Budget crisis

I am in the same situation. Everything is adding up to about 18K as well. We are currently at 85 people , possibly 100 guests.
Most of our $$$ will go to venue/reception. We are lucky to have found a venue with good reception package.
Photo/Video and DJ will eat up 30% of the budget. 🤯

I don't know what area of the country you're in, but this seems reasonable to me... And I'm totally there with you, my budget also started at 10k and grew from there. 😭 If your venue includes everything it might be worth the expense. I totally never fully realized how expensive it was to host a party for 100 people before until I started planning my wedding! 😂

You can cut down photo costs by hiring someone that's free or cheaper in exchange for them using you to enhance their portfolio and experience.

Agree this depends a lot on your location, but in general reception-related items (venue, food, beverage) will be about half the total budget. So, if your venue and caterer are $10,000, odds are your total cost will be at least $20,000. Wedding sticker shock is REAL. Before we started, the wedding cost calculators for our location suggested the wedding would cost $30,000. We assumed that was crazy, and figured $20,000 was more realistic. Guess what???? When we were done, the total was about $31,000 for 100 people.... (And, daughter didn't have anything excessive and comparison shopped for EVERYTHING! We live in SoCal, so a high-cost area.) Hang-in! Once you have a realistic idea, it gets easier to stick with it.

It's definitely possible to have a cheaper wedding, but it takes more work and might not be exactly what you want. I live in Maryland and the average wedding cost here is high, but our total will be about $12k. It just takes compromise in some areas. But, if you can afford it, it isn't too bad. Just know your budget may go up a little after you do more research and make final decisions.

To keep our costs down I'm researching photographers like crazy because while having those precious memories mean a lot to me, I don't want to pay $3000 for them! And in my area, anyway, it is possible. But it's taking some time to find someone young, yet responsible and a quality photographer. Also we plan on hiring a family friend as our "sound guy" instead of a DJ and we'll try to find a friend /family member to do announcements. Flowers we'll be buying from a wholesale place (but since we're not pros we'll have to pay stays tax on top) and arrange them ourselves since I did it with my mom for my brother's wedding already and enjoyed it. (I don't know if you mean flowers are included as "decor" but I wouldn't imagine so.)
So you can still make cuts but it depends on your abilities and time frame! Good luck!

Oh also... I suggest cutting favors. Regardless of how cute they are, they're typically forgotten and left behind by guests. I'll be slowly collecting things for welcome bags for out of town guests but no favors at the reception.

I don’t see expenses for wedding clothes, dj, flowers, make up and hair , limos, and don’t forget you need to tip the people who work your wedding. $ 18,000 is very reasonable for 100 people.

I think two of the easiest things to cut are favors and flowers. Most rose bridal boquets for example have 2 dozen roses....that's huge!! You could get the same look with half the flowers and save lots of money. Don't do floral centerpieces, stick with whatever the venue has available. You can easily skip boutonnieres for the guys other than your FI. Cut down the bridesmaid bouquets. I think a great way to do this too is to have a few inspiration photos and a set floral budget, and just let the florist create with whatever is on hand and in season to stay within your budget.

No one cares about favors.

Maybe skip STD's. They are not necessary and I assume that most of your guest is someone that you talk to regularly (or maybe your parents do). Just spread by word of mouth or send a quick email.

Another thing that is expensive but kind of unnecessary is fancy signage everywhere, It's pretty, but absolutely no one will notice if you don't have it.

I'd say this is pretty standard. My wedding is 200 people and costing $25k. Our venue is $5250 but provides no decor or linens. I also started at $10k and quickly realized my hopes were unrealistic. I had a long engagement so I had some time to save up. My fiance and I each save $600/month to cover the costs. It's possible! You just have to be disciplined and don't touch the savings unless it's for wedding expenses

Our original budget was 10k and we quickly realized we had to raise it to 15k in order to have the wedding we wanted (and we ended up actually spending around 17k). We also had 100 people so that seems like about what you’ll end up spending, depending on what your priorities are.


