Budget causing a lot of conflict...any advice???

I suggest showing him in a very concrete way where the budget max is, each cost, and what the new projected budget is. If your FH is good at concrete thinking, that will really show him where the budget is exploding. Then have an honest conversation about what can be cut to make it work within your price point, whether you can find more reasonably priced vendors, or talk about how you could increase the budget (and why that's a poor decision).

Have you asked him what his suggestions are for fitting everything in your budget? If he's declining your very sensible suggestions, he must have some great ones.

Yes, and Nashville is SUPER expensive. I got quoted $20,000 to rent a venue after normal hours so from 6pm to 10 pm. Insane. Ultimately, we had to compromise on everything. Moved location to a different state to get an affordable venue, cut the guest list in half, got a venue where you can bring your own alcohol, not having a bridal party, moved the date back 6 months, casual instead of formal. FH wasn't happy with all the changes, but he also didn't understand why the wedding cost so much. It might help to show your FH how much a wedding would cost without cutting those things you mentioned. Then maybe he will get on board to compromise or be willing to up the budget. Since my FH wasn't willing to spend any more money, we just cut stuff.

Also, we agreed to have a delayed honeymoon. I couldn't imagine planning the honeymoon and wedding at the same time, much less paying for both of them.

Look at nearby towns that aren't necessarily Nashville addresses, but are close.

Check if they have different rates on Sunday. Both our rental fee and bar minimum dropped since we opted for a Sunday wedding. Also keep in mine that not everyone invited will come. Ask both your parents to give you a list only of those who they really want there (unfortunately since they are contributing financially, you do have to grant their wishes to some extent). I think the general rule of thumb is that your venue, rentals, bar, and catering expenses should add up to about 50% of your total wedding budget

To save money on other areas, look at getting your dress at a trunk show or off-the-rack, do not have wedding favors, don't go over the top with florals or consider using fake florals,do RSVPs through WW website to lower postage fees, and cut any vendors that you don't really need.

We also decided to delay our honeymoon, more for work reasons, but this can help financially, too.

Ugh....men! Lol.....I don't know what their deal is, but my FH is the same way. He wasn't financially contributing anything to the wedding. He wasn't even into the planning. We finalized our guest list, sent out save the dates, just to realize we accidentally over invited. Ok ok, we should be okay if we get some RSVP no's. Well, FH and his mom decided they needed to add to our list. I asked FH how he plans to accommodate these people? He didn't have a solution, just insisted they had to be invited. Therefore, I caved and added them to the list. I even came up with a plan B. I do all the planning on my own, and I am paying for our entire wedding myself. I ask his opinion when it matters, but otherwise he just pays for our day to day life as his part in all of this. Trying to get money out of him was impossible, because guys never have money for anything other than stuff they want (wedding planning just doesn't sit high on that list for whatever reason). That is why we agreed to let him pay for our daily lives, and I pay for the wedding...that way I can budget and plan without complications. It's not a perfect plan that could work for everyone though.

My advice is to remember that guys don't see the importance in early planning like us brides do. With your wedding being a year away, he probably won't get more involved until a couple months before. They don't understand that things have to be budgeted, booked, and payed for in advance. They think they have plenty of time. I would maybe cool it on the wedding talk and take a step back from wedding planning for a couple of weeks to let the tension die down. Then re-approach everything with FH and a clear mind. Talk to him and see if y'all can't come up with a plan that works best for y'all. Show him exactly how much that stuff costs, and go over each other's finances to see what y'all can afford.

Budgeting and money are so tough. The best advice about planning that I received was for each person to write down the three things you want more than anything and are willing to put money into (photographer, open bar, guests bringing plus ones, flowers, your dress, DJ, good food, top shelf liquor, whatever is YOUR personal top three "must haves"). After you both take time and think about it (we gave ourselves a week), come back together and focus on having those 3-6 items (and maybe some will overlap!). Then, build your budget around those. For example, neither my fiance or I picked flowers. So our floral budget is super low and we're working within that. But, we both wanted a videographer, so we put more money into that. My fiance wanted to buy his suit instead of rent (which wasn't on my list) so that's in the budget. It just helped us both be equally invested.

