Who even has money for a wedding??

View Quoted Comment Ok, that's better than I thought. Thank you I appreciate it!

View Quoted Comment Those are definitely good point. My Matron of honor is the same way with me lol. Thank you for your comment and insight. I appreciate it!

Just remember it's only ONE day! Don't start married life out in debt if you don't have family contributing, think about saving for a house, kids, car, retirement etc. Anyways, my advice would be if you want 100+ people, to DIY a lot of projects. I've made all my own centerpieces and most of the decor. Amazon/dollar store is pretty amazing on finding decor on a budget. If you don't want to hire a fancy caterer for $50-100/person, looking into restaurants that offer catering options to be delivered. You won't have staff to attend to the food, but it will still be good food at less than $20/person. DIY your dessert bar as well. Music - may just make a playlist of all the songs you want and find a friend or family to manage the music? flowers - considering DIY or find a local nursery that would sell flowers in bulk at a lower price. Our florist owns her own nursery and the flowers are seasonal, over all $600 for all flowers Booze - DIY, just have a bucket of ice out with drinks to chill and a signature drink. People are perfectly capable of making their own drinks. Venue - consider asking someone to use their private property or farm?. Think outside the box such as a zoo or park. My friend planned a whole wedding for under $5000 at a zoo and the venue hosts everything from food to decor. Mine is $15000 because our venue was gifted to us (uncles farm). It's all what you make it, and what you prioritize to be important!

My guest list is 80 max but most likely 75 or less. Our budget is about 6,000 but will be less. All we have to pay for is our rental car for Honeymoon plus any attractions and food, officiant, cake which we will be doing a small round and sheet cake, a few odd and ends to fill in centerpieces, his suit which was $130 on sale, invites/thank you cards, and few small things. Our families helped with photographer, catering, and plane tickets for Honeymoon. We won our hotel stay in a prize drawing. Most of our weddi g is DIY. Were having it at a private family location, DIY music, decorations, flowers, and other stuff.


Weddings dont have to be expensive

Everyone has pretty much covered the “how to save money” and/or “how to make your budget work”.
I have a different thought from your post though. It kind of sounds like you and your FH are not on the same page as to how your money should be spent. You said you have so many other things you’d rather spend that $15,000 on. That’s a big deal if you are looking at the financials long term and your FH is just looking at the here and now of wanting a big party.
I’d recommend sitting down with him and really having the discussion. Talk to him about the things you think that money would be better spent on. And discuss the parts of the wedding that are truly the most important to both of you. A compromise needs to happen. You don’t want him to regret not having the big party, but you’ll end up feeling resentful if you spend that much on the wedding and then can’t do future things you felt were important. Talk to him and get on the same page. Good luck!

View Quoted Comment That's a good point, thank you so much! You're right, that's exactly the issue. Well a major part for sure. I appreciate it so much. Thank you!

View Quoted Comment You’re welcome. Good luck!

If you need to have 100 guests, what about a church wedding followed by the reception in the church hall (not too expensive)? Have it catered by an Italian restaurant. At $20-$30 per person, that’s $2K-$3K for the food. See if the church will let you bring in wine.


Or, have a church wedding and have a brunch wedding at a restaurant, which will be much less than dinner. Hopefully, your guests won’t drink as much either. Brunch might be $50 per person (plus alcohol).

We were lucky enough to have family that helped, but it's also all about figuring out what's important to you, so you know to save up for that, and what you don't care about, so you can go budget on it - or cut it.

To us, food was super important, so we splurged on the venue/caterer. Flowers were not, particularly given my dad's allergies, so we went with fake flowers. My dress WAS important, but there was a massive sample sale, and I was blessed by the dress fairy, and I found my dress for 90% off retail price. (I cannot recommend sample sales enough.)

It's hard, and the sticker shock is real (we spent more than 2x your budget, because we got married in NYC, where DH is from - location MATTERS in budgeting). However, we *never ever* spend money on ourselves, so we don't feel guilty for throwing a huge party for our families and friends. (It turns out our parents get along (!!!)... so honestly, worth every penny.)

In the end, this is how we guided our budget decisions:

If we didn't remember it from someone else's wedding, it didn't matter.

Well I live in NY which is by far an expensive city and a friend of mine had an amazing wedding for $6800. Which clearly is 1/2 of what I'm paying.

She got married at botanical gardens beautiful! only cost her $600 for her ceremony and guest entrance. FYI her brother was ordained online and did their ceremony.

She rented a VFW $1000 (event space for her reception) She didn't have passed apps but had a Nacho bar, 3 signature drinks all night, 2 deli platters, 2 fruit plates and a cheese board as her cocktail hour reception food total was ($500 for drinks for night $300 for food mostly coming from Costco/BJs or supermarkets) She used online free promo printing and groupon for pictures which was her centerpieces on tables with candles and rose petals. looked beautiful 8 tables cost her $120. FYI her pictures were both of couple and guest within the table so everyone wanted them as keepsakes. Uber black to location cost her $60.

Buffet cost her 0 dollars as family pitched in( amazing food and she forced people to take pans home of leftovers).. Linens thanks to my hook up cost her $68 for cloth tables clothes/linen napkins/overlays. Her photo booth cost her $350 another groupon special. DJ was $600 photographer $600 off craigslist new photo/videographer but video was epic.

Cake plus candy table was $380. Grooms attire $350(tux, sports jacket for reception,shoes,shirt tie) Brides attire $980 (dress, shoes, reception dress, veil, headpiece,jewelry) I don't know if I have the balls to try to buy dress online but she went to Davids bridal tried on dresses was torn between two couldn't decide both dresses were $699 each she looked online to a site call Hebeos.com and ordered both dresses for $600 together and long veil from another site for $50 with headpiece, jewelry from amazon, her most expensive part of attire was her shoes! FYI she looked like a million bucks a true princess.

oh her save the dates were done online-free, amazon did her invites $60. She spent the remaining 700-800 on decorations, tips for vendors, keepsakes, bouquets (DIY), inexpensive rings, her wedding didn't have the DIY feel or that she skimped anywhere. It didn't break the budget she have 83 people show up was expecting 115 but we partied all night and had a good time.