How expensive weddings can be!!

Reading all these comments, I am astounded at the amounts I'm seeing! I know it's possible but I guess my brain just can't fathom any of that. We plan to have a simple half hour ceremony-no decorations, two MOH and Best Men on each side who are paying for their own clothing, No favors, etc. Simple bouquets and bouts. FH and I are paying for my dad and sisters hotel room and everyone else is paying their own-about 30 people. We want to take everyone out to dinner after the wedding so it isn't "wedding related" and doesn't cost us an arm and a leg, i.e., catering. I'd much rather spend money to let our families eat whatever they want and if they want drinks, they can pay for them (family has a history). The biggest purchase I've made so far has been my dress which I knew I wanted to spend a little more on. I wish everyone luck and love, and most of all, family that offer to help pay!

I knew they'd be expensive like a cake for instance, the average wedding cake is so expensive! I think I was moreso surprised by the fact that so many little things were needed to be bought and that added up

Me neither!!! we had a budget of 15k then realized it was blown when we picked our venue because of food and drinks. We bumped it to 20k and I think we can keep it there. Keeping our guest list at 100 though. We live in Atlanta and having our wedding in Atlanta so here's to hoping. I actually just found a great DJ for 400! Everyone else was quoting 1k plus (this was the biggest shock to me)

We are doing a destination wedding in the Caribbean with max 30 guests on a beach. Plus stay there for the honeymoon $10,000

View Quoted Comment I know!! My venue said they had a deal set up with a local bakery and they would give me this awesome deal of $4.50 per slice. I'm having 100 guests. That's $450 for the cake, and that's supposed to be with a discount!! It's insane!! The average wedding cake is $350-$500 and that's for a plain simple cake. When you get into elaborate designs and fondont is can be as much as $1,000, For a cake!! Totally ridiculous!!

I felt the same way and still do when I think of everything lol. Once we started really looking around/researching we quickly realized. 😓 I feel like it happens to most people, you just have to sit down and really look at your budget and what you want and figure out how you can realistically get there.

Yeah mines already over 30k and I still have to book a caterer, florist, and DJ...

I shopped around for venues for weeks before I found one that had a $895 ceremony and no reception fee with food at $62/person for 70 people! Then I started looking at DJs and Photographers which cost just as much as our food! I'm dreading cake shopping and crossing my fingers to find a dress that'll fit our $10,000 budget (which is now $13,000 with our wedding bands)!

Tell me about it! We were going to do this on the cheap, maybe $1000 total. That’s absolutely impossible here. Even with a courthouse wedding or a church basement with cake & punch the photography alone would blow the budget! You have to have connections to vendors in order to keep prices that low. If I literally pinched every single penny and didn’t have any luxury items I could maybe pull it off for $1700 here. Our budget ended up going up to $4000 because we wanted more stuff.

I agree completely. I was trying to keep it around $5,000.00, but looks like it will be double now with both of us having larger families. I'm hoping to stick with $10,000.00.

I have done alot of DIY, ordering from Amazon and also wish. For decor favors and alot of other things and I thought we would have way more in the wedding that what we do.

There was definitely some sticker shock when we saw the prices of traditional venues. Then I found a super affordable nature preserve. We're going to be DIYing a lot of it, but it definitely saves money in the long run. The real cost with DIY is time.