Did you stick to your budget?

We tried to stick to our budget as much as possible. For our budget, we had it broken down into categories, but they were very fluid. For instance, we budgeted x amount for flowers, but I spent under that so whatever I had left over could have been spent on something else. We tried to keep track as much as possible of what we were spending, but I'm sure we looked over some things. We also didn't include our honeymoon in our wedding budget whereas I know some people do. Originally, a videographer wasn't included in our budget because my husband felt it was unnecessary. I completely disagreed. A videographer was one of my top must haves so we ended up splurging on that. I am so thankful we did. I love our wedding video and I plan on watching it every anniversary.

We decided to pay for our wedding in cash and we have definitely stuck to our budget in full. We will have zero debt when we make our final payment. And I did not have to sacrifice anything. I believe we have made wise decisions and splurged where we wanted to.

I am a horrible person to ask this. I started off the most laid-back non-bride bride ever. I was completely convinced I was going to have the most inexpensive wedding. Well, that’s not going to happen. I have blown the budget waaaaay out of the water. And it’s still going up LOL I think having a long engagement tends to screw with your budget- the longer you have to look at things and think and plan, the more ideas you get and the more things you want to add here and there that eventually add up to a ton of money without you even realizing it 🤦🏼‍♀️

I am still running numbers on miscellaneous purchases but I think we fell under our initial budget! We saved on our venue cost and found a place $2000 under what we were thinking we’d spend. Even under budget I feel like we didnt “miss out” on anything. One thing that saved us the most money was renting centerpieces! We bought real florals so that was our splurge.

We did go over our general budget. Our venue came with quite a lot but was more than what we were expecting to pay, yet it was the cheapest we could find that we liked for the amount of guests that we're inviting. The price could end up going back down once we start getting declines. I think my splurge are the save the dates and invites. Definitely wasn't necessary but I really wanted it to match the theme of our wedding. I don't regret it cause they're absolutely gorgeous. We didn't go over budget on some personal spendings like our attire, jewelry, etc. It just all really depends. It can change sometimes.

But it is important to note when you build your initial budget actual costs of vendors near you versus what you think they will be!

View Quoted Comment I agree with this sooooo much.
My FH got married before in western pa and was able to have a fairly inexpensive wedding so when we first started planning he had some really REALLY low and unrealistic numbers for where we live.
We initially didn’t want to do more than 15k for our wedding but the prices of venues around here made us increase that. We’re looking at landing between 19 and 21k, not including the honeymoon. I was able to pay for that with my tax refund. But as far as staying on budget, I think we’re doing really well. Guess we will see after November 21st how we did.

I didnt aha. I set an original one of 10k or so and then moved it to 15k and then after I ended up spending 16k which was not too far off but still over

Nope. We didn’t stick to it. Weddings cost even more than we originally thought, our DIY costs got out of hand, and then we intentionally chose extra things.


Original budget for DW & local reception: $18,500Actual cost for two events: $28K+
No regrets! YOLO. And our original budget was unrealistic, plus our actual cost was affordable for us. That’s key. Only spend what you can afford.

We set a budget of 30k and were a bit over with our honeymoon, we decided to cancel our luxury honeymoon and save 6k, take a week at our favorite beach for 1k and right now it’s sitting at 25,500 for everything including tips for vendors!

View Quoted Comment I totally relate to this! We’ve been engaged almost 18 months now and I still text my mom with new ideas lol. I haven’t discarded anything that I’ve already spent money on, but I totally need to just focus on the plans we already have.

Our budget is set for $10k for everything, honeymoon included. We did say that if we went over 10k then we still wanted to keep it under 15k. The venue alone was $8,000 but is all inclusive. So far I think we are doing decently. But we will see once we are all finished.

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View Quoted Comment Absolutely! Initially I was listening to my friend that got married this last year how much she paid but found out quickly she got lucky on a few vendors, one being a new venue who now has a wayyy higher cost than what she paid when she booked it almost three years ago.

We changed our budget so many times I don’t even know anymore 😂 our original budget was 10k but we realized that wasn’t even possible so we changed it to 15k. We ended up spending about 17k but we deliberately broke it. We theoretically could’ve kept it at 15k, but then we decided to add more to our alcohol package and to add videography. We felt like at that point we may as well spend a couple extra thousand to have everything we wanted.

We’ve been engaged for 21 months and now have another 14.5 to go! (Boo COVID). We’ve already blown our budget out of the water 😅. We’re getting married in the Hudson Valley region in NY though and turns out it’s quite expensive to host a wedding there! We definitely splurged on the venue and on food, which are the most important to us so I’m ok with it.

Well... our budget started at $14,000... and to accommodate all the extras/things we want, we are looking at $24,000. We will have the wedding paid in full, in cash, one month prior to the wedding. The only thing we'll finish paying off after the wedding is our honeymoon. Which we'll finish paying for with our tax money. We are paying for everything ourselves. It's so hard to stay on budget!

My parents are covering the majority of our wedding costs, and I don't know what the exact budget was but we were told that we could have more than zero dollars, but we could not have 38 thousand dollars*. I think they were hoping to spend around $25k. Our venue contract alone is more than that, but we all agreed that it would be better for our collective mental health to spend more to have a venue that took care of most things for us. Having now planned something at my parents' house (which is very much NOT an all inclusive venue), it's become clear that we made the right call with our original plan. So our venue, and our extra (covid) mini wedding are definitely our biggest splurges, but I feel good about both of them.


*the average cost of a wedding in MA is around $38,000.

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THIS!!! I got engaged May of 2019 and at first said "I can do the whole thing for $12k-$15k easy!" Over the last 15 months, guests have been added, reception time was lengthened, and more unnecessary decor was ordered. We're doubling the entire thing, easy. After we get married in October, we will have spent $25k-$30k. Weddings are INSANE. Luckily, we carefully budgeted and saved as we went so we won't be in debt after everything is said and done. Next up: saving for a new houseXD

We have all of our vendors booked except for one. (We know that vendors prices, so we’ve already budgeted for them and just need to sign the contract next week to make it official.) Right now, we are under budget. We have 1k set aside for miscellaneous things, though, to give us a small buffer so we don’t go over. The stuff we haven’t purchased yet (such as stamps and our signature drink sign) has been priced out at the very least to ensure it works with our funds. I know something will pop up, though!

The one area I was willing to splurge was the photographer! Other than the marriage, the photos are the only thing you keep forever from the wedding day. It was extremely important to me to have a great photographer, and I couldn’t love ours more! She’s amazing and was surprisingly affordable. I’m convinced she doesn’t charge enough, especially since she’s driving two hours one way for our wedding.