Budget!

Started at $15,000 and will end up around $23,000. We live in a crazy expensive area. Biggest up was from the catering. When we booked all other caterers were booked and we had to go with the most expensive one. Food better be damn good. We also had to postpone so have an extra year to save!

We did not raise our budget necessarily, we just went over budget by $5,000. I think going over budget is fairly common in the wedding planning world.

View Quoted Comment We split the cost 3-ways with our parents as well, so it wasn't a huge hit personally. We also actually ended up getting about that same amount in monetary gifts from guests. While we obviously did not have the wedding for the gifts, the result made the initial costs much easier to stomach.

View Quoted Comment Yes! I agree, the food better be yummy.

View Quoted Comment I agree, it's rare when one stays within budget.

View Quoted Comment Okay, that is a positive outcome. Thanks for sharing.

Oh I totally increased that budget!

View Quoted Comment Yes, that's definitely the norm.

We may actually come in just below budget before it is all said and done. Our wedding was never huge, and new covid costs were covered by things we had to cut. We have also been super lucky. My venue is perfect...but now many other county parks have banquet halls right in the water? FH’s Aunt is the facilities coordinator for a large church and she’s doing all our floral and making a good chunk of decor AND being my day of coordinator. We had connections for great deals on the DJ and the cake. We lucked out and found a father/daughter photographer team that really specialize in mid sized weddings and and a bartender with great reviews and reasonable prices. However, I could see how things would have been way more expensive.

View Quoted Comment Wow that is very impressive! It's rare when someone is under budget.

I will say, I've increased a little bit since I first set the budget. I mean honestly when I first got engaged I was hoping to make it happen at X number, but I didn't even count that as an original budget, just a number I thought I could make it happen, but then I started itemizing some things and realized that was unrealistic for what I wanted. I re-looked at my personal budget and looked to see what I could set aside each month for a more realistic budget. My wedding budget is double my original number, but I've actually stayed pretty close to the budget I set.

One of the benefits to getting married in 2020 is that vendors tend to be very accommodating. The venue for my daughter's wedding cut their fees in half for the remainder of 2020 and the photographer knocked off $200. We ended up coming in under budget.

View Quoted Comment Okay thanks for sharinf. It's pretty common to increase it.

View Quoted Comment Oh nice. Coming in under budget is rare!

We didn't set a hard and fast number, so much as went with "value for money."

Ironically, we got married in NYC for about $30k, but our breakdown looked NOTHING like that graphic!

That said, certain things like venue, photography, videography, and such cost MORE in the big city, so we saved on stuff like my dress (sample sale!), fake flowers, using Etsy for invites, and so on.

View Quoted Comment Oooo my goodness. $30,000 is more than my student loan debt. If I lived in NYC, I would have just gotten married at their beautiful city hall.

View Quoted Comment Believe me, in NYC, $30k is about half of the average cost.


It's ridiculous.
(And you get married at the clerk's office. In front of a photo of City Hall.)

View Quoted Comment Clerk's office in front of a photo of the city Hall at an affordable cost OR $30,000 to $60,000 debt for me with a wedding... When I already have student loan debt and will get zero financial help from my family?
I'll take choice number one. As insignificant as the clerk's office may be perceived by others, I'll feel special with my FH, no matter where we marry.

View Quoted Comment 100%


But getting our license we were kind of confused by the photo of city hall, when city hall was... right there!