The $15K wedding

I have a similar budget and I'm doing a mostly inclusive deal. I know where I stand from the get go on venue, food, cake, officiant, staff, and decor. I pay for my own dress, photographer, alcohol, and any additional details. I love this because it helps me narrow my budget after the all inclusive stuff is paid so I know where to cut costs (dress...I don't want to pay more than a few hundred tops and I'm working within that) and where I can splurge a little (photographer, a few diy decor things that aren't necessary but I want them).

That's actually a good sized budget. Our budget was $20k, but about $18k so far has been spent on the venue, food and alcohol alone. Needless to say, our $20k budget is now about $28k.

My best advice is not to look at venues over our budget. that's what we did and now look at us! Know your budget and stick to it. Read reviews anywhere you can find them before booking too. Never trust a book by its cover.

I started using the budget tool on WW, which is a great help. Buy wholesale/bulk when you can too. That will save you money.

Use the WW budget tool, I have found it extremely helpful.

Use the WW budget tool, I have found it extremely helpful.

My budget is the same as yours. use the WW budget tool it has helped me a lot.

I agree with the other posters about the WW budget tool! It will divide your budget up between categories based on averages spent, which gives you a good ballpark, but also lets you move money around between categories based on what is more or less important to you. For example, we are not having a limo and I am doing my own makeup, so I moved that money into flowers and food, which were 2 categories that we cared about more etc!

That's our budget for 200 people. I'm finding that I've become a bargain queen. Sales are your friends!

Shop around. Check out prices for many different things. Spend more money on more important things and less money on less important things.

Research what you need and find the best deals. Like others here have said the Budget too really helped us look at where most of the money would be spent and whether or not our budget was realistic for our wedding size (175)

Research - everything. Dont be afraid to negotiate with vendors, know the going rates in your area and what you are willing to spend. Be prepared when you go in to the meetings and ask a lot of questions.

If you use the WW budget tool it will give you approximates for the different areas so you have an idea on what you should be spending.

I'd give you my budget model but we're closer to $25k now (we planned on 15k as well).. yeah, so my budget is broken.

I'm having 70 people with 4k..I'm sure you'll have no problem!

Buy second hand decorations or make them yourself! In fact, if you can, do your floral DIY (although that means choosing simpler styles). It's really easy to make simple but beautiful bouquets - they can look fancy if you make them bigger/flower choices.

Personally, I stalk kijiji.

We have a 8k budget for a wedding of 65 guests. Definitely doable. Prioritize and spend your money on those things that are really important to you. What also helped us was that we booked an all inclusive venue: ceremony & reception spaces with all the chairs/tables/linens, catering, open bar, DJ, florist, invitations, etc.

We went with a photographer who is still tying to establish her self but her work is great. $625 for 5 hours with all the digital images & rights so no photobook or prints. Using coupons when purchasing wedding stuff, waiting for sales, etc.

We are bugeting for 15k. However, having a shuttle for our guests was very important so we are over our budget by our shuttle alone ($1865, 56 passenger bus, 14 hours) We have about 125 guests

Venue: free for ceremony & reception

Flowers: 200 (I will be going to LA flower mart and doing a "wildflower" look)

Catering: $5000, includes a buffet with choice of entrees, table ware, cake, and champagne toast.

Alcohol: $2000

DJ: $700 (inlcudes 2 DJ's for the entirity of our event)

Photography: $2800 also includes a second photgrapher for 3 horus

Dress & attire: $1,600 (although I think I can cut cost here because the dresses I like are generally less expensive)

Favors: $20 (we are doing horseshoes with a note that I got for free from a blacksmith, just had to print the note & laminate it and tie with ribbon)

Stationary: $60 all on my own. just have to print & send.

Officiant: FH's aunt is a pastor, we haven't come up with the budget yet. We will be paying for her room though.

You can do it! Our budget is $10,000 for 40 people. What helped us the most was telling venders our budget upfront as well as letting them know we were having a small intimate wedding.

When our ceremony venue found out how many guests we were having she knocked $300 off the price because there were less chairs to set up, haha. Same for our reception. Sure some places will be out of your reach, but just keep looking. Determine what's the most important for you and go from there. For us it was venues and food! haha

We had 110 people for 8-9k. Big savers for us was DIY flowers ($200 to buy bulk flowers, and it was actually really easy to put together). We didn't have a DJ, but someone was in charge of the ipod all night so it was still organized. Reception was 7hrs, and no other entertainment was planned but there was no issues with that. Everyone had a great time. BMs did my makeup and hair very simply (<2hrs for all of us)

We had 50 people for $6000. It was an all inclusive venue. We also did an 11am wedding so we just had champagne for the toast.

Just plug your budget into a budgeter and they'll calculate how much you can spend on each item

That's our budget as well $15grand for 80-100 people. It is do-able for sure, just try and stick to the budget you set out as best as you can