How far did you go over your budget?

I spent the first 6 months of my engagement hyperventilating about the cost of a wedding. I thought our expectations were not high: good food and drink in a pretty place. I'm not talking ice sculptures, fancy straws, personalized napkins, etc. All the things every article and blog tells you to cut out to save money is a small fraction of the big costs: location and food.

And as Celia and every vendor here knows, people are NOT up front with their cost structures and it can be nearly impossible to make a clear budget before digging in and doing the research for each vendor. For example, the internet tells me a day-of coordinator is about $700; in my area, the only way I could pay that little was if I hired - and this is a real person - the woman who won't even be there for my wedding, but will email a timeline to my vendors for $800.

I think this conversation goes to a larger problem: how hard it is to set a realistic budget. So many women here, myself included, said their budgets dramatically increased over the course of planning. This isn't always a symptom of women going Pinterest crazy; it's because we honestly didn't realize it was going to cost THAT much to simply feed our guests.

That being said, after doing my research and finding out what a vendor will cost in my area, I've been willing to go over for quality. If the choice is between spending my allocated amount for X vendor and getting someone who doesn't respond to emails promptly and who I don't think is listening to me, versus the person who I believe will go above and beyond and be worth the money and go over by $250, I consider the added money well spent.

I had no idea how much weddings cost when I first started. Everyone says to set a budget first but until you have somewhat of an idea of what things cost, it doesn't really make sense. I am so bad with managing money and bills and numbers to begin with so I told FH "just give me a number so I can put it in WW's budget tool". I haven't really used it at all since. I am lucky to have a job where I can work about as much overtime as I want so I have been working my ass off to make money to pay for things and I don't really mind doing it.

The phrase "It must be nice" is the JUDGIEST phrase ever.

@KM, whenever someone else uses that phrase, I think jealousy. If I were to use it, it would be because I was envious of whatever it must be nice to do.

When I got engaged, I knew how many people I wanted to be there. As a couple, we knew we didn't want a traditional venue. Those two factors played into understanding our budget was going to have to be relatively high. We price pointed at about $35-$38K. I am very money conscious and this price doesn't shock me. We knew what we wanted and we're going to do everything we could to give ourselves this day. I believe we may go over just a little, but we wanted a good photographer and videographer. Our first idea of a honeymoon was outrageously expensive, so we cut back on that. Unless you have someone holding your hand through the process, not going over budget is unrealistic.

My goal was $20k, but it's now nearing $30k. Me and my fiance do well for ourselves, so we're willing to go over budget. I have already saved $35k in two years, so we're pretty much set. Yes, it's only one day, but it's once in a lifetime.

To be fair, we had no idea what a wedding would cost or what it would take to make "X" wedding.

By this I mean that we knew we did not want the $50K wedding his best friend had nor did we want the $6K shot gun wedding FH's relative had. All we knew was the $50K wedding was way and I mean WAY over the top because they chose silly things to upgrade that no one noticed whereas the $6k-ish wedding was disjointed, thrown together, and a mess overall.

We tried to arrange a cheap, thrown together wedding for like $5K. We QUICKLY realized that this was not possible or even probable given that FH wants to invite so many guests. Our realization on the cost came about when we found that he wants to invite 130 guests and I am only inviting 45 with maybe 30 who will come.

Realistically the wedding will cost $10K and we will probably not have a honeymoon. THE ONLY REASON I CAN EVEN BEGIN TO JUSTIFY THIS COST is that I have an 8-5 job, AND A SECOND JOB that I am solely using for the wedding fund - my second job is where my "fun money" comes from and if I want to blow it on the wedding I damn well will! Also, all the decor I am purchasing will be resold or rented out to other brides (where I live we DO NOT have a rental place for wedding items).

I was so surprised at how MUCH everything cost! Its hard to make a budget when you don't actually know what things cost. My parents are paying for 99% of the wedding. They had wanted to keep it around $20,000 but with the contracts we have already signed and things we've already bought, we're just about there and we still need a cake, transportation, and hair services as well as a few other things (although good news is that's the last of the "big stuff"!) We will probably end up more like $25,000. I'm paying for small detail-type things like my clothing (for bridal shower, bachelorette, rehearsal dinner, honeymoon), my accessories (jewelry, haircomb, garter), our honeymoon, etc. which is adding up faster that I thought!

Nicola,

The point is you're condescending and this thread was to discuss how much people went over budget. You came in and decided to disparage people who went over budget by amounts you find to be careless. By your math my budget went up 42%. And by no means was it careless and it was not because I felt I "HAD" to have something. Like most people on here I did not have realistic expectations of the costs of things and I would rather spend $50,000 on a wedding i want then $35000 on one I'm not happy with - to me that's a bigger waste of money.

