Money Stress

I honestly did not handle it well. I've never been in debt my entire life, but FI has significant debt coming out of 7 years of post-grad education. I was not at all happy with his student loans wiping out our savings and THEN his side of the family wanting a big wedding. It literally kept me up at night.

Ummm most of us are paying for everything. Manage your guest list to keep costs in check. Be selective about who you invite.... You don't need to invite cousin Sarah if you haven't seen her in years, for example.

I would cut my guest list, but my family is huge. Everyone on my moms side is very close, I talk to everyone all the time. :/ we have already cut it significantly since we first made it. There is literally no one else I can cut. And I already put a non refundable deposit on the venue to secure our date... Yikes.

Trying to find other areas to cut costs down. It's hard. weddings are expensive LOL

We ended up deciding to do immediate family only. There was no way we could cut among the extended family or friends, so we didn't invite any of them. I don't think anyone really cared too much though (except maybe the moms). From our perspective, it's understandable if it's just immediate family, it's less understandable if one aunt got invited and the other didn't, and it's not at all understandable if we invited everyone and couldn't host them properly

Sounds like the perfect set up for a cake and punch reception. How many on your guest list?

Make a plan to properly host your guests. Weigh your options. Make a Budget. Stick to it. That's all I did. lol

We have 80 total. So I'm expecting 70-75. But that can all change and we end up with the full 80 haha.

Budget is $15,000

You might consider a Friday or Sunday alternative to Saturday as it's usually less expensive to rent a venue.

I hear you! This the second wedding for both of us and I assumed that people would be less likely to attend. We invited only family and friends that we would want there, would pay for their dinner, etc. So far we have very few people who are declining the invite. The amount of money is stressing me even though we have set this amount of money aside for the wedding, we can afford it, and wouldn't want to cut our guest list any more. It just seems so frivolous spending this amount.

My FH keeps telling me not to worry about it and that we are going to have one hell of a part with everyone we love and that loves us. I never dreamed I would want to get married again and am thrilled that we both are so incredibly happy to make this commitment. The fact that so many people see how happy we are and want to join us in this celebration makes the amount we are spending a little easier to handle.

We are envisioning a very laid back wedding. We booked our caterer. Just because they only gave us a small list to choose from, if we were to book a caterer outside of their list it was an additional $5 a person. Florist, we are still debating on, and we are getting ready to put the deposit down for our photographer (I'm not switching photographers, she has been amazing to us and her prices are verryy reasonable)

We needed a year and a half to save. I get it. Weddings are expensive. We've cut corners and splurged on things that were so important to us.

Almost everyone at the wedding is our family. We both picked a few close friends and that's it.

We have a minimum of 75. We have a guest list of 110

Decide what you can afford and go off that. In the beginning, we were also unsure of how everything was going to happen and how it was going to be paid for. I'm a firm believer in everything working itself out an definitely did. Also, look for DIY ideas and cut the guest list if you have a large list right now

IMO, your budget shouldn't be your budget if it's something that you don't see how you can afford. The purpose of having a budget is setting something that is within reach.

Honestly.. a large portion of tax money, budgeting X amount every month, and not spending on unnecessary items I would normally splurge on (like shoes and clothes.) We found our comfortable budget then totaled up what we need to save every month. We had to push our initial date back and partially due to budget issues. It's hard!!

My best advice is pick an amount you guys can comfortably save by October if next year and build the wedding from there. FH and I started with our budget based on getting married about 10 months after the engagement. We figured out we could comfortably save $5000, so we built our guest list and picked the venue based on that. We are renting a home and having 22 guests.

I suggest looking at Costco.com for flower packages. Beer and wine bar only. Candy bar instead of expensive party favors.

I created a monthly budget to see how much we could save in the time we had. Whatever that number is you will just have to work with.

I'm right there with you!! Budget is everything. We're keeping our list at 80 people. I suggest you DIY in areas that you can do for cheaper (floral stuff is much cheaper to DIY) and keep it simple. Good luck!

Grocery store flowers. Small wedding party. Off the rack wedding dress on sale. Simple centerpieces. Only beer and wine.

The best advice I have received is to make a matrix or a list of some sort that prioritizes costs with what's important to you and your FH. You can find all kinds of budget lists online with specific categories of costs. Order those from top priority to low priority. For example, my top three things to spend money on are quality food (because food is an important part of our relationship and so it has to be awesome at the reception), a good photographer, and a DOC. At the bottom of the list were STDs, favors, and limos. So to save money, we cut those. The items in the middle were areas we were going to do but do inexpensively. So my invites will be very simple and my flowers and centerpieces will be simple as well. Once you have this list, you can feel free to splurge a little on the important stuff and cut the stuff that neither of you cares about and save money on the parts that aren't as important. I found this releases stress for me because I have "given myself permission" to spend the money in the budget I have set aside for that item and that brings me less guilt and stress and more enjoyment and excitement.