Weddings cost money. Anyone knows that, but it was woefully easy to underestimate the cost of how much weddings actually cost before I started looking into the specifics. That’s why, before I got engaged, I thought setting up a wedding budget would be fun.
…. oh how I laugh at myself. This has been a quite frustrating process because I can’t plan without a budget and I can’t have a budget without an idea of what things cost, and most vendors I’ve contacted won’t tell me what they cost except that they will “work with me” to realize my “vision.”
As I am scouring the internet for more information about having wedding on what would be considered a smaller-than-average budget and looking up the costs for different venues and services, I’ve realized that weddings cost money. The fact is that if you want a traditional event or an affair with several traditional elements (catered meal, professional photography, a wedding gown, etc.), even a “budget” wedding is more money that you will spend in one day than for any other occassion.
It’d be much cheaper if we want to elope, but we don’t. We want family and close friends there. I want to strike the balance between saving for ourselves and inconveniencing others (so that means having the wedding on a weekday - when we can get everything for a song – is out). I want to have something good so that we show the guests how much we appreciate their attendance, while respecting our own financial situation.
But I’ve gotten pricing for a few things, and I am pretty close to getting a budget together. CB and I talked about $10,000 is the absolute MAX we are going to spend on the wedding. We don’t expect to get any help from our families. I think we can keep the whole shindig under $7,500 for 50 guests. If I can flex some negotiating muscle and get a few good deals, we might even be able to do it for $7,000 or $6,500.
I’ll put together a pretty spreadsheet for you guys on Monday.
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My biggest money-saver on a wedding: BORROW your wedding dress. Seriously, if you have daughters your dress will probably be out of style if/when they get married and they won't want to wear it. No reason to keep it. I wore a gorgeous dress, had it altered by my MIL, and dry cleaned it before I gave it back to my dear friend. The cost was the $100 dry cleaners bill. That was it. I had my "something borrowed" too! I can't believe that more people don't do this. A dress worth 100s, even 1000s but only worn once is really weird if you think about it.
I was super-cheap with my florist upfront and ended up spending more money but I think it made her realize I was serious and I ended up with gorgeous flowers. I almost used Costco's flowers (they have good packages).
I used a college photography student as a photographer. She had a website online so we could judge her quality and she did a fantastic job for $500. She wanted good references and she charges much much more now so I think we got a fantastic deal.
60% of our wedding costs was food.
I don't plan on spending a ton on my wedding dress (and by a ton I mean over $400)… I have my eyes on a few used J.Crew dresses. I'd have no problem borrowing if I see a dress I like that I can borrow/rent and make the necessary alterations, but those options probably won't be available for me.
i think that is very doable. we had a wedding with a budget of 10k and 50 people.
I am so excited that you're doing this, because that's just about the amount I'd like to spend for my future wedding (of course less is better!). So I'll definitely be utilizing your methods!!
I hope my methods are good then!
Avoid the word "wedding" when possible, it adds a few extra 0's to the end of most estimates. for example, find a baker to make a cake instead of a wedding cake. I'm not sure why that one word adds so much to estimates, but it's just something I noticed a few years back when I got married.
I've heard about that tactic. But it's kind of hard to get a wedding photographer without using the word wedding… and I'm sure the reception site will be kind of angry when I show up in a white gown with gals in matching dresses for my "family reunion"!
Ok, let me preface this by saying that in my other life, I'm a wedding vendor.
One of the things that is so frustrating in wedding planning – both from the vendor side AND the client side – is that most people do not throw large catered parties for their closest 200 friends all the time. So they have no idea what things really cost. This is not a fault or blame game at all. It's just a fact. Most people just don't entertain on that scale. So when they start seeing the numbers, sticker shock is very real and very scary.
The thing is truly most vendors are NOT trying to scam you. Most of us have figured out how much money we need to make per event in order to make a profit. And profit is not a dirty word. It's a fact of life. If I don't make a profit, I don't pay my bills.
