Budget talk

We figured out who is giving us what, if the money we get from parents is specifically for certain areas (is his parents would pay for the DJ and rehearsal dinner and my parents gave us 10k towards anything) then how much we could afford to put in (together we can do 5-7k) this our budget was created- $16k for approx 110 people. Then I broke it down to what would be the biggest chunk- gave 10.5k to our venue incl food, cake, alcohol, linens. Flowers typically 1200 (got ours for 500), 150 for our officiant, 2000 for photographer (we ended up with 1200), 800 for dress and accessories (went over that budget ) 300 for his outfit, 300 for WP gifts, 800 for rings, etc etc.


what helped us out is our the most was going to a bridal show, grabbing ALL of the brochures and doing calculations of avg cost in your area at home, then figuring what you want to splurge on and what you want to cut down on. Buy the things you want to cut down on first so you know how much wiggle room you have for the splurging

That was really long, i’m Sorry. I hope it helped though

Thank you! I needed to see details like that to clear my mind lol
My parents are paying for the venue, in laws are taking care of the rehearsal dinner, grandparents are paying for my dress and cake! So that helps with a big chunk!

View Quoted Comment Buying the things you want to cut down on first so you know how much wiggle room you have for splurges is a great piece of advice! Thanks!

We figured we wanted to get married nov 2020 and could save about 850 a month which gives us a 15k budget. Our venue is 11k all inclusive minus photography so 4k for photography, rings, gifts, etc.

(Our honeymoon is going to be paid for as a wedding gift from my dad)

We are doing a DW and we made our budget for 10K with some flexibility to go up to 15K.. not more than that... so far we are at 11K with everything, plus whatever we spend there.. we decided what we were comfortable spending and then worked around that #.. cutting guests, more affordable resort (my # 2 choice instead of my #1).. and so on.. we are paying for everything ourselves.. your budget depends on your location, guests and how fancy you want to go about it..

My mom gave us a cash gift upfront. That, plus what we could each save every month for 15 months became our initial budget.

We went over by thousands (stuff cost more than we thought & we decided to do more) so we put the overage on our credit cards and paid it off in a few months.

I think the first thing you should do is reach out to vendors and get quotes (multiple ones for the same things). You need to see what things cost. Then you can gather your quotes, pick what is most important and then where you can cut within what you can realistically afford. A lot of people will be like “my budget is $5,000” in New York City and that can be a little unrealistic unless you are super savvy.

Oh you also should leave wriggle room. So say you can definitely afford $10,000, you should aim for $8,000 so you are stressing of where to find money.



You will most certainly always go over budget! There ae small things you do not even think of. One thing is postage. It can cost a lot and I wish I just did all online instead of a paid envelope that maybe only 60% sent back. I know it ended up being only $20 wasted, but that definitely adds up fast in wedding land!

I set a 15k budget up front for our destination wedding. We are having a small intimate wedding with 30 people so I started at 10k but then bumped it to 15k taking into consideration the “premium tax” in our location and that it’s not an off season. The 15k accounts for all travel and lodging too.

I set a budget of what I felt was reasonable and low enough that I'd be ok to spend with but I found quickly that wasn't a good budget ahah and so I did have to raise it. I found that after starting to get quotes and seeing how much it'd really cost. Wedding things cost so much more than I thought it would. Go with what you can afford or what you can realistically save up towards by x time.