How do people get married so fast!?

I wonder the same thing! We’ve been engaged about a month, and set our date for October 2021 and I’m terrified we won’t be able to pay for it all by then. Luckily we have our own officiant, and worse comes to worse we’ll do it in the backyard. Lol Good luck!

Hi! I think for a lot of couples, they have family help? My partner and I started saving before we got engaged as well, but also a lot of places don't need 100% upfront. I'm sure couples put down the deposit, and continue to save while they work towards their date. I definitely think looking at wedding things via social media/the internet skews our perspectives as well!

We would have been married within 9mo. I had saved up 11k prior to being engaged which is what I ended up using to pay for everything. So many misc spending pops up so Im so grateful my parents helped us with different things. Our total is around 17k

FH and I work, we’re established and regularly save money (and not specifically for the wedding). But once we were engaged, we made a guest list of 65 close family/friends and then set a budget. No way would we borrow, use credit cards, any other funding source or go into debt just to pay for our wedding if we couldn’t afford it. So we agreed to only spend a small portion of our income/savings and set a budget of $20k max for the wedding.

My fiancé and I are paying for our own wedding, and we are also older in life, 36 and 42. We both have established careers and have been saving for years at this point.

My fiancé and I got engaged at the end of October 2019 and we are getting married November 21, 2020. For us, both my parents contributed (divorced) and have effectively covered everything other than our honeymoon. I used my tax refund to pay for that.


We originally were going to try to cover most of it ourselves but we were having a terrible time finding any venues that were in our price range. For your understanding, my fiancé wanted to find a venue for the entire event (ceremony and reception) for 2k or less....and my mom sent us a nice check for what we thought was going to be most of our wedding budget. We toured one place and didn’t like the set up, and had another venue tour scheduled that we canceled after seeing our venue. It was like a movie playing in my head. With the price of the venue, we were going to have to keep looking but my mom said that she refused to attend a wedding anywhere other than there because we both loved it...and promptly put wheels in motion to send us even more money for the wedding. And then my dad reached out and told me to let him know if I needed money for deposits and other wedding costs. Apparently he and my mom had a private conversation and we got another healthy chunk. I consider myself very lucky and am grateful that both my parents are in a position financially to do this. If they hadn’t, I know my fiancé would have worked a ton of overtime to try to cover it.

First, I should first preface this and say we both made decent salaries (legal and management) and live in Manhattan, NY. We cut down a lot on variable expenses like going out to eat, takeout and travel. We even moved to a less expensive apartment and cut down our monthly rent. The move allowed me to walk to work and my commuting costs and made it easier to go home and cook lunch. It was a sacrifice and caused a lot of riffs with friends and even family since I declined to go out for about a year and missed out on a lot of events and outings etc. Then a global pandemic happened and now we have an extra 14 months to save. Guess all the sacrifice helped prepare us for quarantining, since we essentially were hermits for a year in the name of saving. Together we were able to save a little over $60,000 which included our work bonuses and tax returns from earlier this year and my parents contributed close to $10,000. Lastly, we initially booked our honeymoon on our Amex card with the intention to pay it off over time. Since the pandemic hit we cancelled our honeymoon and now plan to rebook on our Amex then pay it off right away.

We decided to have a two year engagement to give us more time to pay for things. When we started booking things we didn't have the money needed for everything either. This is what works for us: we look at the expenses like another monthly bill and plan for it that way. We saved for the deposit on our venue in order to book it, and now we pay towards the balance monthly (which is not required by the venue, it's just easier for us). While doing this we also saved for the next vendor we wanted to book in order to make that deposit, and now pay them off monthly as well. Did the same for the next vendor and booked them about two months later, and now pay them monthly too. I've also made a list of all the things I need to get for smaller details (i.e. invitations, favors, sinage, etc.) and will order 1-2 items each month until I have everything on our list. If we waited until we had all the money needed to pay for everything we wouldn't be getting married anytime soon lol. Hopefully this helps, but of course you guys have to figure out what works for you. Happy Planning!

Ours was just over a year - but I think we could have done it in a few months (like we wanted to) because we were planning to stay small and within our normal savings budgeting. I did everything budget-friendly, including getting my dream dress second-hand to cut it down to 1/3rd of the cost. I used 0% financing to order it and paid it off in two months (highly recommend if there are purchases you need to make now and will have the funds to pay off during the 0% interest period). My FH is wearing his military mess dress, so we didn't have that cost. My venue is also basically all inclusive, so I didn't need to shop around for more than music and a photographer. Everyone budgets, plans and finances things differently, as PP's mentioned.

