Where to start

Everyone’s budgets are going to be different—I would say to figure out around what date you’d like to have the wedding and how much you all would be able to realistically save by then, and go from there. Your budget will dictate everything else—guest count, venue, food, decor, etc. If you aren’t happy with what you’d be able to get for that budget, look into pushing your date back until you can save enough.

There’s a lot of ways you can cut your budget—lower your guest count, serve just beer and wine v. full bar, DIY-ing decor, buffet style dinner instead of plated, hiring vendors who are just starting out; the list goes on.

Brainstorm with your fiancé(e) and figure out what your priorities are and where you’d be comfortable cutting corners. For us, it’s the guest count—we both have big, involved families who would lose their minds if we didn’t invite some of them, so a massive guest list is a must for us. A plated dinner service and full bar aren’t, though—we’re fine with buffet style dinner and beer/wine plus two signature cocktails. Just make sure you plan the wedding you can afford!

Work out how much you can save per month between now and your planned wedding date. Add in any existing savings you have now that you want to use for your wedding, and that’s your budget. Don’t count on money from anyone else until it’s actually in your bank account.

The best way to save money is to keep the guest list smaller. Say you’re looking at $50 a head for food/drink (which where I am is pretty cheap), then every twenty people you invite adds another $1000 onto your costs.

All-inclusive venues are usually cheaper and less stress (no running around looking at tablecloths, cutlery, glassware etc) so see what’s available in your area and if it might work for you.

Off season weddings are also usually cheaper. We got married in winter and instead of $120 a head our package was $75 a head. With $75 guests that was a massive saving. Sundays can be cheaper too.

My advice is always do some research on how much vendors in your area will cost that way you can get a more realistic idea of how much things could cost. It will really help cut down on the sticker shock brides tend to experience!

I would start with figuring out how much venues in your area cost, catering, and photographers and go from there to figure out how much you want your budget to be. I have found those to be the most expensive elements of wedding planning so far so that is where we started to figure out how much we want to spend. Also talking to your friends to see if they know of any DJs, photographers or anything else that could cut costs! We are saving a ton by finding friends willing to give us a discount on DJ and venue!

We have also found that have an envelope and putting extra cash in it for the wedding is very helpful. Its hard to take money from an envelop dedicated for your wedding for something like a target run

We started out with thinking about when we wanted to get married. Then we worked on a rough copy of a guest list. Then we set our budget. We are more than likely going to go a bit over it but we are still a year out so we aren’t quite close to it just yet. Once you have all that planned then I would start looking into venues. We have an all inclusive venue so all I have to worry about is some of the other main items (officiant, dresses, suits, etc).

We started at 5k, then lowered it to 2k, then he wanted to lower it to 1,500. That was crazy low. We actually ended up back at around 5 by the time it was all done. You can have a very nice wedding if you really plan out what you really want the budget to go for. For us it was food and a DJ.

Define “dream wedding.” Is it venue, decor or giant guest list? You can probably have one of those at an affordable cost.

The budget savvy bride by Jessica Bishop is a great guide! You can get it cheap on amazon, it is what I've been using!

It really depends on getting quotes to see how much you can afford for the amount of people you want. My advice is to also ask people to borrow things they have so you don't have to buy yourself.

Everything depends on your idea of "decent price", the area you live in, and how many guests you're wanting. We started with a $10k budget and after figuring out we would invite 200+ people, raised it to $20k. We'll end up around $25k if I were to guess.