It’s difficult to make suggestions on where to cut because I’m not sure how you’ve budgeted that 18k already. But some ways we saved were:Music: For the ceremony, my friend (who is 1 year away from being a professional) played the flute and I just got him a small gift rather than having to pay for a musician, for our cocktail hour and dinner my mom’s friend played the guitar (and only charged us $100 for 2 hours of music) and then used a Spotify playlist instead of a DJ for the rest of the reception Officiant: having my brother officiate (which we wanted to do anyway, but it was just a bonus that it was free lol)Centerpieces: skipping centerpieces (we literally just had candles in the center of the tables that the venue provided, and it’s not like anyone missed the fancy centerpieces...)Flowers: lowering the flower budget (I spent $100 on flowers total... $70 for my professional bouquet and $30 total for flowers from the grocery store that we used to DIY 4 bridesmaid bouquets).Favors: skipping favors lolBar: we did a wine-only bar rather than full open bar. Hair: I had a junior stylist from the salon I usually go to do my hair, and she charged $150 (including transportation, and including a trial) which is much lower than most bridal stylists. Makeup: did my own
And also pretty much just declining every upgrade or “extra” thing. A beautiful venue, good food, drinks, being surrounded by the people who are important to us, and a good photographer and videographer to capture the day. Those were our priorities and where we allocated the vast majority of our funds!

Oh and I totally left out, we also had a Sunday wedding and had it at lunch instead of dinner, which made us able to get away with serving fewer courses (we had hors douvres, a salad, and then the main course) AND lowered the alcohol tab

I hope you find ways to whittle, mabye diy stuff, or go to facebook marketplace/craigslist for stuff you want and resell later. We are finding more and more things to buy, like gifts for our wedding party and parents, our hotel room for the wedding night, and a lot of other random things that are making expenses go up. I'm overestimating and working to do things for a lower cost if possible.

Ugh i'm so sorry. this is awful. i had a dream budget of 10k also. my DH said he'll do 15k. so i settled..... i still went well over that. i would say try to add more DIY but if your venue includes that its very difficult. I would maybe try to shop around a little more with your other vendors? see if you can find some one a little cheaper but good quality.

I had a total of 104 people and our wedding costed $7,000.

Our budget is 5K for 130 people. I am doing a lot of the work myself. Shop around. Plan early. It's totally doable if you are willing to make the effort. You have to decide what is really important to you.

It honestly sounds just about right, we were set that our budget wouldn't be much more than $10,000 but after it all it was close to $20,000 or $25,000 if you count our honeymoon. We saved hard for one year and my mother gave me my dress as my gift and my husbands parents bought his suit as his gift. Everything else we paid for ourselves. It helped to just buy the things that we could when they were on sale and store them because sometimes it was out of stock or never coming back. I could have easily spent twice that but I was not trying to go crazy.

If you can do it it is a great price.
I have 150-250ppl, and looks like $45,000 is it.... fml.

I'm doing the same thing right now. When I started to budget all the cost of rentals and how much for at least 100 ppl (I have a very big family) it actually came out to more than a venue and the help they offer. So he got what he wanted for a venue and I should still be within budget of possibly $13,000 at the most after all is said and done with a few extras for not going with all their vendors. Let me know how your doing with your planning.

Girl sticker shock is so real! We were planning a 150-200 person local wedding and my projections showed us spending over $20k (we don't have that kind of money! AND we just bought a house!). We cancelled everything, moved our date up, cut our guest list to 50 people and are having a semi-destination wedding weekend with our close friends and families. Our new photographer is more expensive and we have to factor in hotel costs but we cut that $20k budget in half and should end up right around $10k AND will get to spend 4 days celebrating our wedding! I wanted to elope and fiance wanted a huge wedding so this is the best compromise we could come up with.