Budget

View Quoted Comment To each their own 🤷🏽‍♀️ We’ve been together 8 years and wanted our dream wedding. We were lucky enough we could afford it all upfront with no debt.

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But it's not really "to each their own" is it? Our culture does really hype up the wedding/ ceremony/ rings/ etc and forgets there's a marriage behind it. In fact, even here on the boards, people encourage longer courtships to save for their "dream wedding" if that's what they want. Statistically, marriages are less likely to last with longer courtships because event driven relationships aren't as stable as intrinsically driven ones. It really is an interesting thing to contemplate.

View Quoted Comment “Event driven relationships” as in you’re together to have a wedding is clearly ridiculous and it makes sense that wouldn’t last. But if you have a solid relationship and want to have a longer engagement to have a bigger wedding go for it. It literally only affects the people involved so I’m not sure why you care so much.

Under 10K, not including the rings. My dress is already paid for I will have to pay for any alterations if needed. 75 ppl and thats where we are trying to keep it. Its not been easy but when you know where to cut corners and get discounts you take it.

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No, event driven relationships means that external factors are influencing decision making and not internal factors between the couple. For example, moving in together to save money on rent. Getting married because that's the "next step" in a longer term relationship.

I care because this kind of stuff interests me. It's part of my life and career, the study of what other people do.

View Quoted Comment That’s interesting. I think it depends on the couple. If you’re talking about the research I think you are, by Professors Francis-Tan and Mialon, it was only about a 3,000 sample size so you’d have to draw general conclusions from that’s and apply it to an obviously larger population size. Nonetheless, it doesn’t seem like the best idea to make relationship moves based on things like saving money, but at the end of the day life is messy and you do what you think is best.

With regard to weddings specifically, there absolutely is an idea of what you “should do” but conversely just because you’re having a big or expensive wedding doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. As long as you have the means I think you should do whatever you want to with your wedding—as simple or extravagant as you want. We didn’t wait 8 years to save up for a dream wedding, we just waited until we felt like we were ready to get married and luckily had the funds to have our dream wedding.

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No, I'm not referring to one study. There have been several done since the 60s on what makes a marriage last. A lot of them had indicators with amount spent on the wedding and courtship times. Really, I'm going to have to agree with Tiffany a little here. You seem overly defensive about someone asserting the opinion that expensive weddings don't make a lot of sense. You keep personalizing something that's not personal.

We can agree to disagree 🙂

Your location matters. I live in Philadelphia (a major city) so, the typical wedding for something’s that not a whole in the wall ranges from at least 10,000 to 30,000. Our surrounding cities are as close as South New Jersey and some suburban, country club areas which are significantly higher. Our guest list is around 160. We found a great place for about $13,000. My family is having 5 weddings in 2020. All in the Philadelphia region.
1 cousin is paying approximately $16,000,
1 cousin is paying approximately $11,000,
1 cousin is paying approximately $14,000
the other is paying around $13,000 too.

Except the $11,000 cousin all of ours come with an open bar which we all found as a necessity. They’re all ballroom types and they all fit are made to accommodate a 150+ guest list. Buffet food is included in the price. Table linens, tables, centerpieces and venue is doing my set up and break down.

It depends on what you want and need.

I will add this doesn’t include dresses, makeup, suits, honeymoon, DJ & photographer etc.

Our honeymoon is $2,000. Our DJ is $1200. Our photographer is $800.

We have 13 months to pay everything off while getting the last of what we need. Our finances shifted to match our upcoming costs but not where we are in debt or need to take out loans etc. it’s all about budgeting, timelines and knowing your expenses beforehand.

He’s completely taking over the house costs for the next year and I’m solely working towards the wedding. It comes out even in costs. Our parents are supporting partially but we also have it in mind to cover all costs by ourselves.

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Wow. That really blew my mind. How did you triple an 80k budget? Like, I can't even think of what wedding items are that expensive for a moderately small wedding. No judgement, just curious.

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We are spending 27k when all is said and done 😩 we wanted to be at 10k but with over 100 guests in our area for what we wanted that just was not realistic. That includes $3100 for our 5 night all inclusive honeymoon and everything else!

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No one is disagreeing. We are discussing a topic.

