Blew the budget out of the water!

View Quoted Comment The top 3 most expensive items for us are the food, venue and beverages. We went with a buffett option because it was about $3k cheaper and limited bar with wine and beer.

We started with a budget of 10K and now my estimate is at just over 12K. A lot of our categories came in under what I had budgeted for and some were more so I think we’ll be under. Fingers crossed anyway!

It is shocking how easy it is to go beyond the original budget. However, we live in a major metropolitan area, and have found the "average cost of a wedding in _____" -type calculators very (and unfortunately...) accurate. Where we live, the "average" is $30,000, and THAT is almost exactly where we are likely to end up (not counting rings or honeymoon, and not an excessively extravagant wedding). We started out thinking that was crazy and we could do it for $20,000. Also, as the calculators predict, just about 50% of the total will be the reception (venue, food, beverages, furnishings, etc. -- including a $5000 discount for off-season in January). Next biggest item is photography ($2700 -- including some significant discounts for paying in advance). Third highest item will be flowers at $1700 (again, daughter did a ton of research and comparison shopping, and saved $1000 compared to the next lowest estimate). It's really easy to get carried away if you are not careful.

We doubled our original budget. And we’re not even doing anything crazy! I don’t know how everything just added up so fast lol