The struggle is real.

My first wedding was made for me... This one is all on me and goodness. I finally feel like a full blown adult with the budget and planning and trying to keep it in budget. Look mom I'm an adult!

Amen!! And the nasty looks we are getting when we call ourselves "budget sensitive" is just ridiculous!!! We're making it work, but holy wow the money!!

I have found that if you are looking for anything online or otherwise and include the word wedding the price goes up 30%! If you want centerpieces or white heels... don’t include the word wedding in your search! You may find the prices a little more reasonable! But yes, the cost of wedding s even when trying to do it as cheaply as possible is still astonomical!

Facts!! It makes me want to look into a second career doing something in the wedding business!! DOC or wedding planning for a second job seems like it would be quite lucrative.

Omgggggg. I know. FH was like, I just know we can have a full scale Saturday wedding in June, in NY, 105 guests, fully catered for $7k total.... NOPE. With an extreme amount of budgeting we ended up just at $20k, including rings and honeymoon. I'm immensely proud, but still devastated- That's just soooo much money!

For anyone early in the process who's interested; we did silk Etsy wedding party flowers and DIY real Sam's club flowers, DIY open bar with hired bartenders, a very competent family friend dj, lucked out finding a budget photographer, low cost Azazie dress, The Black Tux tux rental, DIY decor from Amazon and Etsy (no silly themes!), simple invites from Ann's Bridal Bargains, friend officiant & no DOC- we did a ton of research and wrote our own ceremony and day-of timeline, negotiated site fee, amazing caterer that does EVERYTHING and worked with our budget, rehearsal dinner at Mom's ranch house with drop-off catering, and an impressive use of Excel spreadsheets for budgeting.

My main advice to newer people is to cut costs early- just right out of the gate start downsizing everything in your head. I purposely stayed away from Instagram as much as possible, it fills your head with silly expensive ideas that you don't need, and it muddles it all up into confusion. There is a such thing as being too inspired lol. I went nuts with ideas and then had to undo it all to streamline it. Keep it simple, keep it classy.

View Quoted Comment Hahh well part of it is my parents are paying and gave us a strict budget and FH and I can’t afford to go over.
My dress we bought from David’s bridal for $500, veil $70 and crinoline for underneath was $60. We are looking into ordering flowers from Costco so that will be under $300 for 6 bridesmaid bouquets, a bridal bouquet and a throwing bouquet. My sister does graphic design so she’s making our invitations so that is saving $250, we aren’t doing any “extra” florals. Instead, our table decor will be these teeny tiny dime sized wooden hearts that say Love on them we found on amazon 500 for $10, white table cloths, fairy lights, photos of us through the years and some greenery cut from evergreen trees in our yard. Total cost for table decor (not including tablecloth rental) will be less than $200.
We have a family friend as our officiant, our DOC is one of FHs coworkers who does DOC for free. We aren’t having a DJ, we will make a Spotify playlist and have a friend announce us and things through the night.
Our cake is going to be smaller than normal, something more for the wedding party, and then we will have Costco sheet cakes for everyone else.

It's devastating to me, to realize what I saw on pinterest, TV, Instagram was beyond my reach. We have been able to cut cost by having our caterer serve alcohol, we are only getting a keg, and then we will have a couple of cases of wine, the rest is spike lemonade, punch, and tea (this is not your average tea, it has strawberries, blackberries, mint, lemons. It is truly amazing and I don't drink tea). We are not using a transportation service but we are using uber to take us from the ceremony to the reception. We ordered a template on etsy for our invitations and my sister is printing them at work. We started with 10,000 totally unrealistic for us. we are now at $15,000 with HM we are at $20,000 ugh..

Agreed! Everything is soo pricey.
Plus our venue adds on tax on gratituity automatically onto your food, drinks right away.
5.6 state tax and 18% gratituity really jacks up the price!

Yes!! I don't understand it!

The amount of times Ive said the wedding is cancelled due to cost😂

I think that vendors are priced too high and killing off people’s wedding dreams. I’m a photographer and the amount I see other photographers charge couples is a rip off.

View Quoted Comment

Lol. Soul crushing, for sure. Happily, over a few months we revised our vision and by having an off-season, weekday wedding, saved over 50% on the site fee! Yay.

We tried to trim costs as we are having an off season wedding at a venue that includes food, drinks, and stuff.

Cut: DJ, wedding coordinator, transportation,
Made: my dress, centerpieces, signs, invitations
Bought used or discounted : decor, shoes, jewelry, gifts, fake flowers

For 50 -75 people we are hoping to come under $8,000

THEY ARE! I always knew they would be but when I started planning it felt like things cost more than I expected them to and I ended up needing more or different things I did not plan to have. I tried to be as frugal and find the best deals I could but overall it is still just a pricey thing. I tried cutting all kinds of corners and DIY what I can and girl trust me I tried to negotiate everything ahah I got some weird looks for it but I tried my hardest to save!

Sure are. My socks got blown off so many times I don't have any left. lol

Hahaha I agree w you , mine was 40 Wedding Anniversary and Vow Renewal on May 19 of this year and it cost us almost 20k , I remember on my wedding day 40 yrs ago my package cost me $450.00 w dress and Photographer & photo album, were can you find a package like this now. Good luck .