Budget Brides! Large wedding 150 people for an estimated budget of $10,000?

Con't:

-I did a trade with a friend: I helped coordinate her wedding last year and she is doing my hair and make-up

-Music: we are doing our own playlist for dance music and a friend that I hired for cocktail music is MCing

-Not paying for transportation

-Notifying guests that there is street parking only on website (I'm letting go of worrying about how they will park)

-Flowers: I was going to DIY but a coworker offered to do them within my budget (I think I'll still end up spending more, but it's nice to not have to do it myself)

-Transportation: skipping this! We will just drive off in one of our own cars.

-Invitations purchased on Invitations by Dawn (relatively affordable)

Things that I didn't do any cutting on:

-photography (at $2,000 it was definitely a splurge)

-My dress (I went to David's thinking I would end up with an affordable dress and ended up spending almost twice what I thought I would )

-Musicians: Mariachi Band to play for one hour

-Decorations: I've purchased things on ETSY and have made things myself. I haven't been watching my budget much in the process!

-Favors: my mom decided to make jam since I was going to skip favors. I don't know what she spent but I'm sure it wasn't necessarily budget.

Wow. That is amazing. I am having 130 and my budget was initially 10K two years ago... That wasn't going to happen and be the wesding our families expected. So we pushed back the engagement a year. Who is coordinating all of this for you?

It sounds like you don't have a licensed bartender? You need one or you could be held liable. You don't want to be liable if anyone gets hurt or in an accident afterward.

You should be concerned with guests' ability to park. Either in a garage or lot.

Thanks for the food for thought. I will check with my church. I think we should be okay as far as the bartender issue. They allow us to have beer and wine only and are very clear about have we are covered to do insurance wise. For example, we have a children's play set at our church and we are definitely not allowed to use it even if we got our own event insurance because of the liability for the church. As far as the parking goes, it's not that I don't care about my guests, I do. But honestly they are all adults. There is un-metered street parking all around our church and there aren't any vacant lots around. We recently had a funeral for a beloved church member that had 400 people in attendance. Somehow they all showed up. There are somethings in the wedding planning process I have just had to let go of for my own sanity!

It sounds good, and it's great you have lots of family and friends helping. We did too, but just make sure it's not treated their job and something that you're super thankful for. Also with the appetizers and salads it might be worthwhile to have someone take a Safe Food Handling certificate. I would recommend not serving salads that can spoil like potato salad etc. Even if it's refrigerated before hand it should be left out in the reception for too long. Just be mindful of appropriate safe food handling

For your musicians are you having them play just the ceremony or will they be around for your lunch too? You might want to have some soft background music during the lunch (you could use an ipod). Just a thought.

Here is our music plan:

-Ceremony: church organist and friend (hired) will sing solo

-Cocktail: musician friend playing background music on acoustic guitar (we are hiring her at normal rate)

-Lunch: Mariachi serenading tables.

-After lunch: playlist- my musician friend offered to man it and bring her own sound system if we don't want to deal with the church's

-So in all my music costs will be amounting to a DJ but I really wanted some live musicians and a DJ seems odd for an afternoon wedding.

As far as the safe handling, my aunt is doing green salad. She offered to do all the food but I found an affordable caterer to take the burden off of her. She does food all the time for large events at her church. For appetizers she is doing fruit and veggie platters and we are getting cheeses and crackers etc at Costco. I'm not too worried about the food. I have been to many of weddings with DIY food. I guess in my circle of friends and the fact that we live in Northern California (there are not a lot of affordable all inclusive reception halls) it is one way to make it feasible to have a large wedding

As far as support from family goes.... I have a very do it yourself kind of family. I had to convince my mom that it will be easier to get the taco caterer. She hates wasting money and wanted us to do all the food, and the cake, and the flowers etc. I have had to convince her that we can't do all of that and enjoy the wedding. I think we have come to a nice balance. I don't recommend over relying on asking friends to help. It can get weird.

What are other people's strategies?? My way is definitely just one way. I thought it would be fun to get ideas out there for people working in a tight budget that aren't willing or able to slash their guest list down to 50 guests (nothing wrong with that but it seems like all the advice for budget brides is slash the guest list).

For me, the biggest thing i have "cut back on" was buying my dress. Instead of going to a shop to buy one, i tried on a few, figured out what shape looks good on me.... and then ordered a dress that I loved online from a website I had purchased a few ither formal dresses from before. Instead of a few grand, I got my dream dress for $200. That helped a lot with budget.

