Paying for Wedding talk

I saved and paying for everything on my own. I don't want to be in debt.

I also set a budget of 15K

I got my invites from costco, making my own centerpieces

I splurged on the photographer and caterer though because pictures important to me and food important to the fiance. I could have gone cheaper otherwise but it works for us.

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That is so cool grand teton national park. I love it. I am going there in June for vacation as it is on my bucket list. I didn't realize people got married there. I totally would do something like that if I could but its far for relatives to travel. So cool!

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How many people did you invite?

We paid for all of the decor and vendors with check/cash. We ended up being able to pay half of the venue fee with check, but we will have to put about $5,000 on our credit card to cover the final balance. Not ideal, but it had to be paid somehow! We will pay it back ASAP and the money from our guests will help with that.

Honestly, what I learned from all of this is that you can try your best to budget, but that doesn't always plan out. I had to get surgery, so that took a big chunk of my savings. And it ended up being more difficult than we anticipated to save money due to bills. We will be in debt for a little bit, but we are trying not to stress out about it too much!

Our budget is under 10K. Believe it or not the dress is gifted. Our venue is under $4500 for 70 ppl. My photographer is 1400 and thats including video of our ceremony. We also are using decor that the venue has for the tables. My bridesmaid is making the cupcakes and a cutting cake. I am doing the bouquets. We should come up to just under 8500. We have 12 months left and will pay monthly on our venue and other things. We desire everything to be paid off a month early.

I'll be honest, you really need to evaluate what is most important. What kind of wedding do you absolutely have to have? My partner comes from a Mormon family where most people spend less than 5k for weddings. The way they do that is keeping it super simple and asking friends and family to contribute with things like venue (does anyone own a restaurant, barn, non-wedding venue space), potluck style food, or using the church's space, friends volunteer their skills such as photography, flowers, make-up, etc. I think the wedding industry LOVES to blow this out of proportion. For some people (who have the money) that is fine, but for people like us who have to budget and scrape to make that money appear, it is not worth it. Please, please, do not take out a loan for one day of your life. You will remember the cost way longer than the experience, I think.

I sound a lot like you! Been together 8
Years, just bought a house this past July so we have been doing things to that, getting married June of 21 as a barn wedding. Paying for everything pretty much ourselves (FMIL says she will give us money but who knows). Planning a wedding for 180 ppl with a $12,000 budget. Here is our breakdown thus far

Ceremony & Reception (same venue): $3400 (over budget but includes tables, chairs, coverings, and minimal decorations)Photographer: $900 (All day)Dj: $700 Food: quoted $2340Alcohol: $2000Total so far: $9,340
We will only do 3 roses per centerpiece, a cheap as I can find and still feel great dress, still need invites but I believe it can be done! Maybe try cutting guest list as hard as it is! Best of luck!

Can your parents or other close family members chip in? Can you lessen your guest count. With the average plate $65 (without alcohol) per person, 250 guests is going to need a big budget. You'll need enough cake/desserts, an open bar (or a wine/beer/softdrink bar at least), coffee, tea for after dinner. It's really hard. I think you should narrow your list by at least 75 guests. That's the only way. Your wedding is about you both, your closest family members and your closest friends. Once you cut down, you will not have the pressure of getting into debt. As opposed to using credit, you'll pay a lot more due to the over 23% average fees on credit cards, so if you must, see if you can get a bank loan for $**** at a lower interest rate, say 10% to 12%. I'm with you. A Vegas wedding with a small guest count would mean a 5 star resort with the best food and entertainment. In the end, whatever you decide, stick together and try to set a more realistic amount of guests and perhaps push your wedding ahead about 7 months or so to build up your cash flow. Best of luck!

We are doing it ourselves too. I have it down to how much we have to send each month to pay it off and then each paycheck I take $50-$60 and buy things that I need for the wedding decorations and such. I am DIYing a lot. Also always ask your venue what they provide for you so that you aren't buying stuff that is already available.

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I have 350 guests *facepalm* (Not my idea). I don't mind though because my mum is paying for 'her' guests (100)

We are struggling with this. On one hand I’d like to have a nice wedding but on the other, we would be the ones paying for it. I don’t know if I can swallow spending that much on one day when there are more important things to put our money towards.

We looked at how much money we had in savings and discussed how much of that we were willing to spend on wedding. Each couple has a different willingness to spend.

If we didn’t already have savings, I would have looked at what our income is expected to be over the 12 months and see what’s a feasible amount of us to allocate to wedding. Some couples are fine with using debt to pay for a wedding (CC or loan or technically even HELOC since you have a house) because they’re confident they will be able to pay it back in timely way. That’s fine. Some couples only want to spend whatever cash they currently have on hand, even if it means elopement or a simple dinner reception at a favorite restaurant. That’s fine too. All the above choices are valid. If you and your fiancé have already determined that 15k is a financially safe and reasonable amount of money to either save or borrow for the wedding, look how how fit expenses to save and where you get get lowest interests rates.
However, 15k for 250 people does not sound feasible even if you’re in a very low cost of living area. Suggest you do research in locations m, possible venues and vendors to get a sense of what the pricing is like in the areas you’re looking to host the wedding. What helped us be disciplined about wedding costs was the thought that every dollar we don’t spend will available for other things we value very highly too - a longer and nicer honeymoon, additional ski weeks next winter, having cash available for when we see an investment opportunity, etc) Weddings are great, but there are many, many wonderful things to spend money on too. Like you, we started at 15k but for 50 people. We’ve increased the budget twice now but at holding firm on the most recent increase because we refuse to get carried away and forget all the other good uses for our money.

