Out of control budget!

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We had a budget but like you, I am really cheap and budget minded person. Our reception venue was free - the event room at our favorite restaurant. As long as we hit a $750 minimum with food it was free. We hit the minimum, lol.
OP - you sound like you are a little nervous over the cost of things and maybe suffering from sticker shock? Is your wedding really $37,000? Holy moly.......ours was under $3000!!! For 44 people.

View Quoted Comment This is what we did. We had a goal in mind but it was flexible depending on how things went. We own our home, aren't having kids, and are also 35/38 first time bride/groom. When our catering bill dropped with RSVPs, we decided to spent the money on more alcohol instead of just having beer and wine as planned. I was initially bummed about losing 40 guests, but now I'm looking forward to spending more time with less people, and throwing the party we really wanted but couldn't afford to with so many people.

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LOL! Good for you! Comparison shopping also helped us a LOT! By shopping around, daughter got a bid for flowers from a florist she adores that was $1000 less (for more flowers) than her next lowest bid and she found a cake she loves at about $4 a slice (she's super picky about frosting consistency...), compared with $8-10 from some of her other options. Her preferred photographer discounted about 33% for full payment when booking. And, a January "off-season" date with her first-choice venue saved another $5000. Those four items total about $8000 -- or almost 30% of the total budget (and, we really think the wedding is going to be lovely and very well hosted -- but shopping around helped tremendously). Good luck with the "frugality"!

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THANK YOU!

I say do you, boo. You're situation is a little different since you've already got most of what couples would be saving for. In addition to not wanting kids. If you've got the money and feel like you can afford to spend all this money for your wedding, then I say go for it. My only concern is that if you have any maintenance or outside expenses that you may need to pay for is where that budget would come into play. But good luck! 😊

View Quoted Comment I haven’t ever seen an option for renting wedding dresses...is there such a thing in LA? If so, that’s bad a**. However, I highly suggest going to stillwhite.com or preownedweddingdresses.com, the latter being my personal favorite and where I bought my Martina Liliana dress for half the price. It was a sample dress from a bridal boutique and had never been worn besides only try-ons in store. Not a SINGLE thing wrong with it; literally in PERFECT shape with tags and all. There are a ton of them on there that are exactly like mine (just samples, or even dresses girls have bought but ended up changing their minds on another dress and became stuck with the 1st purchase; unaltered and ready to be altered by you if it’s “your dress”...there are lots that are for sale that are used—just be careful regarding those and read descriptions carefully for measurements altered to...but that’s also where the return policy comes in VERY handy 😏). The best part about preownedweddingdresses.com is that MOST of the sellers offer the option of purchasing the dress, but returning it in 3 days if you get it and don’t like it on, and they refund all of your money back to you (as long as it’s within those 3 days if you receiving it). Stillwhite.com has far and few that offer returns, although you could ask if they’d be willing. Hope this helps!!! It sure did help my budget big time!!!! 😁

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No - I said that I read that the average LA wedding is $37K ours will be less!!! We got our dream venue in off-peak season, so we saved money there too.

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Yes, I work with someone whose wife rented her dress. I don't have that info yet, but it's a thing for sure. There are sites were you can "Rent the Runway" for designer stuff and handbags so it makes sense they'd do it for weddings too. Thanks for those two links. I'll check them out!

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That's a good concern that I need to take seriously. I own an old home and there's always something that needs repairing, so, yeah, gonna get frugal real soon.

View Quoted Comment Just another FYI...I don’t know if you have already purchased your cake, but Publix (if y’all have them over there; there are tons in the south/southeast) has been stepping up their game with wedding cakes and they are doing some beautiful cake work for half the price of a legit bakery. Someone told me this after I purchased my cake, and I went on Instagram to search #publixcakes and saw all of the wedding cakes they’ve been doing for half of what I paid. My close family friend is an extraordinary baker/the ultimate tastebuds of perfection when it comes to baked yummies, and she has tasted a Publix wedding cake and said they are amazing!!! She’s a hard one to please too! 😊 Hopefully y’all have Publix’s in CA!

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I didn't even think of that. We have 100 on our initial guest list and we doubt they all will make it, so we'll end up saving money that way. Ideally, I'd like 80 people so I can spend quality time with people. We'll see.

This is an article about renting wedding dresses.

https://www.brides.com/story/should-you-rent-your-wedding-dress

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Thank you!

You do you! It's your day and you are in charge

Honestly, you seem to be in a good place: home-owners with low mortgage, cars, and no debt. You're also saving for a year, which seems smart. Well done!

Weddings are so freakin' expensive. We set a budget. Our dream venue was not affordable, so we went from 40 guests to 15 (local reception later), Monday wedding, off-season. Whew. Then something else went over-budget so I cut the specialty/table rentals (and the venue got new ones, which we loved!) so we saved $1K but that was promptly used elsewhere. As soon as we saved money somewhere, poof, it was used elsewhere. Ugh. But thank goodness we set an original budget and tried to stick with it. But we're not having kids either and we realized as long as we could pay off our new balance quickly, we were ok with creating the best parties we'd ever throw.

Everyone's budget is different. I would only advise that a couple plan a budget based on what they can save up for 12-18 months and start saving that money at least a year before the wedding. Just my opinion.

View Quoted Comment Thank you!! This is all sooo helpful!!

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You're welcome, Carrie! The good news is, it's pretty typical to go over-budget. You're in good company. Also, a few tips to consider:

* Book/Pay for "optional" items later. For example, printables like programs and menus may not be necessary and you can easily cut at the end.

* What about doing a small mini-moon after the wedding and taking your honeymoon on your 1st year anniversary? That gives you another year to save money/vaca days. Plus, it gives you a fun project to plan and look forward to after your wedding.

View Quoted Comment The average wedding cost is closer to $34K for 150 guests.

View Quoted Comment Good advice! Thank you

View Quoted Comment Ooh good to know. On the upside— I’ve only been engaged 2 weeks and we already booked our venue, food, bar, DJ and photographer!!