Is a $5000 wedding possible in Northern Virginia? Or should we go with Destination Wedding?

Kristen, that sounds good! Where in MD is your venue?

Its up past Frederick. It is a historic barn that has been remodeled into a school.

@Monika...update please...what did you decide??

I just had a destination wedding in the Dominican Republic. we paid about $2500 for the wedding package, plane tickets, and the week we stayed at the resort. we didn't have to pay for the guests because it was an all inclusive resort. oh we paid about $3500 i forgot about the pictures and DVD.

it all depends on where you go and the things that are included, but all inclusive places are awesome because they usually cover the guests meals for the reception with what they pay for their stay

Yeh, it really does come down to what you an your FH want and don't lose sight of that. Me and my FH have the same budget as you two and after a few appointments with at different venues, we realized we could not get what we WANT from having it locally. To have it locally, we would have to narrow down our guest list and have it sometime between M-Thursday to get it to fit our budget. This is not what we WANTed, so we chose the DW route, met with a nice gentleman from All About Honeymoons and Destination Weddings and not only is he able to get us what we WANT, he is also doing basically all of the planning as far as airfare and hotel stay for us. The only thing you would really have to do is the details of the wedding as far as picking your dress, favors, etc. and decorations and stuff you will work out with the WC at the resort.

But like I said, either one you choose, just make sure its what you to want. Good luck and congrats

We live in Northern VA and because everything can be very expensive up here, we were going to do a Destination wedding/honeymoon.

Until I found a venue that fit our budget for a ceremony and reception.

Thomas Birkby House in Leesburg, VA.

We are getting married on a Friday, which is extremely cheaper than a weekend wedding. It's almost $2k difference between Friday and Saturday.

Our budget is very low and we are paying for everything ourselves. Our guest list will be 50 people no more! No kids and nothing extremely fancy. We understand some people will be spending enough just to get here.

We have found a caterer and DJ all at very low prices and everything has been right at or lower than our budget. The only thing we have splurged on has been my dress (which actually came below my budget), the photographer is a couple hundred more but we are getting a discount, and my rings (which he completely went over the top for).Everything else is on budget. You can do it

Typically, the reception is about half the total cost of the wedding. So if you have a $5,000 budget, that means about $2,500 for the reception, or $50 per guest. It would definitely be possible if, for example, you did a morning ceremony with a breakfast/brunch restaurant reception. It would be much less possible if you wanted an open bar, seated dinner, and dancing on a Saturday night.