Wedding budget?

[kiara_silver]

So me and my SO have been talking marriage a whole lot. And he says we are going to get married, and so I honestly think i will be engaged by 2013!! He's already done ring talk and we've discussed this a lot. (He had me measure my fingers!) And he has given me the O.K on looking and thinking about weddings. He said, we could have the wedding here in California. I have more family then he does, and it would probably be easier for his main family to come here then for mine to go there. We would have 50 or less guests. So I still haven't even come up with idea places or food or just anything! I was just curious though for those who are married or are in the mist of planning. What is your wedding budget? How much did your wedding estimate out to? With the economy and our long distance situation, we can't afford anything extravagant. And as far as having family pitch in we both wouldn't ask. But my dad has his pride I have a feeling that he would. Still we wouldn't ask, so we may not have a big deal. But I was thinking around 2000. Is this possible? This won't include rings.

Im just looking for any advice or others experiences. Helpful wedding savings, any wedding planning advice at all! Because if things go as I think they might, I think by next year I might be planning our wedding. And it doesn't hurt to start getting ideas early right? Thanks

[snow_girl]

$2000 might be possible, but just barely. I went to a wedding this summer that was in the morning and they had a cheese and cracker tea lunch. If you know someone good at baking as them to make your cake. I don't know that you would be able to afford anything else for that amount of money. It was actually very lovely the morning wedding that also will cut not having to pay for alcohol. Finding a nice dress can be done but it won't probably be found from a wedding dress store, those are all expensive. A venue would cost most, if you could do it at someone's house, even better. I don't know how much the person that marries you costs, (i can't think of the name, its 5am) see if someone you know is willing to get certified to do it, as far as I know it doesn't require much. I think $2000 is doable, but you are going to have to be very creative.

[mllebamako]

I agree with snow_girl, $2000 is doable as long as you're willing to be creative and simple. When I was looking at venues, they were all 2000-3000 depending on the time of day/day of the week. So we are thinking about having it in a public park instead. I think you should consider doing a cocktail hour wedding or doing just small bites instead of a a full on sit down meal. You may want to do your own flowers (Costco has a great selection). Try to buy things at non-Wedding places (for the dress, cake, flowers, music, etc).

[Trethsparr]

(I'm using the experience of planning my summer wedding in my answer here.) Eh... honestly, it might be possible, but it will be rather hard to keep the costs that low, even with 50 or less people, especially since you're having the wedding in California (things are more expensive here). If you want to have a simple ceremony/cake-cutting, it's do-able, but if you want a longer event, money becomes more problematic.

My wedding was less than 5k and very modest with less than 30 people attending (I had originally tried to go lower, but costs rack up fast - even the silly/stupid little things you wouldn't expect), but there are a ton of large and small expenses - the dress, the hair and makeup, the wedding party gifts, the cake, the venue/reception place, the officiant/celebrant, the wedding photographers, the sound tech (who just managed the levels and just played a simple slideshow/CDs quietly in the background... for $300), the invitations/postage, the location decorations, the favors, the table settings and tableware... by the time of the big day had arrived, the details had just about made my eyes cross permanently.

After saying that lot, thought - I do want to reassure you that there are ways to DIY and shop wisely that can keep costs as low as possible, though. Mllebamako was spot on when she said "creative and simple." Couponing (yay, Michael's), attending wedding/bridal fairs, putting together your own food/desserts for the reception, getting decorations online/on Ebay, etc. I have more ideas and tips if you're interested - I'm not trying to discourage you, I promise.

[garnet]

My first wedding was a road trip to Vegas where we eloped. We did it for about $1k and that was my dress, his suit, flowers, gas, food, hotel, chapel, minister "tip," nights on the town...

Second wedding we did for way under a thousand. I don't like large weddings. You can make any budget work.

[Zephii]

For 50 people? If you do manage it for $2000 I think you may very well be disapointed with it. There are a lot of things you can do to cut costs though.
Some ideas include:
- Buy a second hand dress, rent your dress or risk having it made online and shiped from China (I did the last one. It's not so bad, but the quality is lower. The difference is one of hundreds of dollars though.)
- Have the men wear suits, not tuxes.
- Have a lunch or breakfast reception, rather than dinner.
- Don't have it on a Friday or Saturyday. Ask your venue what their cheap day is.
- Do both the ceremony and reception in the same place.
- Use balloons for decorating the venue rather than flowers. Flowers are stupidly expensive.
- Cook your own cake, or get someone you trust to cook it for you - or do cupcakes.

Our budget was 10 grand. It looked like we'd come in at closer to 15, but luckily for us his Granny steped up to pay for our photos as a wedding gift, and his dad took the burden of his sister's plane ticket off us.
We're having 40-50 people, so still a small wedding, but Sydney is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Average weddings over here come in at 20 grand, so we're doing alright.

Shop around, and avoid saying the word "wedding" whenever you can, seriously. As soon as you say it's for a wedding the price doubles.[COLOR="Silver"]

[lucybelle]

Of course it's possible, but is it what you want?

My mom and her husband (just eloped) are planning a big wedding party in May. They rented a venue and expect about 300-400 people. And they plan to do the whole thing for under $5000. But it's just the party. So for food they're going to get pre-made burritos and they're asking some of the guests to bring sides and desserts. Some other guests are going to be appointed to set up, clean up and break down. They're asking for help with the wedding instead of gifts. They don't want or need gifts, they just want an awesome party. They have a really good friend who is a beer distributor who will probably provide the booze at a low cost. My mom is making her dress, there won't be any flowers, no tuxes, no outfits. The rest of the money will be spent on a really awesome band.

