Wedding Costs

You're not alone, girl! I agree, everything adds up quickly - checking my spending keeps me on track with the budget. Way to go for you being proactive!

Omg yaaas I wanted a small simple wedding and ours is looking to be around $20000 all said and done 🤯😓

View Quoted Comment I thought I was going for the simple as well! I have cut costs as much as I can and it still keeps adding up 😑

Yeah, I just calculated how much we've already spent the other day and was like ".....how." We were so so careful to try to negotiate better prices and keep costs down, but when we decided to get married we didn't realize that NJ is the 2nd most expensive state to get married in, so literally everything is an arm and a leg.

I completely feel ya! I've been trying to be as mindful with spending as possible and I am still going to be way over what I originally wanted to spend. I guess my original budget was never realistic considering I live in one of the most popular locales to get married in the United States... Charleston, SC. It's so expensive to get married here! I can't believe the amount of people that travel here to get married. Lol!

View Quoted Comment I didn’t know that! Good luck keeping costs down!

"every few months" girl I got a spreadsheet going I check once a day at least! I'm a huge finance nerd though, so I keep diligent track of all my spending. My parents are contributing the majority of the wedding budget, and I'm taking care of anything above that! I try to keep to a monthly budget for needs, wants, and savings - wedding stuff has overtaken the "wants" category, which just means I don't buy clothes/makeup/etc. anymore. I totally agree though, it's added up way more than I expected!

So I never actually added everything up til last week which was kind of stupid on my end but total cost was way more than we expected when we added venue and vendors together, even taking out the portion our parents are paying. I pretty much have my "half" saved up already but that's not even including our wedding attire, rings, honeymoon, and the rest of the decor. We figured we should start paying some vendors off now before the next big bulk venue cost comes up. It's not like it isn't doable, it's just more than we thought! I wish we only had to pay 13K! We are hoping for many declines when the time comes.

I keep this spreadsheet and every time we buy something for the wedding I add onto it and yes it has ballooned!
But also don't forget to not add things in that you'll be using outside beyond the wedding. I don't count those because it's not specifically just for the wedding. My groom bought a general suit he's using for himself overall, and just happens to be wearing it for our wedding for instance - didn't account for that in my wedding budget or spending.

View Quoted Comment Haha! If I checked once a day I think I would drive myself crazy!