Wedding draining bank account

It’s hard to watch aha but scale it down to a level where you’re comfortable with spending. Don’t have a $20k wedding if you can’t afford or WANT to spend that, ya know? That’s how I thought of it. Mine was $16k and split in half with my spouse so $8k for me was ok. Of course I’d have liked it cheaper aha but it is what it is, I was comfortable with that much at least.

It’s not easy to spend so much money, but don’t spend more than you’re comfortable with. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

View Quoted Comment That is a good way to think about it with splitting the cost! Our budget is about 15k which Is still more then we’d like to spend. I’m trying so hard to save with diying stuff but even craft supplies is expensive and anything with wedding in the title is marked up. Unfortunately our big budget items are the caterer and the venue and photographer. I think for decorations and stuff I’m going to try scaling back a bit though. It’s just so depressing seeing the money just disappear lol

View Quoted Comment 100% I feel ya! The idea behind spending so much in general is intimidating. For then photographer you could try to scale back by 1) asking for less amount of hours needed 2) finding a cheaper or free photographer who just wants to expand their portfolio

Haven’t started paying anything yet... but I’m dreading it a bit. I have 40 guests and I’m hoping to do it all for $5000. We shall see...

First of all, I think you have to scale it back. If you're not accepting help from family, then you HAVE to create a budget and stick to it. We're having a small, intimate destination wedding with immediate family and very close friends (max 25 people). Right now, our budget is at $7300 (which is actually $1500 above our original budget when we were planning to get married in Maine). We have 3/4 of the wedding paid for in cash already and will have the remainder hopefully paid off in cash by the time our wedding rolls around.

One of you has to be the financially sensible one and keep your costs in check. I think back to when I was young and my parents offered to pay for my wedding with the choice of:

1. small wedding / BIG honeymoon

2. BIG wedding / small honeymoon

I always knew I wanted a small wedding, because at the end of the day, I'd rather the extra money go towards our life together be it an unforgettable honeymoon or purchasing a house.

Going into debt for a wedding is more than insane, it basically gives you some insight of what may come if you are not savvy with your finances now.

Going economical does not mean going cheap. It means your money smart. My economical wedding is probably more expensive than most but I had to take into consideration that we changed destinations and it is prime "season" - But, I also decided to save money where I could - I changed from a $2000 wedding dress / alterations to a $300 (Identical dresses, but one does not have the "label" attached), I've switched from having $3000 wedding bands to $500 bands (identical bands, but the new ones don't have the label attached). Our biggest save $16000 wedding / venue to $4000 (We wanted a sunrise wedding and saved even more money because most people want a sunset wedding)

There are ways to save and still have the elegant, glamorous wedding you always wanted. You just have to be willing to do the research.

I think you might need to scale things back to what's affordable.
I haven't dipped into my savings at all yet and have just been paying for things with my regular work payments as they come. That being said, we have help from friends/family but I will still be paying about $20k personally for our expenses. It really helps to spread things out if you have the time...
For instance, in January my dress came in and I paid the other 50% of the deposit ($900).
In February I booked a hotel for half of our honeymoon ($2k).
This month I purchased all my bridesmaids gifts ($400).

I know everyone's employment income is different.. but if you can use your ongoing income to pay for smaller things, and then also save some $ for the larger deposits that come at both the beginning and the very end, i's more managable.

If you're not comfortable spending that much money and it's draining your accounts then scale back. We sat down before planning and decided on a budget of that we feel comfortable with spending without dipping into the savings and still having a life. Setting a budget before hand was the best advice I've got from people. Good luck!

My original plan was elope then send out “We Got Married!” cards with our wedding picture at seaside ceremony, and no reception. My honey wasn’t too thrilled about that LOL. My third marriage, his second. So now we’re having a planned reception for 75. My budget is $2500 for everything, which I’m doing a lot of DIY because I’m cheap and I’m creative 😀

Any chance you can pick up at PT job for extra wedding funds?

One thing that we did from the beginning was priority our budget. We both knew how much we were comfortable spending and also identified the areas that are most important (food, drink, entertainment) get the bulk of our budget and other things (flowers, decor, etc) get less of the funds. Makes it much easier to not stress about the cost of our catering because we know that it is within the amount we agreed to spend.

I'd definitely relook at things because the expenses just keep coming and you also want to prepare for some unexpected expenses as well that may come along the way. Our wedding went from 10k to about 20k way too fast, luckily we planned it over the span of a year and just saved a lot but it took so much more because pricing for everything is super expensive for any wedding aspect, but if you look good enough you can find small shop for flowers, invites online during a sale, sale events online where you can buy stuff and store. The last month so many tiny things came up that we were happy we had a safety net budget in case things would pop up. I loved my wedding but I'd honestly prefer to take an extravagant vacation before spending that much on a party for one day.

Shop around. Look for unconventional venues. We are having our wedding ceremony in a beautiful park near us and the reception is at the fair grounds the next town over. Our reception site was $400 total for Friday through Sunday. Every where else we looked was a minimum of $3-5K. Shopping around and DIYing a lot of stuff has kept us well under our $5k budget and that is with 160 guests...

Despite what deposits you have already put down, you should have plenty of time before your wedding to cut back on lots of things. Don't fall for the sunk cost fallacy (that the money you already spent justifies spending *more* money). Stop all wedding-related purchases until you make a realistic budget that takes into account what you and your future spouse can pay for between now and next September. Then stick to it. Don't sacrifice your future for a party ("draining your bank account" is a scary reality to face).

I also wanted to comment on this: "and no one seems to care right now and we’re kind of doing this for them". Stop trying to meet others' expectations of what your wedding should look like AND make sure you can pay for everything you decide to have without assistance.

Very good advice thank you everyone!! I’m definitely going to reevaluate our budget and spending and make some better, cost effective choices.

View Quoted Comment Get a PT job. That’s what I did. It made me feel SO much better paying down expenses . We’re also at 20k. So 10k over our originally intended budget but I felt everything we had I really wanted in a wedding. I did my best to research vendors for quality and good pricing. I splurged a little on my dress, then really tried to cut down on the guest list as bets I could. In the end I just got a PT job. I think we’ll be at about 13ishk after payments /deposits etc. which is a little more manageable towards the wedding in six months. We saved for that part.
If getting a PT job will help bring down the expenses to a manageable amount then get one( deliver pizzas , work in customer service anything temp) otherwise if you just can’t afford a $20k wedding even with added income then go back to your budget and simply forfeit some items even those associated with a deposit and work with what you have . Good luck xx

View Quoted Comment Good thinking I might consider a part time job, my weekends are usually free so not a bad option! Thank you for the advice!