I had been wondering about this as well, we are trying for our first home and wedding around the same time and at times I feel like its too much, if anything a backyard wedding in our own home sounds nice.

I think there are a lot of factors that go into engagement length and budget.
My fiance and I originally had a little over a year and a half engagement, but that was because I wanted to get married in December.
We will likely postpone to next year as none of his immediate family is comfortable traveling this year. Our budget was set at the beginning of our engagement based on what we can personally afford (we are paying for the wedding ourselves) and our working budget is around 50K including rehearsal dinner and morning after brunch, but not including honeymoon.
If budget is a concern then I see no problem in having a longer engagement to save the money, but likely those who get married in 6-8 months either downsize the wedding to something more manageable, or already have the funds or plan to pay for it.

Me and my fiance have been engaged a year too. It seems like it is taking forever to save, but our wedding is 2 years away. We are doing a padrino wedding so that has helped us save money, with other people giving us money or paying for different things for our wedding. We have a separate checking account for the wedding so people can put money into the account.

No need to compare yourselves to anyone else. We didn't use CCs but we saved you put yourself on a budget you buy and pay things off little by little you set a budget that you can afford in the time span you can do.

We pretty much planned our DW and set a firm budget. Did I go over yes by $2300 but those were extra things I wanted not needed for the wedding so I purchased little by little over the last few months. (I got a PT job also). You do what you can do for what you want.

My FH and I got engaged in August 2019 and planned for a June 2020 wedding (moved to June 2021 thanks to covid). We had planned to pay for it ourselves but our parents ended up helping more than we expected. I don’t make a lot and have tons of student loans but I babysat 2-4x a week to be able to contribute. The financial aspect of wedding planning is definitely stressful and I know not everyone’s schedule allows for a part time job. Wishing you luck, I’m sure when it comes your day will be beautiful!

We planned our wedding around income tax season so that we could use those funds to pay for it. Some people have family that pitch in and pay. I know I’m a banker and one of my customers just had their son married and it was $150k 😱😱😱🤯 I couldn’t imagine spending that much though. That’s insane

It totally just depends on where you are in life, how you handle money, and some luck and circumstance. My husband and I planned a 10 month engagement, but we're in our mid-30s, have well established careers, and knew marriage was a long term goal for us. We live well within our means and I'm a saver, so I always have a decent amount of money set aside for emergencies (what my mom calls a "rainy day fund") or bigger expenses. We were also fortunate to get some money from our families that allowed us to consider having a more high end event than we would have planned if we paid for the wedding entirely ourselves.

Any number of factors could have made that impossible for us - some people live paycheck to paycheck because they didn't have access to education and are not able to get comfortable steady work, some people just have poor money management skills and constantly max out credit cards and take on debt for things they don't need, some have crushing medical bills, some are just younger and have less saved up, etc. Just like some people drive a Porche and some drive Dodge Neons, some people pay for a really huge elaborate expensive wedding no problem and others find it really hard to save up for even a small, modest event.

Another thing - we didn't plan a honeymoon at all because we wanted to put money into having an amazing wedding experience with our guests.

I definitely think taking on debt to pay for a wedding is a huge mistake. Weddings are fluff. A big beautiful wedding with fancy invitations, a towering cake, and a designer dress isn't going to make you and your partner communicate any better, it's not going to make you more faithful, it isn't going to keep a roof over your head when one of you loses a job, nor help you make your partner feel better when they are sick or injured. Focus on what you need. Prioritize what is important to you. Don't get caught up in the hype. Plan an event that you can afford, that is within your means. It may mean tempering expectations or pushing back the wedding so you have longer to save, but definitely don't start your marriage by putting yourself in a financial deficit so you can host a one day party.

Family help and saving money. We just had a $25,000 wedding and got married 14 months after we got engaged.

It's the guest count for one BIG thing. I only have 10 and proud. Then the most things that matter to YOU. that's how you do it. The more people the more it cost. The time of the year also plays a factor fall, winter weddings the cheapest. We are paying ours ourselves so it s the budget and whats important to you that matters.

We got engaged in March of this year and we were going to have our wedding in May of next year but so many people are offering elopement/small ceremony packages this year because of covid. Because of that, we are thinking we will have the wedding in November this year because we can still meet our budget of 4,000 and have a very small ceremony with just family which is what we wanted in the first place! Better deal and less stress actually.