Blowing the Budget

Went way over on photographer but that's ok since FH and I value good photos. Decided initially to not have a videographer but got sappy and emotional watching friends' highlight vids on Vimeo. Just booked a videographer now and there goes another $3000. Everyone keeps telling me the day goes by so fast and I'll want the video to look back on anything I might have missed or not noticed. They're probably right but the chunk of money spent for it still makes me feel like I'm overspending.

Dress budget was $5000, spent $7000. Flower budget was $2,500, spent $5,500. I didnt know how much to budget for flowers. They are pricey!

Dresses (i ended up with 4, one white, one traditional and 2 reception dresses), photography and venue/food

ETA: typo

Flower budget went over $500 (other florists were coming in 1-3k over budget); Video and Photo we went over by $1100 combined; Limo went over $300. However, we came in under budget on other things (invites, dress, veil, shoes, dj). Our guest list came in under also (expected 325 and 300 rsvp'ed). We ended up coming in 3.5k under budget in the end. These were totally worth it (especially the florist!) and no regrets.

I think I came out under budget for everything! We're on a super tight budget so I'm the discount queen right now lol. We added a photobooth at the end so that was an unexpected expense of $400, but offset by the savings on my dress, photographer and DJ.

We budgeted $3000 for music and then realized we were way off. We really wanted a band and all of the ones around here were $5000 and up. We ended up paying $6000 and I think that's the only thing so far that FH and I still cringe at and feel like we could have done better.

Dress and photography and now maybe adding video. We are now over double our original budget bc of those things.

For me it was the MUA and the caterer. For the MUA, I wasn't even going to have one until I decided I wanted one. Budgeted $0, Reality: paying her 800 bones for myself and my 2 BM's. The caterer was more of a "not sure how much that will actually cost" type of error. Budgeted $5000, but in reality it will be more like 10G's. Oops. BUT, I saved myself 500 bucks on our invitations! lol

If we were doing things strictly by budgeting tools this answer would be our venue. But, we picked a venue and then built our budget around the venue costs and such.

Since we did that, the only things we have blown the budget on are my shoes.... I set $200... and then fell in love with $300 shoes I don't regret it at all they are super comfortable, gorgeous, and I can wear them after the wedding. They are low closed toed shoes... pretty much impossible to find pretty ones like that.

The other thing was our honeymoon. We originally set a very large budget and it slowly worked its way up to a 3 week trip of a lifetime with double the price tag. I cringe whenever I look at how much we are spending, but at the same time, IDK when else we are ever going to have the opportunity do something like this, and we managed to line our wedding up so that we can take 3 weeks off from work without it effecting our jobs since we are on an entry level rotational program, and will both be switching jobs right after we get married. So screw the budget!

Photography. I'm spending 2,500 which is more than the 1,500 I was hoping for. It's worth it to me though. That's my splurge. I'm a little over budget with pretty much everything, but it's really because I had no idea how expensive my area is.

My dress. My budget was $1,000 but it ended up being $1,700. I rationalize it by telling myself I saved a fortune in alterations. And at the time I bought it I was sure I would sell it after and make the difference at least. Not so sure about selling it anymore...

We were also a little over in our photographer budget. But she has been so so helpful and has even helped us find a few of the vendors we needed and offered to sit down with me and work out our day of schedule.

Our former venue was an all inclusive package so we technically nearly blew the budget almost everywhere.

Thankfully, we've sacrificed the deposit there and are planning something way under budget now that we have a better grasp of what things cost in our area.

Pretty much the entire budget. We didn't have a great idea of how much things cost, and we are lucky to have a flexible budget due to money we both had saved up prior to getting engaged. At this point budget is out the window and we just buy what we need - I'm not even recording anything anymore. I see if things are reasonably priced and go from there.

I didnt budget the way i should, like per vendor, but so far Im under my over all budget of $****.

We went about $700.00 over budget with our DJ, but his services include a four hour photobooth with attendant and uplighting that we really wanted but did not budget for because I was familiar with the pricing and figured it would be best to skip out on it, however due to our package deal and what we were going to pay for separately for the photobooth we realistically only went $200 over budget. If 100% of our guests show we will be about $4k over budget.

I'm still very early in the my planning but I think the one thing I may blow the budget on is the dress. I get the argument that its only one day but its a very big one day in my mind and I want to feel and look like a million bucks. If a dress does that for me, to hell with the budget (within reason- I'm not one of those lets pay 24k for a dress type of girls). I'm typically a bargain shopper so if I get a deal on it, that works fine too. My other vendors thus far have been at or below budget which is working out well for me!

@Theresa-yes I did. The place is not fancy at all and the decor is fairly dated but it was free. I guess I might blow the budget on decorations but not having to worry about venues and insurance definitely saved us a bunch because our budget is pitifully low.

As of yesterday, photography was what I blew the budget on. I went to the salon that I get my hair done at and decided to book my appointment for the wedding. I also decided to pay for the girls to get their hair done. There's $300 that I didn't need to spend, but I'm excited that all of us will be at the same place the morning of the wedding! I definitely didn't want to ask the girls to come hang out with me while I get my hair done because I didn't want them to feel obligated to pay the salon's outrageous prices for their updos!

I had a $500 dress budget. I spend $700. Overall I'm under budget. I planned for 100 person guest list and ended up with a invite list of 82. And that's before official invites go out. I may end up with a lower count.

My dress budget was $1500 and I spent $1800 and I still need alterations :/ FH told me to get what I want... even if it is going a little over budget.