How far did you go over your budget?

Budget is $150k and so far we are right on track. In my area things seem to be a lot cheaper and i refuse to by any decor items that arent on sale. Example michaels has 50% a single item right now so my friend and i are going to go everyday this week so i can get 2 items per store at 50% off each.. We have the time this weeknto do this as it is wedding week at my house this week so we are buying everything we can.

The biggest factor in staying in budget is not deciding to buy 5.00 invites instead of 15.00 invites, it's cutting the guest list. A wedding isn't unlike the rest of life; you can't always have exactly what you want, and it's ever more impossible to set a budget if you've never shopped for most of the things in it. Basically what most of you have said.....

In my area, you cannot do a wedding in a venue for under 100.00 a person, unless it's a place that borders on not being what you imagine that wedding to be like. Or it's on a Tuesday in March. It's just that simple. The only way around that is cutting the list or changing your budget. Buyers' remorse, after spending way more than you wanted to, will make even the most wonderful celebration bittersweet.

I didn't have a "budget," but I wanted to spend around 5k. Our wedding was about 5.5k, so I personally spent less than 5k (from my savings). My husband spent about 1k.

I agree with Nicola. I am literally sweating about going more than $500 over my $5,000 budget. So much for just one day. I would much rather save most of our money for a house and the future.

@Jesscia - based on the places FH I are looking at buying after the wedding, mortgage repayments are around 450 to 500 a month, so yeah, around 8 months. That's for 3 or 4 bedroom properties with minimum 10 acres of land...

I have no problem with big budgets - if you've got it, fine, spend it. (I still wince at the amount being spent on a single day, but I understand people can do what they like with their own money) But I find it impossible to imagine going over by so much without batting an eye.

I look at it like this, my wedding is important, for sure. It's something I've been dreaming about for most of my life, but...in ten years time how often would I really look at the wedding video that's going to cost me 2,000 or whatever? But my kids having a healthy little collage fund? Or knowing that our savings are good and healthy and those unimaginably high doctors bills or vets bills that have cropped up unexpectedly aren't going to break us? That is worth so much more than the flowers that died the day after my wedding and no one even remembers.

As for the comments about not knowing how much everything was going to cost - didn't you do your research before you set the budget?? I sat down and googled and researched like crazy to see the average costs of the things I knew I wanted and then set a budget with about a $1000 dollar incidentals margin.

Like Celia said, I've had to be harsher with my guest list than I would like. I can't invite everyone I would like, and I've been firm with both sets of parents about that too.

But sticking to that budget, and knowing that I am not going to regret spending our savings down the line is so important to me.

We set our budget at $12,000 and were at about $13,000 right now, but that doesn't include our rentals. Our rentals should be really low though, actually. We have been very fortunate that FH's dad is a graphic designer who is making all paper products for the weddings, including save the dates, invites, programs, etc. And my parents each contributed $3000. The biggest bulk of overage right now has been from hiring the wedding planner, and FH and I both agree that it has been well worth the overage for the money she's saved us! There's no way I could've kept us on budget without her.

Initially FH and I set a 10k budget for the overall wedding. Not realizing how much stuff really cost for "our taste." We are keeping things simple but classy but small things really add up. Our 200 person guest list of course is the main reason for the price tag. My parents are matching our 10k which was totally unexpected. So after all is said and done we will be around 23k so technically only 3k over out of our own pockets.

Should've added that does not include honeymoon. That's an extra $5000, but we had never intended to include that as part of our wedding budget.

Oh geeze... Originally it was $10k. I think we've accounted for almost $14k now. Realistically.... By the time everything is done and over with, we'll probably have spent closer to $20k.

We went $5,000 over our initial budget. We set a basic budget in the beginning and did a lot of research, but the more I did the more I realized we wanted certain things for our wedding. Looking back at our video and the photographs I know everything was perfect. No regrets.

We had 45 guests and and spent $15,000 for our wedding We wanted small because we loved the idea of a more intimate wedding not due to budget restraints. It allowed us to splurge on having amazing food, band, photographer, videographer, etc. That budget did not include our rings nor the honeymoon which was extra $$$.

For those spending 50k for a wedding, I'd be interested in knowing how you feel about that in a few years, no matter how much money you have.

Allison G. I have yhe same budget as you and when a vendor is over 500 bucks im like I have to think about this. I am not going over budget i refuse to for one day haha. I wish I had money that grew on trees though because with our budget it literally takes forever to find the perfect fit for stuff.

We set a budget, took a realistic look at what it would take to actually get the wedding we want, laughed....and then doubled our budget...a we still went over a little. We are very money conscious, but we know this will be worth it.

My dad gave us $12k. So that's all we spent. I didn't get a lot of things I would have wanted, and our day was perfect without them

Robin--I'm okay with spending that amount of money. I don't look back on anything with regret and I live on a budget day to day IRL, leaving us that kind of money to spend freely.

Initially, I thought we could get away with 30k, but the venue and catering we chose put us much higher than that. Once we came up with the second, more realistic number we haven't gone over budget. I've bought a couple of things that were out of the budget because I ended up having the extra cash and wanted to make things easier on a few people.

@Nicola D. I couldn't imagine spending $50k on a wedding. $20 is almost hard for us to swallow. But when is done and over we'll still have enough for the down payment on the house, our educations, and then some. So even though we have a budget, we still have a ton of cushion. For someone to try and shame us for what we're spending is rude and uncalled for. It's our money. Our finances. Most of us are smart enough not to go into debt over one day, but it's not your business to judge. It's not your money.

[sigh] Some of us have our kid's college funded, enough money set aside to buy cars in cash, and over 6 months cash in savings in case of an emergency PLUS the wedding budget. don't assume that simply because someone is spending money differently than you that they're automatically irresponsible. You stuck to your budget! Congrats! What other people do is not your business.

Janeen- couldn't agree more. Yes it's a lot of money to spend in one day but if it's within your means or the means of those who are contributing what does it matter? Everyone's situation is unique to them.

Claps for Janeen.

Also, a lot of people here have set their budget based on contributions from family. Don't assume that every penny being spent is coming from themselves and from their "children's future". We already own a house, we don't want kids, etc, etc...

Thank you Janeen!!!!!