Under $1000 for the whole wedding

View Quoted Comment We’ve been to a few weddings and anniversary parties in parks department community centers and just now remembered that none of them had any decorations: no centerpieces, table cloths, flowers, etc and no one missed them because they were so busy having fun, dancing and catching up with other guests. I wouldn’t worry about it.



However, unless you have someone who is super militant about time frames, you may have a hard time cleaning up in 15 minutes. Do you have someone to help out with setup as well? What happens if you start cleaning up and someone comes over to congratulate you before they go? Unless you have help, you will be running over the 2 hour time frame.

Do you have a set date that your wedding must happen on? If not, you and your fiancé can have a longer engagement and save up the necessary means for the costs of vendors. My husband and I had a 17 month long engagement. We came to that length by going over our finances and seeing what we had left to put away for the wedding after all bills, rent, and subscriptions, groceries and laundry were paid. We even left a percentage to go to our savings account to have a emergency fund during the pandemic. We did a rough estimate of vendors and when we got a rough estimate of what we would need to save we just took how much money we each had left over after bills and such were paid and multiplied it by different numbers of months until we got the estimated price for all vendors. That gave us 17 months. So that is definitely one way you can save to have enough money for your wedding. I would highly recommend a longer engagement to have room to save and make a spreadsheet to keep track of all expenses and savings. You definitely want to try to avoid friendors as they are too unpredictable despite the lower costs of their services.

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No, the wedding is not on a set date. I have thought about having a longer engagement. It's just that most of my surplus money is paying off the credit card debt that I currently have. I'm so used to thinking that paying off your debts is your highest priority. If I didn't pay off my credit card debt faster, I could actually easily have $1500 in 3 months. So I'm not sure what to do.

You don't really have a budget at all even for a micro wedding. Why not just have a courthouse ceremony or get married at someone's home (that is really nice) then go out to eat at a really nice restaurant with a private room (would cost a couple of hundred of dollars to cover the cost of dinner for all of your guest. After dinner you could go out with close family/friends to celebrate at a club, lounge, or bowling activity or whatever shared activity you like to do together as a couple. I honestly dont think you could pull off a nice wedding with that budget that does not look thrown together or tacky. You can always have an elegant wedding/vow renewal later on down the road.

View Quoted Comment I completely understand prioritizing paying off debt and you can definitely still do that as well by just dedicating a portion of your income to your debt a month. But to have a good wedding experience and not feel like you’re struggling to pay for all these expenses or find ways to have vendors the cheapest or free I highly recommend adding length to your engagement and making a thorough savings plan and setting up an account just for the wedding. Honestly my husband and I saving for our wedding was the best thing we could have ever done we got to have a wedding debt free, one of our dreams and also discovered just how much we could actually save a month once we put our minds to it and it blew our minds. We weren’t making crazy high income at all and saved about 700 a month towards the wedding which I didn’t know we could do since we were always spending it unnecessarily on things like take out. We Canceled any unnecessary expenses and subscriptions like the eating out, the gym during covid, canceling Netflix and sharing one account, canceling Spotify and sharing one account same for Amazon. Little cuts can really go a long way. But you want to have a good wedding experience and not heavily rely on family and friends to service your wedding for things like food and officiating, etc. so if pushing your wedding to next summer is an option I would highly suggest and you can have so much wiggle room to save for your vendors and search for vendors with reasonable prices you are comfortable paying for put down a deposit now and pay them over time until 2 weeks from your date. You don’t want to settle for a photography student who may not be that good just to keep the price low because your photos may not be done well or edited well same for food. You want to try to have professional catering to avoid the possibility of food poisoning and so on. You could also look into doing a reception at a restaurant.

Congratulations!! The ideas given by others are really good ones! We also had an *impromptu* (thanks Covid) wedding at a state park. I think we spent maybe $500 total? But it was low key and we just did cupcakes and mini bottles of wine and beer.


Like you said, outdoor parks might be too hot in Texas in the summer. Could you do fall or spring? Definitely have someone you know get ordained if it's legal in your state. That's a cheaper way to go. We had a friend take pictures (she also did our engagement photos). If we would have had time we probably would have hired someone but I think your idea of a student is a good one too.