So if they can pull off a 400 person party for under $5000, I'm sure you can do 50 for under $2000. You just need to decide what you can do without.

[Xanahtas]

My budget is £5000 but atm we're looking more at just over £6000 - which is still doable for us.
Dress sales are good! Bridal shops do designer dresses and like half the price. Mine was £17000 reduced to £900, but she gave me a deal for the whole thing for £650 inc. alterations
Make invites, guest books, hire suits,
ebay for tiaras and stuff (A good site i know, i used to get all my prom stuff off, https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/figuresis....c0.m270.l1313 - a trusted ebayer and the stuff is good quality, i buy a lot of this one - dont be put off by the fact its cheap!)
Make anything you can, hire table decorations if thats possible there (its what im doing)
Use small, local businesses because they dont charge as much. I found one that does catering for £8.50 per person for up to 60 people, then it gets cheaper for more people.
Try to borrow things off of people like jewllery, shoes, whatever you can
Do a weekday wedding and see if you can get a deal on the venue and catering.
There is alsorts of ways. You can look about for deals, and get things in the xmas sales! the best bargins are just after xmas.
If i think of anything else i'll post ideas!
Hope this helped :P

[Dziubka]

My boyfriend and I are lucky that his mum has her own band and sings at weddings a lot. She knows the manager of the venue, so we'll probably be able to get it it a really good price. I'm sure if we let her, she'd also be able to get us discounts on other wedding related things, seeing as she's knows a lot of people on other wedding related businesses and they always recommend each other and stuff. Her band is also going to play, so won't have to pay for that at all. (We would have another band, because she shouldn't be working on her son's wedding, but my boyfriend says she probably wouldn't be able to enjoy at all, because she thinks most other bands that play on weddings are crap).
We can't do any other day than Saturday, because my family and friends would have to take a lot of days off or wouldn't be able to come at all.

I'm going to get my dress made in China. I want a nice dress, but I don't want to pay a fortune for something that I'm going to wear only once. I've just gotten the dress for Christmas and New Year's Eve that I ordered in China and I love it. A dress that I want to wear only once doesn't need to be the best quality either. As long as it doesn't look cheap, it can fall apart the next morning.
I have some friends that are organists so I think we can get that for a reasonable price (or as a wedding present...), too.

We're planning for about 60 people. It seems so much, but when you consider that invites are +1, then that's really only close family and friends.

lucybelle: 400 people?! I don't think I even know that many people...

[kiara_silver]

Thank you all so much. It sems me and my SO had a different idea. I hadn't talked about budget with him, we just been talking about marriage in genera and knowing thats whats going to happen soon. Anyways I asked him, left him a email what would be a good budget. haha totally not what I was thinking we can do. I don't work, just he does so I was thinking we couldn't do much. But he said.
for budget i think up to £5000- £10000 ($7500- $15000) would be alright lol what were you thinking?

So with this in mind I'm still going to think less, and really try to save. I like a lot of your guys's ideas. Like some of you mentioned, buying things at non wedding places. And having the wedding and reception at the same place. Would do own hair and make-up. I think I know a few places to get invitations for a good price. So looking into a ton of saving ideas. Thank you all so much for all your advice! It helps a lot. Never planned a wedding lol Now starting to look into it and ahh so much goes into it! I think starting early and getting an idea now will help a ton. But again thanks for your replies! Love hearing them, and if anyone else has there wedding advice they want to share feel free to!

[lucybelle]

lucybelle: 400 people?! I don't think I even know that many people...

Yeeeahh... jaja It's all of my mom's high school and college friends, plus her giant freaking family. And then her husband's giant family. Plus my mom invited not only the entire master's swim team she swims with, but also the entire 200 kid swim team she coaches for and another 60+ swim team she coaches for (and of course all their parents). So yeah... lots of people!

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I thought pounds were double dollars. So wouldn't 5000-10000 pounds be $10,000-20,000?

[kiara_silver]

I thought pounds were double dollars. So wouldn't 5000-10000 pounds be $10,000-20,000?

No i think it's less. I wouldn't know any ways lol, he's the one who's came here and converted money so he knows more than I do.

[snow_girl]

No i think it's less. I wouldn't know any ways lol, he's the one who's came here and converted money so he knows more than I do.

I think it is 1.5 more. CDN and USD are about the same and thats what it is for CND to GBP

[Riyko]

It's doable for sure, i'm in the process of planning a wedding (it's something i do on the side) and the couple wants the whole wedding DIY if possible. Their budget is $1,500 and so far they have saved a lot of money on food by going to a college that has a culinary school and asked the head of the department, the head of the department said they'd be willing to cater the wedding for $100 and he also said it's good experience for the students so it's a plus for both parties.

when i work along the wedding more i'll post here with other ways they found to save on their wedding (we are currently working on the venue right now).

[kiara_silver]

@Riyko

Wow that is so great! and a good idea. Im not sure if the schools here would consider catering, but never hurts to look into it. Anything to help save and pull off an amazing diy wedding. Have about a year to look into and plan. But with the upcoming events, lol we'll see.