Also, I want a butterfly release when we kiss, so i had to cut back on the flowers to budget it in. But, it works out for the best for me to have fake flowers rsther than real anyways, because myself and most of my family have TERRIBLE allergies. Id rather not be red eyed and puffy for it. Also, i am doing all of my rentals through 1 company, saves on delivery. AND a family friend is making our cakes(just paying for supplies). What else.... we arent paying for a minister or officiant, a friend of the family is getting ordained and doing the ceremony. There are maaaany ways to cut back. Just dont cut back on important things, like venue. A good venue will go a long way. My venue barely needs any decorations. And they supply a lot as well, along with tables and chairs.

We wanted to keep ours under $10k (also around 150--guest list currently 168 including us) and it looks like we're going to be around $6k so yay us! It was very important we not go into debt for this.

We rented this large cabin-like venue at a local park. It seats 200 with a full kitchen, I don't know how many acres of land, a huge firepit with 2 or 3 rows of seating around it and a small sheltered pavilion. Includes table and chairs. All of that for $700. We're doing ceremony right out in front since it's on this rolling hill so our background is all green hills and trees. We rented an arch from a local wedding consignment for $40.

Our caterer is only $11.25 per person and that includes three meats, two veggies, salad, bread/rolls, veggie tray, coffee and tea. If we want anything additional (entree or side) it's only 75 cents per person for each additional.

My dress was a steal at $400 and is nearly a perfect fit. I just need hem and bustle.

Our photographer was another steal at $1000 for all day coverage, rights to the images, framed print and an album. She did our engagements photos and they were fantastic. She prefers candids more than posed to capture the moment which is our preference too so we can't wait to see what she does with the wedding.

We still need a florist but only for bouquets, bouts and corsages. Flowers for the tables are a Pinterest idea I tried out with a cheap bouquet from Walmart and ended up LOVING how those flowers looked so we'll be buying in bulk from someone. I used Dollar Tree vases, jumbo glitter in the water and then 5 stems of alstroemeria (however you spell it). Bulk pricing I've looked at we're probably going to max out at $4 each for centerpieces. Crazy! But I'm also doing two sets of three tealight holders from Dollar Tree (spray painted champagne gold) and two wineglass lamps using wineglasses we got on sale at Ikea and lampshades half off from JoAnn from David Tutera.

We're waiting to hear back from the officiant and a friend is getting us in touch with a licensed bartender so those prices are still in the air.

Save the Dates I paid $16 from Vistaprint for 100 postcards (Seriously, people...use the business section, not wedding...the wedding templates are available under business too). Our regular invites are Wilton pocket kits I bought off of a seller on eBay. Got 150 for $60.

Linens we ordered from eFavormart. I think I paid $300 (maybe $350 by the time I added in a sequin one for the cake table). Floor length white table cloths, navy runners and white lace runners over that.

Cake is $450 and oh so delicious.

I'm paying a former coworker/friend who is recreation coordinator at the same park to be our DoC. She's doing it for $200.

Only thing FH has asked for is NO DJ. He's an audiophile and very very picky. So we're renting the speakers and anything else we don't have for about $100 and debating between a couple of apps. I did insist we at least pay an MC to watch time, make announcements and keep an eye on our set up.

We are Pittsburgh-adjacent so of course we have a cookie table which will take the place of appetizers at cocktail hour. We're doing a first look so most pics will be done before the wedding. We'll do a few more while people head the 20 feet distance to the reception to raid cookies and the bar. May throw a few standard appetizers in there but current timeline won't have people waiting very long before the buffet opens.

Still some other odds and ends but those are the 'big' expenses. His mom is all about picking my brain since his sister is getting married next year. Trying to figure out how I'm doing it so cheap. My goal is to make it look like we spent WAY more money than we actually did. So far everyone with a sneak peek is impressed.

It sounds like you have a great plan! You're inspiring me to want to find ways to cut our budget because our party size is 1/3 of yours. You'll have to let us know how everything turned out.

YES!!! Im having 150-200 people and my budget is 10k. Im getting ALOT of family help. My aunt and uncle are DJs so they are going to for us. My aunt is a makeup artist. My grandma has offered to help pay for the venue. FH aunt is a florist and has offered to do our flowers. And im doing alot of diy. Thats as far as ive gotten so far.

Mine was 19K for 100 people, but we had a full buffet dinner. Our main strategy was a lot of DIY using creative solutions. I had $6 centerpieces (potted flowers with pots that were on clearance), my programs were made from file folders which is cheaper paper than card stock, and etc. I don't think most people would have guessed our budget was that low. Our wedding cakes would have cost over $1k but I did DIY with lots of practice etc.

We have 136 people confirmed for our wedding day and we are still staying with our 3K budget. I've done tons of shopping online and calling around. We have found the best deals/sales anywhere. I am one who feels like there's no need to spend more money on the wedding than I did on my car so....here we are

We are also getting to use the church for free (perks of being LDS, I guess).