We also made our own cupcakes the night before. It was a little stressful but a friend and I just cranked it out and drank wine, etc. So it's definitely possible to do and your wedding won't be tacky just because you don't have a lot of money to spend. It will still be an amazing day!

The venue and the food are the biggest costs. Are you involved in a church or do you have an officiant that has a church? If so, the church might rent a space for the reception for very little and you could have the ceremony there. If you're not, consider asking around your community, family and friends for recommendations of churches where you might consider. Houston is huge though. Are your guests spread out or do they live in a certain area?
I'm not sure about your photographer idea. What do you consider a "student photographer"? Even people who are just starting out charge on the low end of average price range for their service. Look for photographers who have a package for micro weddings. They come out for 2 hours but you'll probably pay $300-500.
Have it in between meals and you can get away with cake and punch. If you're planning on getting a bunch of desserts though, they add up fast. For 25 people and tight budget, a quarter sheet cake from HEB would be lovely. Speaking of HEB, their floral dept does weddings - bouquets, boutonnieres, etc for reasonable prices. I think it's doable on your budget but if you can spend a little more for your special day, I would try. Just focus on the things that matter most.

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A lot of Aibnbs allow small parties! You just have to message them before hand! something like, "I love your home and I was hoping to have my micro wedding in your backyard! It would be from 4-7pm, and only have 25 people. We would have a short ceremony and then invite our family inside for cake. the guests would leave by 7 pm, and only my husband and I would be staying overnight, and of course we would leave the home as we found it! Would this be alright with you?"

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As I mentioned in my original post, I don't know any family or friends that have a nice house. I'd have to rent one from Airbnb or Peerspace.

I've done *extensive* research on private dining at restaurants. It's very complicated esp when there is a minimum food service charge, cake cutting fee, and gratuity. It easily comes up to $750-$1200.

I would not mind paying that much if I was able to have the ceremony at the restaurant because that would save on doing two different locations.

But I have a feeling that many people would consider it "tacky "(unless the restaurant was extremely fancy or was centered towards doing ceremonies). There are two restaurants in Houston that do offer ceremonies at the restaurant: Rainbow Lodge and Brennan's. I have reached out to both of them to get price estimates. At this time, they seem too expensive. That is why I would like to have a cake-and-punch reception.

I suppose that you're right and we could just focus on the ceremony being just us or just us and our parents and then do a celebration somewhere but not a typical reception.

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1) I do not belong to a church. I will think about asking around. The guests would be coming from the Dallas area to Houston.

2) I was thinking of going to my local community college and finding students who are majoring in photography so they are already experienced with a camera. I would ask them for their portfolios so that I can see how good they are. However, paying a professional photographer $300 for 2 hours sounds reasonable.

3) I was planning on maybe 3 different flavors of a very small cake or 3 small cheesecakes of different flavors.

Okay, all. I think I understand that my budget needs to increase. However, I just want to let everyone know that ever since I was little, I never wanted to spend very much on a wedding. I always vowed to spend as little as possible on my wedding. This is because I grew up without a lot of money. So I wanted to be very frugal and be considerate of other people on how much was spent/not spent. I always imagined my wedding to be very small so that it wouldn't be very expensive. I could never fathom/imagine having a dance floor and all of these fancy toasts or having it held in a big ballroom. I don't want all of the frills. I want a very. simple. wedding.

I honestly just find it unacceptable to spend $2000+ for a wedding and $1500 is really pushing it for me as far as what I am comfortable spending. Period. I just find spending $1500-$2000 unreasonable.

So I will increase my budget to $1500, but there's no way anyone is going to convince me of spending more than that. It is My. Personal. Tenet.

View Quoted Comment It is absolutely fine to have a hard limit on what you want to spend. I think everyone here is just trying to help you with how to spend that money. It is fine to want a new dress and jewelry and shoes (even though the latter two items especially can be borrowed or you can use what you already have), but that might mean cutting your guest list so you can afford to feed all of your guests. And now knowing your guests are traveling from Dallas to Houston (easily 4 hours), a cake reception isn’t very considerate.
You can have a friend or family member get ordained to save that officiant fee, and there’s the money to put toward a photographer, who remember, isn’t just shooting your wedding but editing your photos, uploading them online or to a drive, etc. That’s really not a $200 job.
I don’t understand why a restaurant would be tacky? And if they charge a cake cutting fee—forgo a cake. There are ways to make a small budget work, but you need to be creative and expand your options—for example, getting married in a park in the fall and walking to a restaurant for a reception.

