photobooth to save another $800. I am however doing a popcorn bar as a favor/end of the night snack.

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I think those are good things to cut since you can't cut your guest list. And for sure, not everyone you invite will be able to come so that will help out!

That's a very normal feeling. I remember thinking to myself gosh this is all adding up to a lot. I spent $16k or so and I had a huge wedding. Although mine was well under the average costs, it was still a lot to take in. I did a side job and all the money from that was saved just for my half of the wedding. It is intimidating thinking about how much it costs for an event.

All day, every day!! We're looking at about closer to $30k! We were somewhat fine until we got the invoice from our caterer. We haven't even gotten decor rentals or flowers yet! Our venue only works exclusively with 2 caterers and we found out the one we went with was also the cheapest but clearly still expensive as all hell.

Now we're going over our guest list again to see who, if anyone, we can cut. I'm totally jealous that your car is paid off lol. If it wasn't for the amount of a couple of my bills, things would be a bit different. Especially since we lost out on money when we changed our venue was forced to change our photo/video vendor.

View Quoted Comment We both agreed we will be putting a certain amount of $$ per pay check that will equal to what we need and possibly more. We have a target month - 2 months prior to our wedding we must meet that goal.
Also we have paid deposits for venue/caterer, DJ and Photographer already-charged my CC that earns me cashback then we paid off the balance right away. Whatever cashback we get will be saved for other wedding purchases later on.

Every single day. We're sticking to no more than 10k, and my wonderful mother is willing to put 5k towards it. My wonderful fiance makes a lot of money, but as I work with animals, my paychecks are quite poor. I'm struggling to make sure I can save up my half, but it's a ball of stress every single day.

The only help my FH and I are getting for the wedding is that my parents paid for my dress. We’re covering everything else. As a result, we’re keeping things very minimal. As it stands we’ll likely spend about $4000 all together. I still stress about it, but the really important stuff will only be about $2,000.

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Seeing everyone's budget be less than the average cost makes me feel like maybe I should've fought to be more strict. I would've been fine with just my family but my fiance has a lot of friends (count their significant others in) and family friends.

My cousin had a huge wedding of maybe 500 people and spent only $10,000 but that's because all of us help set-up, tear down, bar tend, her in-laws did all the catering (cooking, prep, etc.), it was literally hard work for us. I did not have any fun, I was so exhausted at the end of the day. I knew I couldn't go that route of doing it myself.

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I'm having no more than 100 people at my wedding, so that definitely helps. I am also scrapping certain things like invites, programs, and floral arrangements.

In the end, it's you and your fiance's day. You'll still enjoy it, no matter the budget. And if you want to do something smaller or bigger, you can always go for it at your vow renewal =)

View Quoted Comment What are you doing in place of invites and floral centerpieces? Are you having a sign for the program or scrapping it altogether?

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I'm going to be painting a sign to give everyone a timeline.

For invites, I am sending people a link to my wedding website and giving them the password for RSVPing.

I'm not doing floral centerpieces. I'm thinking about craft pumpkins that people can sign. Or maybe nothing at all, we'll see.

We are having 150 guests and doing the wedding for $10,000. It helps that our ceremony venue fee is being waived (I used to work there) and the reception venue is my parent's church ($100 donation). My caterer is a long time friend. She is only charging us for the food not her time (I'm paying her an extra $200 for her time though). That is saving us thousands of dollars and we are cutting in other areas of the budget too. A cheaper venue and caterer will be a great help! I think it is totally possible to have a wedding for $15,000.

You are definitely not alone. Weddings are expensive and like you my max is at 15K no matter what.

It's stressful trying to manage the budgeting. The best thing you can do is try to do some DIY in order to get your costs down.

Using fake flowers etc.

Plus a longer engagement gives you more time to pay for things. Even with that, my engagement is 19 months and it is still sometimes so stressful I cant handle it. Don't even get me started on the holidays coming up? I am paying for a wedding and have honestly have to let go of some other extras which is ok. you have to make space for what you want but you're not alone and you can do it. Just make you ask for support when needed.

- get wedding insurance in case something happens. You dont want to lose thousands of dollars.