We didn't set a budget going in. We really had no idea what to expect. I would say the first step is to look around for a venue and get some pricing on ones you like. Make a rough guest list (we originally had just over 100 people, ours has grown a little over planning time). It doesn't have to be exact, but just a rough number to go on because the cost of feeding 50 people will obviously vary greatly from feeding 250 people. Decide what important to you from the get go. Photography? DJ? Dress? There are ways to lower costs in some areas. For example, hiring a new photographer trying to build their portfolio will save you major costs, but make sure you trust their work (even if you do an engagement shoot with them to see what they can do). Skipping a DJ and just making a playlist on your phone and hooking it to speakers (obviously way cheaper, but a DJ is a huge part of making your reception fun, keeping things moving, and getting people to dance). Most wedding dresses will run you $****. But you could cut costs by buying off the rack or buying used (I will be honest, I wish I had explored some used options first because most are in perfect condition for a fraction of the cost - check out stillwhite.com). After you figure out what's priority, price those things first, and there's the beginning of your budget. Add things on as you go. And then decide how much per paycheck you can afford to put towards the wedding, figure out how long it will take you to come up with the money, and give yourself a couple months extra (in case something comes up). We decided on a date before we even thought about money, and at times it has been super stressful trying to figure out how we were going to pull it off. But, it can be done. Sorry this is so long. We were so clueless and unorganized and have been learning as we go. Feel free to message me and I'll give you more details on the different components of our budget, but honeymoon included, we will land somewhere around $13k-13.5k.

Our budget is about 12K (not including FH ring/honeymoon/invites/std) bc that is what my parents are giving us. FH family is paying for rehearsal dinner (coming in around $2000-$2500). We were able to find a beautiful venue for just $1800 and my bridesmaids family (i've known them since we were 12) has all the linens, drapery, lighting, etc we'd need in the venue. We are saving A LOT of money there. Venue is owned by a caterer and she's only $17.50 a head. I was able to book my photographer right before he raised his prices (my package was $1500 and it is now $4000!) and my brother knows the DJ so he is cutting us a deal. Using the Amish for the flowers and fresh flowers for all bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages, centerpieces, and it will come to about $600. All in all, we've really been able to get what we want for the budget we've been given.

We plan to do Disney World for our honeymoon. My MOH works there and will give us the tickets free and get us a significant hotel discount so we will stay in a nicer resort than we have in the past, for a longer amount of time, and spend time enjoying the pool/resort as well as the parks!

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My FH is from the Philly area and we are currently located in MD. Venues weren't super cheap here but he said going back up to the Philly area was much higher so we elected to solely look down here.

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I was initially hesitant to post this, as I didn't want to to be attacked by anyone, but everyone here has been very helpful for budgets of all sizes!

FH and I had thought that our initial budget would be more than enough. But winery weddings are expensive, and my parents and I wanted a more grand affair. My parents are paying for like 80% of the wedding and where I am from huge weddings are the norm. I didn't want a huge wedding in terms of number of guests (mine is estimated to be between 120-140 people) but I really wanted to cater to them.

Things that added up and more than tripled our budget include: Around 10k for the venue in Wine Country, $50-60k for catering and some rentals (we will be having a lot of food with seafood towers etc.), $30-40k for flowers (envisioned a super floral heavy decor), 8k for two AirBNBs in Sonoma for our wedding party, $30k for the honeymoon. Then you have the full-service wedding planner DJ, photographer, make-up, shuttles for our guests (to bring them to the afterparty then drop them off at home), other rentals and decor, rehearsal dinner, gifts, wedding party attire etc. It all added up.

A lot of my guests will be traveling for this wedding, so we decided to pay for whatever we could while they are in Wine Country.

All in all I am so ready to marry the love of my life and do it with a bang!

Really depends on venue style, number of guests, where you're located, what your vision is. Our budget is around 16K for 100 people in Arizona, not including dress or honeymoon. 11K combined for venue, food and dj. 2.5K for the photographer. We're planning to do the decor and florals ourselves (not a floral heavy wedding) putting aside about 1K for that. 1.5K for other things that will come up.

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Wowww. That is a wedding I would want to attend lol. A seafood tower!! I can't wait to see pictures! Also, I see you are going to Maldives so are we! Where are you staying?