Wedding in TWO MONTHS! HELP!

Also, as for my family cooking, on my 18th debut birthday (it's like Quincenera but for 18th birthday for Filipinos), my family cooked 90% of the food because they enjoy cooking. It's usually them who offers to do it as a gift. And people loved the food and we even had leftovers. No one but my family can cook Filipino food so well lol! But if it's really that bad, I'll look into getting a vendor...

Seconding A.L. here that your budget is not enough. Food for my 60 guests is about $1,200 [before tips for the staff] and that is at just about the lowest cost food available. You are gonna use your entire budget on food alone because it is not safe for your family to cook. If you've been together 6 years, another year wont hurt so you can host properly.

Also have you asked the officiant you want if he requires pre-marital classes? Those can take a month or more just to finish.

$1900-$2000 is our plan. I've been told that it's not how much we have moneywise, but it's how we budget it.

Yes, it is bad to make anyone work (catering, photography, anything at all) on your wedding day. You got bad advice about the budget.

The officiant is already licensed and everything.

@OP you can only budget so much before you still need more money. Most of your money should be going into the food and drink for the reception since you have a venue with the fixings and whatnot taken care of. Food is most important part of your reception.

And even though they are great cooks if ever one of your friends you invite gets sick from the food they could sue your family and you because of it. Hire a professional. Plus then your family has more time to enjoy the day and be in pictures instead of having to warm food up and refill serving dishes.

ETA: Pre marital classes are for you, not the officiant... you need to take them for the officiant to deem you are ready to be married with most religious officiants.

Your family should not be working on your wedding day.

And just because the church is "free" you should still give a generous donation.

Oh, sorry that was my misunderstanding. No, I don't need pre-marital classes ?? And I'm 21. And okay, I'll most likely get a vendor then! And as for the budget, i figured we might spend more than $2k, but we don't want any of us, my family or his family to spend too much, that's why we set it that low. In reality, I figured we'd spend more than that. ??

The venue is free at church because of the tithing we pay each month ^^ it's like one of the benefits we get at church. Also, we will be setting up and taking down the venue ourselves. A little bit of a background, my fiancee's brother got married at the same venue and we set up and take down everything, so we'll be doing the same for ourselves.

21 is really young. Wait. There's no rush. Nobody wants to set up their own wedding or take it down.

Here we go with the too young comments...

OP yeah depending on what food you order for the day of and how long your reception is [for instance, will you do cocktail hour while you and FH take photos after the ceremony? Or will you do a first look to get photos done early and skip cocktail hour to go directly to dinner?] you are looking at anywhere from $15 per person to $100. I suggest looking into BBQ, Italian, or some kind of grill based caterer to save money on food. I opted to have a burger bar with chicken, beef, and veggie burgers along with fruits and cocktail hour snacks and several sides and got quoted $20 a person, the caterer is bringing an industrial grill to our venue to grill each person's food on site to taste. It's nice, but saves us money too. Then the best ways to save money are cutting back on flowers and decorations - flowers are expensive so its cheaper to either only do a few or buy faux flowers or buy bulk from grocery store/wholesale clubs to be able to save with those. If you budget right and really don't need to pay anything into the church for your ceremony and reception, and depending on the donation you'd give the officiant and your flower choices, and if you choose not to get a DJ, you could probably stay under 3,000.

Alternatively you can have an afternoon ceremony and reception, where you have the reception be shorter and over before dinner and you begin after lunch, and then all you need to provide is desserts and drinks [called a cake and punch reception] which can save you a significant amount.

If you're planning on ordering a traditional wedding cake I would start looking into those soon too since bakeries only take on so many per day and you will be in the middle of busy season for weddings.

GUUURRLLL. WHOA... I'm having the same amount of people at mine and our food alone is $1400.. and we're doing bbq.. You should wait.. Please don't have your family work at your wedding. Let them have that day to see you be married! Please!! My FH's brother did our Epics and they were terrible. He was on his phone the whole time and didn't give us any pose suggestions.. If your sister does them for you just know that she isn't going to treat you like a customer.. Lesson learned on that one..

I agree you probably need to possibly extend your date so you can save more money and definitely budget for a caterer.

On another note, how incredibly rude are the " how old are you questions"? I wouldn't be answering those unless the response was none of your business. Let your family, pastor or other qualified people counsel you on whether or not you are ready to be married.

Hey Katrina, that's great to hear you're open to looking into hiring a pro caterer! I was going to say just about everything Sylphier said (bbq or pasta bar catering, cake and punch reception...) so the only thing I'll add to the thread is on your absolute must-do checklist make sure you look into the requirements and timeline for getting your marriage license.

ETA and rings, if you're getting them, will likely need to be ordered and/or sized so if you plan to exchange them that's another thing to add to the list earlier rather than later.

21 is really young! Listen to what the other PP are saying- don't make your family cook, need to provide alcohol, and dont have friendors

My sister had her first marriage at 21 and it kinda a shotgun wedding except no baby. They got married in Vegas, my parents found out and then got very upset and then wanted to plan one for the whole family. It was planned in 3 months. The ceremony/dinner was in a small hall at the church and there was no alcohol allowed. After everyone ate my parents planned for the reception to be in their backyard for drinks, music/dancing, and swimming.

It was SO MUCH WORK. We did everything. We prepped, cleaned up, etc etc. I just remember saying, I never want to do this again. Making your family work sucks. It may seem easy but fuck it was so annoying.

@FutureMrs like x100000

Could you have a smaller wedding now and then save up and have a big reception later?

Well, we've talked to our church leaders and everything and they said we're ready. It's just a matter of putting it all together. As for my age, I really have had enough of people telling me I'm too young. Tell that to our church leaders who got married at 18 and are successful dentists now. And I will take your guys' advice on wedding videography/photography. It's just that I trust them because they're professionals and because they offered. However, if it really is a bad idea I'll look into finding someone else. Unfortunately, my fiancee's brother was unlucky with their photographer, he wasnt bad but he wasnt that good either... And as for the date, our convictions are strong with the date we picked and wanted to keep it that way. I came here to this forum for the reason of taking advice on what to prioritize, not to get the date moved. But i do understand your concerns, so thank you!