By no means were we "careless". I find it offensive that you generalize anyone who did not stick to their original budget as careless. Stop being so condescending and judgemental.

We carefully budgeted and saved for our new amount as to NOT be careless. So just stop generalizing because you don't know what you're talking about.

@JK / KM

My "it must be nice" comment was in response to Nicolas condescending comments. It was not meant to be judgmental... But exactly what JK said... Just like I said, it was not meant to be snotty but envy.. Because it WOULD be nice to live somewhere that was affordable to the average person to buy a home ...anyone who does live in a place like that I am definitely jealous of....

I think internet sites that tell you how much things should cost are using an algorithm that is just faulty; not very helpful, frustrating and inaccurate in most cases. The best way to get a fix on what things cost is from various vendors; I've added pricing to all of my websites after I read several threads here about how annoying it is to have no pricing, even a range and how DOUBLY aggravating it is when you call or contact a vendor and get no response for days.

The bottom line is that whether your budget is 500.00 or 50,000.00 you can absolutely get married; if the budget is the most important thing (and for many people it is, out of desire or necessity; that's not a judgmental statement), then you make choices that will keep you there; 10 guests vx 200, eloping vs giant party, DIY vs pros.

@Kare, I didn't even read your comment or know who said it, so hopefully you weren't thinking I was being offensive to you in particular

I just hate that phrase

I just calculated the actual amount we have for this wedding and it's $4,100 plus food (parent's paying). I have recently purchased a different dress and wedding band that has come out of my own money, I'm now beyond broke, but that was my own choice that I have to live with.

Between now and the end of June we will only be able to save another $1,200 and we still have quite a few things to buy. At least all of the major things are booked and paid for.

I refuse to go over that amount because we just can't afford it.

I agree it was so hard to set a budget! We also made choices to go over our original budget consciously as well though. I budgeted $800 for my wedding ring, and the one I love ended up being $2k - I could have got one for less money but then as someone above said that would be a bigger waste because I didn't like it. I know I don't need a photobooth, but every single wedding we went to that had one I had a blast so we are going for it. Some things were definately done out of convience too - after talking to some friends who got married recently I realized I would not want to be putting together flowers the day before and would rather spend that time with family and friends, so we got a florist. I think it also really depends on area too - our budget might seem high but for getting married downtown in a large city it's on the low side!

@JK - no worries, wasn't offended at all.. Just wanted to clarify as i realized some people might have taken my post out of context and sound extra bitchy lol

Hearing people say they went thousands over budget is just scary i live on roughly $16,000 a year combined with my hubby original budget was $3,500 now at 4,250 but thata as far as we can go

Janeen you're awesome!

We are not throwing away money, we have our 3 year old sons college fund already in the bank (about almost 3k but he's still only 3), we have an amazing savings to purchase a home after the wedding, and we both have great jobs and work hard. We aren't irresponsible, we just want to have a nice day- it's a once in a lifetime thing and I won't look back and regret spending anything at all.

Also, not everyone has time to do research on every little thing before their wedding to figure out a "realisitic" budget. I couldn't imagine the time I would have had to take to search for venues and wait to get their pricing and every single other vendor and THEN set my budget, even if I did find the time to have done that, things change.

So, for those of you judging people spending more than your liking for their wedding it's not fair to assume whatever you're saying about their lives. It's not affecting you or your wedding, so why so harsh?

I'm an older bride at 40. FH has a house already, I have a condo (which i'm still prepping to sale). My dad is giving us money towards the reception. Right now we are on budget (with 109 days) but still need to book the limo. We buffered 4k in case we went over. Somethings surprised me in terms of price (I did do some research prior) but on some other items I came in under so I am balanced out.

I also didn't know what weddings actually cost so I went in with a 10000 cap on my budgetless was wedding. We have our venue(ceremony and reception), photographer, dj, and my dress is paid off for 1180. I need to pay for his tux, our sons tux, I'm making my daughters dress,florist, officiant, cake, and invitations. I am a cosmetologist and so are 3 of my bridesmaids I'm really on the fence about hair and makeup because the girls I trust will be getting ready with me. I'm keeping it under 15 for sure. I could go crazy but I know that's classy enough. My venue was our blessing, it's on a patio open to the mountain view on the line of the reservation. They provide all decor except flowers. Saved us a lot in the little stuff as far as vases go. We're adding lanterns I already bought