Budgets--tell me your tales

We figured our budget the exact same way. We decided what we were comfortable spending out of our current savings, then added the amount that we could realistically save each month.

Guest experience was number one for us, so we knew that good food and an open bar were a top priority, right next to a quality photographer. There are some (unnecessary) things that we wanted, but had to skip out on to afford those priorities, like a photo booth and some décor. Our dream venue was double the cost of the venue we booked and we were super bummed, but we know that we ultimately made the right choice. The more expensive venue would have meant cutting our guest list by at least 25% and that wasn't an option for us. Some other sacrifices we made were extravagant florals and doing cupcakes instead of a tiered cake.

Our goal is guest experience as well. Our venue is free so that is saving us quite a bit. I'm not planning on having much decor or even a DJ.

I started off with a budget of $20,000 for a wedding guest list of 175 in Virginia Beach.

Overall I have definitely been able to stay under budget. I splurged a bit on the venue (it was just TOO perfect), but was able to save in other areas such as photography and flowers.

So far, my all-in amount is at about $17,000

The main thing you need to figure out first is what vendor is most important for you, whether it is the venue, catering, photography, flowers, etc.

From there, start to get pricing for all the above and see where that leads. Then you can start getting an idea of what a reasonable budget may be for you. Budgets can differ from bride to bride depending on financial support from family, geographic location and availability of vendors, as well as just what you feel is justifiable to spend for your wedding.

There are definitely ways to cut back when it comes to looking for vendors; DIY projects, Facebook Marketplace is great, looking at preowned wedding dresses rather than one from a boutique, using more greenery than flowers.

Good luck!

We knew we wanted certain type of food and that alone was expensive. I was more adamant about the food than anything else and where I'm from that type of food doesn't go below $500 a table. And our guest list was kind of non negotiable too. So eventually we decided ok we are spending mostly on food so we had to figure out ways to make the other aspects of our wedding work on a budget.

After I got over my 'let's just elope/ake you just skyrocketed our costs' thing, we talked about our dream budget (5-6k) as well as wedding preferences. Well, after doing some research, we realized we couldn't make that happen on that dime in my area. So we went back to the drawing table, so to speak. We upped our budget to 10k from that, and each individual item had a max budget line. We were able to stay solidly in the budget from there.

Our budget is $5000 and with the help of our friends and family we expect to be in far under that. That being said we're forgoing a lot of things the wedding industry convinces us we need to have that in reality nobody will remember a week after. We're not getting a DJ, we're only inviting a few people. Anything we'll only use once has to be very inexpensive or already used. I don't let myself get caught up in stuff like having everything match a theme or look super fancy. That being said my wedding is the biggest one in a decade in my family and everyone is excited and I worry we should spend more on certain things to get closer to people's expectations but in the end the wedding is about the couple and if people are going to think less of you because something isn't the perfect vision then they don't care about you and your future spouce.

We started with our savings and she decided she wanted to cash out some stocks for the wedding and honeymoon. It helped a lot!!! We started with our venue. We knew we wanted to rent a house on the beach but most of the places here charge an extra $1,500.00 just to have an event. Since most of the venues were at least half our budget we just couldn't justify it until I took a chance and looked at another location by us with beach front properties. We found the one under what we had already accepted as what we would have to pay and the back yard is beyond perfect for what we want.

I ordered my dress online through a vendor that was willing to work with me and altered the dress to make sure it would fit my body, I only paid $100!!! We are hiring friends of friends for catering and photography (we've seen how they work and are thrilled) so there are no "wedding upcharges" to inflate the bill. I will be doing my own hair and make-up with help from a friend and probably her sister. I did not want to watch flowers die so instead of bouquets we will each be carrying a book with our vows in it, each one truly represents us, and I had a corsage made from old comics for $20. We're getting a one tier cake and 4 dozen cupcakes from the bakery we love for less than $200, and will have other assorted desserts from Costco we can cut up and put out for guests not into cake. We also skipped the DJ, I just finished the playlist and we have speakers that will be loud enough when synced. We're utilizing as much of what is already in the house so our rental furniture with delivery and pick-up is less than $250. The biggest cut was skipping the full bar and instead grabbing wine and beer when it goes on sale and making one signature drink. We wanted to avoid tempting our guests to do shots anyway. The only other big expense was the officiant but we're also asking him to drive through the most expensive toll tunnel in the area on a Thursday for the legal ceremony. Our good friend is handfasting us the following Saturday.

