AZ Bride in Tears (5,000 budget!!! Help where to begin)

Http://www.idocelebrate.net/

this site has packages from $2,000-$4,000 and they have great reviews too and a special!

For 100 people, that will be really really really hard! My venue is about $16K for 161 people (ceremony, dinner, alcohol, linens, cake cutting, plates) but then the DJ, photographer, florist, officiant, dress, baker, etc....

For $5K I would agree with Celia... cut back the guest list to about 30-40 people....

My advice (for what it's worth) would be to first consider which one is more important to you:

1) Having a marriage celebration that can include all 100 people on your preliminary guest list, or

2) Having a "full service" ceremony and reception including a meal, alcohol, DJ/dancing, rehearsal + rehearsal dinner, decorations, flowers, etc.

It is entirely feasible to do one of those things with a $5K budget. Trying to do both of them with that budget is not a good idea, IMHO. You will most likely make yourself crazy, and not really doing anything well, unless you have a lot of friends willing to provide some of these services as gifts to you (which it doesn't sound like you do).

After making that one big decision, the rest of them should come a lot easier to you.

What I did to take my budget down from 3,500 to 2,000 was to take out the florist. We're going to do the flowers myself and the cooking, myself and my dad. I managed to find a photographer for 450 on Thumbtack.com and the wedding cake will be done by my fiance's family friend. I got lucky that he just finished school for baking. We only have 70-80 people too. If you can't eliminate family members, I would suggest a backyard wedding, like I'm doing, or if it's too small, then a public park wedding. Shop around the web and look for the cheapest priced things. So far I have only spent (in my head) 795 and I am more than half way done with the looking around. My budget may be higher than the actual cost!

Congrats!

First of all-- keep your eye on the Real Reason For A Wedding-- getting married. This will help you sort through a lot of nonsense will tell you 'have to have'. Really all you Have to Have is: an officiant, you, someone you want to marry, two witnesses, and a marriage license-- everything else is 'icing on the cake', as they say.

So, make a list of what's most important to you-- is inviting all 300 people your parents have ever spoken to important? Is having a designer gown important? Is serving a 5 course, plated meal important? Starting a the top of your list of priorities, start filling things in. When you've blown your budget, that's your wedding!

And, *please* keep in mind-- unless your name is Kate Middleton or Whatever-George-Clooney's-Wife-Name-Is, you probably won't be able to afford *everything*, so be prepared to skip or skimp on some stuff. As long as you're married at the end of the day, it was a good wedding.

Hi, I used to live there and may be able to help. I now live in Va.

Please go to my website and send me an email and I'll offer what I can. I also have some information that may be useful on my blog. You can do it on 5K.

Thank You everyone for your feed back...ALOT of what you ALL said will be taken into consideration...Thank You Zoe for your realistic questions, very eye opening sometimes you get so caught up with all the hype, you can forget what's really important.

You can have a fabulous party with your immediate family for under 2000.00. You add a photog for several hours, a great dress and bouquet and you're good to go!

Many restaurants offer private dinning rooms for a food and beverage minimum and no room rental fee. Other options are looking at renting a room through a community center and parks are always a good option. Check out craigslist for deals on photography. Diy for flowers is probably your cheapest bet, there is also a website called globalrose.com that ships fresh flowers and they look lovely.

We're in az and I just booked my new venue in Peoria today. It's called http://m.encantoreceptionhall.com

That's a great place to start

We are having our wedding in a garden in Glendale. Our wedding is only around 4,000 with everything. It's called joseanne's wedding cottage and garden. Only thing is there is no alcohol (which is totally fine with us) and we have a family member catering. I'm making all the bouquets and bought some really nice boutanires for the guys at hobby lobby for only $1.50 a piece! Our invites was $15 bucks at Wally World and $3.30 to print at officemax. Instead of a full on wedding cake we are doing cupcakes from Sweet Daddy cupcakes and a small cake from Fry's for us to cut. Doind diy and looking for unconventional was to do things really helped us save so much! I hope everything works out!

View Quoted Comment Where was your venue if you don't mind me asking

View Quoted Comment Kristi, it was Inside the Bungalow in downtown Mesa. They sold it recently and it is going through some renovations. I believe it is planned to reopened in a couple months. I think something on their fb page? Not sure what changes will be made to their wedding package though. :-(

If it helps, a friend had a cheap venue just south of downtown Gilbert off Gilbert Rd that was an Airbnb that could be used for events. The property sounded pretty cool and I drove passed it all the time and didn't realize it because it sat so far back!

Sorry I couldn't be of more help! A part of me wanted to buy Inside the Bungalow when it was for sale. :-)

View Quoted Comment Where did you get married ?!

Hi I’m in Az

View Quoted Comment Hi!


What venue did you use?