I know my fiance and I originally struggled because I plan events for my job and had a much better idea of cost for different vendors. So I knew what was realistic while he thought we could get away with much less. If you're the one reaching out and getting quotes, maybe that's what's happening? I'm sure you will figure it out and hopefully you will both have a better idea of how you communicate about money (since it will always be an ongoing discussion!). Best of luck!

View Quoted Comment Thank you!!! Yeah, I’ve been doing most of the planning/reaching out to vendors whereas FH has been very much focused on building the budget, and obviously there was a misunderstanding about how much things actually cost lol. He seemed to think I was being passive aggressive when I suggested he take over finding somewhere within his budget, but I actually think he’ll be really surprised when he starts hitting walls left and right on costs. I normally love living in Nashville, but not so much right now 😂

OUR SOLUTION:

We decided to Elope.

MY RECOMMENDATION:

Though, it sounds like no matter what you recommend your FH isn't having it. Have you tried turning it around on him and asking him, if he really wants all of this, what is his solution? If he doesn't have one, than it's the beginning of a discussion.

If you are having issues like this now, you will in the future, as well. Being strong and having a united front on your finances is very important.

HOW WE GOT TO ELOPEMENT:

Btw...I'm paying for 75% of our elopement/honeymoon because he is an electrician apprentice and doesn't make too much right now, but will in the future. Thankfully I planned ahead. My making more money though, doesn't matter to us. We still jointly make all of our decisions...its "our' money.

I couldn't handle the stress of wedding planning..just didn't go well with my own health issues. Everyone wanted too much from us. All my FH wanted was to get married at the courthouse, and all I wanted was to get married in nature with something as simple as courthouse but not courthouse. The planning sucked and eventually he kept adding and adding guests to the list, cause he thought I was planning a regular wedding. One day I got my courage up and I said, why are we doing this? You know what our answers were? "I thought that's what you wanted..." HA!

So I budgeted the cost of out-of-state Elopement (which I had budgeted before, and thought it would cost too much but the farther along in the wedding process we went the costs of wedding kept growing) to TN (we live in WI but LOVE TN), and we realized we could have exactly what we wanted (small wedding w/ nature) AND be able to go on our honeymoon for UNDER the cost of just a wedding PLUS still be under our original budget. It was a done deal after that. We just kept to our guns and told everyone, SORRY this is what we want, and really its about you marrying your husband and loving him and being with him for the rest of your life doing things together the way you want to do them...everything else doesn't matter.

My original budget was $5k.

Once we started planning we agreed $10k budget.

Once we kept planning and realized $10k wouldn't cut it, I switched to double-checking the cost of Elopement. Don't have final numbers until we return from our honeymoon (our wedding is 4.13.19), BUT right now its looking like for Elopement + Honeymoon we'll be at total cost of $8,900 (which includes the money we lost out on for our venue deposit). I'm very happy with that..but deep down I'd be happier if it was $5k or under HA!

WISH YOU LOADS UP LUCK!

HE needs to help come up with a solution and get involved in the planning/vendor talks. Because we did a “divide & conquer’ approach my hubby was equally shocked to learn about the high prices of everything: venues, musicians, rentals, etc.

Honestly, 170 guests seems too much! At $100/person that’s already $17K in food fees alone! I’d personally want a nicer wedding and cut guests to 75-100 MAX. If parents/FH throw a fit I’d opt for an afternoon wedding + cake & punch reception only in a church or community hall and say screw it to such a high expense. Not worth it.

I would gather several vendor's proposals/brochures/quotes/whatever, go to Starbucks or your favorite cafe, get some coffee and some food and sit down together and go over everything with no phone, tv, or any kinds of distractions.

He needs to feel like he's part of the process and also needs to see for himself that you're not just inventing these prices. Then, you can come up with a plan of attack whether that's a) accepting the higher cost, or b) figuring out strategies to lower the cost.

Just sit and talk it out in a friendly environment with the numbers in front of you.

This is what worked for me and has made my wedding planning much easier.