Being realistic about budget

Start with guest count. Obviously more people more money. There’s way to save -Friday or Sunday - local park, etc. ask if there’s something other than a wedding package. Don’t do booze or just beer and wine. My venue allows us to. Bring in dessert so it from Costco. Buy used decor on Facebook. (There’s tons of bridal resale in your dream as well as dresses, veils, etc and I belong to about 5). I ordered postcards for STD as postage is less. All invites and flowers-Costco or Sams Club. Amazon has veils cheap so don’t buy in The bridal salons. I spent more on photos and video as I felt it was important. Don’t do a large bridal party. You don’t need to do Boxes to ask someone to be your bridesmaid.

I'd been halfway down this road, before, and most of our friends are already married. So, I don't know if sticker shock was it, so much as being annoyed by all the little things that kept adding up.

In the end, we went with this simple rule: If we didn't remember it from other people's weddings, it wasn't important. (Ergo, it could be skipped, or done cheaply.) So, no favors, not a lot of decor (we let the view do the work), etc.

All of this also depends entirely on where you are. Naturally, DH and I live in one of the most expensive parts of the country, so everything was priced accordingly. Still, we kept our wedding to roughly half the average cost of our region. (Though I blame that high average on the very rich, who drop 3x my yearly income on a wedding - most of our friends spent what we did or less.)

For sure! I though I would be about to plan my wedding for 5k and ended up spending 7k.