We had planned for 150 on a budget of 10K. We've gone slightly over... (maybe 500-1,000) and are still planning on 150. It can be done!!

We have about 9k for 100 people, all of your ideas sound great! If people offer to help, let them! Otherwise I think you're already good to go! lol

Wow! Your budgeting skills are way out of this world. It's so nice that your family is helping out. It saves money and also brings little special touches. Ours is so outrageous because all of our family are abroad so we have to pay for every single thing. I don't want to burden people after 12+ hour flights with tasks.

It's cool to see how people allocate funds differently based on what they care about the most. Putting on a budget wedding will really depend on what options you have in your area and the support that is offered to you (if any). For me the biggest areas that I had to cut down were the venue cost and the food. Since I live in the SF bay area and my parents live in the Sonoma wine country costs for traditional wedding venues would have taken up almost my entire budget. For price for an empty community hall in my home town cost $3,000! That didn't include anything but four walls and tables and chairs. Likewise traditional catering would have taken up my whole budget. My friend living in Chico, just 3 hours north was able to afford a reception hall and caterer and DJ on a similar budget. I love seeing how creative people get with what they have available to them.

Wow guys - was looking for tips to save money and all of you are doing awesome.. My dress caused trouble for my budget at 2300 before alterations so I have some making up to do!

Ahhh alterations! That's a cost I really didn't factor in. I have my first fitting in two weeks and it could easily be $300-$400 dollars depending on what needs to be done

@From Mi to Mo Wow! $3,000 for 136 people is impressive. I appreciate that in the LDS community it is commonplace to have a simple reception with finger foods (if I'm not mistaken). It really makes it more feasible for young people to get married when it is right for them instead of waiting to afford a fancy wedding. I'm not sure if that's how you are doing it, but it is something that I have noticed when researching weddings.

My wedding date wen from May 21, 2016 to October 10, 2015. I went from 13 months to 6 months. My wedding went from about $12,000 to $3,000 really quick. I got my dress from David's Bridal online. It was on their $99 sale. I am getting my dress for my bridal session today. It is used and a bride is selling it for $30. I found it on Craigslist. It is very plain and that is what I wanted so it so it doesn't out shine my wedding dress. I will have my bridal session pictures displayed at the wedding reception. I gave up my banquet hall and reserved a park pavilion. It is huge, made of stone, and is very pretty. There are 2 restroom facilities close to the pavilion. The restrooms are clean and flushable SCORE!!!!. The restroom facilities were just built abut 2 years ago so they are really nice. The pavilion has electric, water, and picnic tables in it. I didn't really want picnic tables for guest but guess what they are free so there ya go LOL. I am borrowing tables from my church for food, gift table, cake table and guest book table. I found catering for $8 per person so around $1,200 plus tax. The caterer leaves the tip up to us. I am doing a cake buffet of different cakes and pies since it is a rustic shabby chic theme that will work. Local bakery is doing it and delivering it for $200. I found table covers at the local Dollar General store for $5 a piece so about $150 and all my tables will be covered. I am ordering fresh purple spray roses from Fiftyflowers.com. I will get all 25 centerpieces for $179.99 so that is like $7 a centerpiece and fresh flowers. I am using mason jars and vases that I already have. I will purchase small gourds and pumpkins to add to the centerpieces and the mason jars/vases will be sitting on wood slabs (free). My bridal party will be wearing blue jean skirts or purple sundresses their choice. I had beautiful formal gowns picked out before but they just won't work now. They are all purchasing their own dress/ attire so I let it go. I am making bridal party flowers Whatever that maybe. I haven't gotten that far yet. A friend will performing the ceremony and he only want $75. We canceled the DJ and just going to use one of our computers and an amp and have a friend run it. My alterations on both of my dresses is going to be less than a $100. I have been with my seamstress forever. She has altered all my clothes from my weight loss and all my daughter's pageant/ prom dresses. No special transportation and no alcohol since it is going to be in a public park. My friend who is a professional photographer is only charging me $600 to shoot my wedding. We are thinking about setting up our GoPro or camcorders to record the wedding (Free). I am making my wedding invitations. I love to scrapbook so I have all the tools needed to make them. I am making pocket invitations that sale for anywhere between $5-$7 an invitation. I am making $100 for about $50. Groom is wearing blue jeans, and a purple shirt so his attire is going to cost us about $50. My wedding band is just going to be a plain white gold band and we will up grade to the two diamond eternity bands I wanted at a later date. So now that cost is about $200. His wedding band has to be tungsten because of him working all the time. When he is working with live wires he will have to take it off. His band that he picked out is $92. So there you go my very cheap scaled back wedding. I like this idea better than the big stuffy formal wedding. This is actually more me but less my FH.