View Quoted Comment Good luck! I respect your stance on limiting the expense of your wedding. I agree, weddings are ridiculously expensive. It took a while for me to reconcile my own vision for my day with the realities of the cost. What has helped me is to realize that everyone making money from a wedding are working, just as I am at my job, and they deserve fair income as well. I still watch my budget but with this perspective in mind. And there are some things that I refuse to spend the average price on (like the dress). I think everyone's comments are with good intentions. You got this!

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No one is trying to convince you to spend more. just being realistic. If you want a nice wedding that does not look thrown together or tacky you will have to spend more. You asked for input that's what people gave you. Do want you want with your money. Others have given you plenty of good options

1. Postpone until you can afford to get married.

2. Have a nice dinner. Plenty of nice restaurants and it is possible to do so without spending over $1,000 as people have celebrations at restaurants all the time (graduations, bridal showers, etc).

3. Get married on a beach

With the budget you have you do not have that many options or have the opportunity most likely to have everything in one setting as that is costly. You also mentioned you have people traveling. I personally would want it to be rather nice for someone who is taking time off work/ spending money to see me get married. punch/cake would not do in my opinion.

I understand the reasons for your budget, and yes, I agree paying off debt is more important.

However, you can't have guests without hosting properly. That means not asking them to bring anything or ask for cash from anyone. You do need to provide some sort of hosted food and drink to thank people for attending the ceremony. If you're not feeding a meal, have the event at a non-meal time, like 2 pm.

The cheapest way to cut down expenses is to cut the guest list.

1) Renting a house through Peerspace for 1.5-2 hours. --I don't know Peerspace but if you can, great.

2) A pot-luck reception where everyone brings a dessert and/or drinks. --this goes against etiquette because you're then asking guests to host themselves.

3) Hiring a student photographer who needs their portfolio developed. --if you can find someone, awesome!

4) Paying for as many things as possible through payment plans (like Klarna, AfterPay, and Affirm) so that there is no interest. --don't go into more debt for this.

5) Make my own veil with tulle and a headband. --or maybe decorate a headband with rhinestones or something and have that, unless you really want a veil it's not necessary.

6) Holding the wedding after my birthday so that maybe I can politely request gift cards for my birthday --it's not polite to ask for money.

A cake and punch reception is totally fine, and you can get a sheet cake quite inexpensively. I would suggest if you can maybe add a veggie tray with ranch dip or something. Punch can be juice mixed with sprite and maybe coffee/tea. You could play music on a speaker from your phone.

Good luck with your planning.

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2) Yes, the other discussion posts have already taught me that it's rude. There is no need to continue to reiterate it.

6) People are misunderstanding this. I meant to ask for them for *my birthday* which would be several weeks *before* the wedding, and I would simply use them/wear them *for* the wedding.

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It's not having the reception at the restaurant that I was afraid would be considered "tacky". It was holding the *ceremony* at the restaurant that I was afraid people would call "tacky."

I was also considering asking the restaurant to make the cake/dessert to avoid the cake-cutting fee.

View Quoted Comment I feel like I can clarify this. You are saying you would ask people for gift cards or money for your *birthday*. What commenters are trying to say is that it's rude to ask for money *period* even for your birthday. So are you saying that your friends or family usually give you a birthday present? And if they ask you what you want, you'll say "I would rather have a gift card or money"? I can see my fiance asking me what I want for my birthday, but no one else. I don't get birthday presents from anyone besides FH and so maybe that's where the misunderstanding is coming from.
I think it's very resourceful. And I'm glad you have people in your life that give you birthday presents! I'm in my forties so now we just get drink and go to bed by 9 lol.

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I never ask anyone for money for my birthday. For Christmas and my birthday, I make like a list of things that I would like ****if someone asks me what I would like*****. I would never just hand someone a list of what I want for my birthday or for Christmas if it was never requested.......

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Just trying to help.