It feels like so much when I type it but other than the venue and the dress it all fell into place so quickly.

I didn't start with a budget at first. I knew I didn't want to spend a lot tho. Down to the wire now with only 2 months to go. Final cost: $8200. And yes I got everything I wanted. Best advice is to wheel and deal with some of your vendors. As long as you don't mind doing a little extra work. Example; caterer is only doing the meats for me. I'm doing all the sides and I kept it simple but I also have help. Cake maker, swapped the tree rounds for money off my order since those are in high demand right now and she needs them. Just do some research too. So many things online for cheap if you find the right website. Honey helps find you deals too.

We had to up our budget after finding out how much everything cost. I thought we could pull off the wedding we wanted for under $1k. Boy was I wrong

I am one of the lucky bride's who has financial help from, not only my parents, but also my FW's parents. Once both sets of parents gave us their amounts, my FW and I had a conversation to decide if that would cover everything, or if we wanted to add more. I've had a fairly elaborate wedding planned most of my life, so we decided we felt comfortable doubling the budget given to us by our parents.

The most important things for us was that our guests enjoy themselves (ie: good food and bar), an amazing photographer and videographer, and a gorgeous venue! We started researching what the average cost of the major items and booked what was most important to us first. As of now, we are coming in under budget because we keep an eye out of sales (we got our STD's and invitations during a huge sale saving us over $450 total).

I hear you! Our budget was $9000. We are moving out the day we get married so we are pretty much starting from scratch. We had to keep in mind we still have to buy things for our apartment, let alone the wedding stuff! I've actually had to let go of a lot of ideas I had, just because there's not enough time and money for them. But I'm still so excited for it to all come together. It will probably be a relief once the wedding is over, knowing we didn't completely break the bank!

Our parents are paying for the full wedding besides a few things FH's parents are chipping in for. I started by seeing what my parents were willing to contribute. My mom said I could have $10k for the wedding. After doing some research, I realized that the $10k budget wouldn't get us very far in Nashville (most venues start at $5k). After reaching out to about 40 venues in the area, my mom suggested I expand our search to Northern Alabama (only about 1 1/2 hours from where we are and the same distance from my hometown to my current town so my family's drive wouldn't be any different). After looking at several places online, I found the perfect venue right on the AL/TN line about 10 minutes from FH's hometown for a great price. Since he's from a really small town, our vendors are also a lot cheaper! We've been able to get everything we wanted and upgraded a lot of things while staying around budget. We'll probably end up around $13k, but my mom is fine with it since I've been doing a ton of research and have gotten things a lot cheaper than expected! She's, actually, been the one that's wanted me to upgrade things.

We didn’t have any savings towards the wedding and only four months to come up with the funds. We weren’t comfortable dipping into emergency savings or our house fund to afford a wedding but time wasn’t on our side, either. I would never recommend paying for a wedding this way.
If I could do it over I’d save and plan a year in advance so I was worry free, but somehow things are coming together. We’re spending about $4000 but through perseverance and blood/sweat/tears we’ve managed to pay for everything that was important to us and now I’m extremely excited about our wedding!

We just kinda threw the budget out the window and went with "splurge here and there" don't go crazy.
But we don't consider the honeymoon a wedding cost, even though it's in the wedding budget calculators.
At the end of the day, it's one day. I'm not going to go into debt for months and months for it.

View Quoted Comment Smart lady!! Our budget is also $5000 and we are also doing things differently and not doing many of the things the wedding industry suggests we do.

When I got engaged, I told my FH I wasn't spending more than $10K on this wedding. I was married once before in 2002, and spent about $7K so I figured it was a reasonable number. The other day, we sat down and did a budget worksheet. Cutting as many corners as we thought feasible at the time, our proposed budget based on that sheet is $19K! And I wouldn't consider this a fancy wedding at all. That doesn't include alcohol, trims our guest list down to where I know there are going to be hurt feelings, and doesn't include any bells or whistles like a dessert bar or signage or anything.

What surprised me most was the little things, like $200 for postage for Save the Dates and invitations and response cards... That's literally more than I paid for my dress AND headpiece! Since I know postage is going to go up in January, I bought the forever stamps now. I'm figuring even a few dollars will make a big difference overall.

So now we start to negotiate. We've only booked our venue so far, so we have time to shop around and figure out the best bang for our buck. Fingers crossed we can come in under the $15K mark.