Does anyone else feel stupid??

Yes, I know what you mean but we are keeping our budget small about 5K for the whole wedding because we are paying for it ourselves and don't want to go in debt over it. We are keeping our guestlist small but I am getting help finacially with the flowers and dessert lady I hired and MIL bought my dress other than that it's all up to us.

Honestly, sometimes. We started at such a low budget before that I'm literally laughing at now. Just our venue is more than our original budget was....we just put a deposit down for $5,000 for two cabins on the property we're getting married on. I literally went to the bathroom and heaved when I did that, but my FH is totally chill about it. He's like "We want it, it's going to be great, don't worry." I swear he won the lottery and isn't telling me or something. Luckily we have our college educations and buying our first home out of the way, so the only big thing we have to spend our money on now is wedding stuff.

You don't have to spend a lot of money to have a nice celebration. I was concerned with money as we'll and felt dumb paying so much for one day. Shop around you don't need to spend as much money as u think. Find college kids or people just starting out to so your photography, dh, etc. u can have reception in a backyard or house. I bought my flowers from bunchesdirect.com less then $300. Search for a venue that has an all in one price I found a very fancy place for cheaper then anywhere else and everything is included even the cake. Look into high schools or colleges with technical programs for students wanting to make some money. If u have time start calling a googling you get one wedding you don't wanna regret not having one on your 20 th anniversary.

Kinda but this is the thing you can splurge.

I didn't feel bad because my budget is tiny compared to normal budgets (it's R14000 or $1400) but now that I'm approaching the day and my parents are stepping in to buy stuff, I feel like a plonker for even doing this. I HATE spending money and I was so happy to spend my own small amount of money, but now that my parents are involved I feel awful.

Everyone is giving me a hard time (I have lots of friends/family who went to the JP) and I just keep ignoring it. It is very frusturating to know that we are dropping $20K on a wedding when we could put that towards something else however, I can't imagaine growing up and not knowing what it's like to have the big wedding I have always dreamed of so I may as well just get it out of my system now LOL

@Andrea: where did you find dinner and drinks for that price LOL .... we are inviting 306 (hoping and PRAYING that only 200 or less rsvp) and it is about $50/person for food, linens at the venue, and glassware/mixers for the bar.... i still have to purchase my alcohol (going to try and buy little bits here and there over the next 653 days LOL) big weddings are definitely expensive but unavoidable... we both have big italian family's

I dont feel stupid but there have been moments where I think about had we gone cheaper what we couldve done with all the money were spending, but then I remind myself that this is our only wedding, so might as well go big

I dont feel stupid. I feel like I have made the best choices without over splurging... I wish things werent so expensive. But I only plan on getting married once... Thankfully FH is good with his money. We are paying for the majorty of the wedding ourselves and I have just made sure not to over extend the budget to put us in debt. Also we will recieve money as gifts which we can put back into our savings after it is all over.

I don't feel stupid; I feel extremely grateful. My parents are paying for our wedding because they view it as a once in a lifetime (I hope!) celebration of love and commitment. After FH asked my dad for my hand and proposed, my dad told me he had been putting money aside since I was a baby specifically for my wedding. I'm so appreciative of what my parents have done.