It's tough to compare too much since prices vary so much by area/day of the week/etc. We're getting married in Chicago so... it's expensive. We are self-funding everything - including a reception on Friday night for out of town guests, a brunch on Sunday for our close family and friends and the wedding itself. In hindsight, we could have dropped the Friday and Sunday events and let folks fend for themselves but we're locked in at this point. We also want to maximize the time available to see people so I'm hoping these extra events will be worthwhile.

We are delaying our honeymoon for a year. We are charging a lot and we hope to put the credit card points and signing bonuses towards airfare. We are also keeping the guest list pretty small - about 90.

If anyone can have the ceremony in the same venue at the reception, that can help cut costs. No need to worry about transportation for guests - and possibly one fewer rental fee to pay for.

We talked about DIY'ing a lot - invitations, florals, decor, etc. You may save dollars but taking the time to handle everything comes with its own costs, too. We could have gone to the floral markets, hunted around for vintage glassware - but that's weighed against the value in having someone do that for us, including the drop-off/pick-up.

Hi Chelsea! I'm in a similar boat as you...it's been a tough couple of months. My budget is currently at $12k with 125 people. We also bought a house not too long ago which threw our monthly budgeting off as our mortgage increased. Plus, my fiance pays more for the house and bills so he's a bit strapped financially as well.

I took up a second job and work an extra 2-3 shifts/month in addition to my Monday-Friday job. While I am slowing paying down the wedding bills, I still become frustrated at times. The lack of down time for myself is also adversely affecting me. But! I've been able to pay off $4k so far which I'm very proud of. Just reminding myself this is a temporary season and I'll feel good when it's all paid off whether it's before my wedding date or shortly afterwards. We can only do so much so please make sure you give yourself some grace (especially if you're not receiving financial assistance from others). Enjoy this time and feel free to vent whenever you need to!

My parent's and fiance's dad are helping quite a bit, but there was a sizable gap that we have to make up for. Most of it is coming from money we've saved over the past year leading up to the wedding (we mapped out what we would need and then divided it by how many months we had leading up to the date and each agreed what was reasonable). We stopped going out to eat as much and cut back on a few other non-essential expenses.

I also just opened a credit card with a 0% interest rate for the first 18 months. It has cash back benefits too so I plan to put a few things on that card to earn the cash back and make sure we have a small cash slush fund in case things come up. I plan to pay it off immediately after the wedding, it's just nice to have a little bit of breathing room!

We are also doing a longer engagement to save up, around 19 months. We opened up a joint account and have it automatically pull a set amount money every time we get paid. All in our budget is around 20k with an 80-90 person headcount. With us also doing a weekly budget meeting we can see what we've got coming in vs. out and when we can actually ad a bit more in the account as well. We've definitely been hunting for deals for everything and are going to be DIYing some details as well. We've definitely cut back on things in our day to day for the time being to attempt to avoid taking on any debt from the wedding. I wish you the best with your planning!

We are paying for my daughters wedding. We already had the money put aside. They paid for their honeymoon airfare and we are paying for their hotel. She also paid the deposits for the photographer and the the DJ. We wanted them to not go in debt and also not have a long engagement. They bought all the furniture for their new apartment also. But if you have to get a loan it’s your business. Do what’s best for you. The wedding is around $20k for 100 people and we aren’t doing any DIY

We are paying for the wedding ourselves. We were able to get the venue's All-Inclusive package for 85 people which includes the venue for 6-hours, ceremony (we pay for our officiant), cocktail hour, open mid-shelf bar, multi-course sit-down dinner, the DJ (only basic DJ setup), the cake, and table centerpieces. The DJ company will charge us extra for an MC and a photographer w/ass't. After doing some research, I realized that prices also depend upon which part of the country you are getting married. Our budget will remain in the 15K-20K max range.

Well, I guess were the minority in this bunch. Lol. We are paying for our own wedding with a little help from my parents. We did get a wedding loan. We shopped around and got an awesome low interest rate at a local credit union. I agree this is not ideal and needs to be taken very seriously before entered into. For us, it was right.


We’re getting married on the coast of Maine. Expensive. Also gorgeous. Ceremony lawn on the waterfront with a view of the lighthouse that is “our spot.” For the two of us more than worth it. We are doing some things ourselves. The big spend is that we wanted to ease the financial burden on family to be able to stay with us so we are paying for the bulk of the suites. It’s a hotel that functions more like a rental property. We get exclusive use of the property Fri-Sun. The ceremony and reception are on site. We are staying on site.
Bottom line...no regrets here. Got a loan. Would do it again. It’s really a personal decision. Best wishes Chelsea!