Do I charge more for a wedding client than for a standard individual client? Yes. Why? Not because I'm trying to scam a couple, but because in my experience in 20+ years in the industry, wedding clients are more demanding. Their wedding is a huge, life event and they want everything to be perfect. They put additional demands on their vendors, and that's why it costs more. I invest probably double and sometimes triple the time in my wedding clients over my standard everyday commercial clients.
Are there wedding clients who are less needing of that level of attention? Yes, sure there are. But they are few and far between. I've laughed more than once to see my clients post on a bridal message board (one they didn't know I read) that they are not needy clients and they just want basic services at a basic price – and they are some of the most time consuming and picky clients I have.
Throwing a great big party and catering it and having a photographer and a band and all that stuff .. it's expensive. There are no two ways around that. There are certainly ways to save costs, though. Just remember that your vendors aren't there as a favor. They are in business to earn money. Hopefully the people you choose will love what they do – but they also need to pay their bills and put food on their tables. If they don't make enough money to do that, then they won't be in business long.
Oh no, I completely understand (and empathize) with what you are saying. Vendors charge more for weddings because 1. they can, and 2. it usually takes more work than other events. I get that. But just like they aren't there as a favor to me, I'm not there to be a favor to them either. Both sides need to have something to gain from the transaction.
Having also worked in the wedding industry, I would say that rather than avoid the word wedding, tell your vendor that you want to keep costs down and are willing to compromise "wedding" quality to get it. If you need 2 dozen roses for a wedding, florists have to buy 3 so they don't have to use the ones that aren't quite as nice. Costs decrease when you are willing to have a more "natural" and less formal bouquet and pick up your own flowers. Most brides demand "perfection" and that just plain costs more. If you're willing to accept less, then YOU have to tell us that.
I didn't try to throw a budget wedding, and I sure didn't. I was 20% over budget at the end, too. I think the biggest trick to throwing an affordable wedding is to do it quickly, before you think of additional things to add on and before you realize you've spent so much that it stops hurting to spend more. Everything seems excessively important when you plan a wedding, but most of it will go back to feeling quite frivolous afterward.
Your recaps sure looked lovely, though.
Well thank you.
I think you should identify a few wedding related items that are important to you that you can "splurge" on (for us it was photography) and go budget on the rest. No one is going to miss hand calligraphy, letterpress invitations, personalized menu cards, or even favors. People get too caught up in the planning and feel like they have to do everything that the evil wedding industry is telling them.
A budget of $7K-$8K in an expensive area means that even the splurges aren't that big… catering will be the biggest part of our budget at around $3,000.
Also, I think people are more comfortable with giving money and gift cards nowadays. We had 150 guests, spent around $33K (which is actually a very modest amount for a wedding that size in the OC). The very generous gifts we received more than covered the cost of our wedding.
I know it's a lot of money to spend on one day, but it's going to be a day you will never forget. Enjoy the planning process! =)
Whoa! Our wedding was just slightly larger, and we spent just slightly more… we didn't come anywhere NEAR covering the cost of the wedding in gifts (which was not surprising to me, but I thought we'd come close, coming from a gift-giving culture and all… apparently none of our guests came from the same.
We didn't even cover the costs of the reception (the "per plate" costs). Maybe we covered the cost of 4 tables. 
While I agree with Frugal Forties that most people don't throw huge catered parties for 200 on a regular basis, MANY people regularly entertain 30-50 people and they do it for a hell of a lot less money and with a hell of a lot less stress than the average bride and groom.
Dude and I spent about $3300 on our 45 person wedding, which in the context of weddings sounds dirt cheap. But at the end of the day, we spent about $75 per person on what was ultimately a really fun backyard BBQ. That's not exactly bargain basement.
My best piece of advice for you is to determine what is truly important to you and what you can live with out and then have some really though discussions with yourself and CB about why certain things feel important to you and whether they REALLY matter that much in the grand scheme of things.
Also: Do your own flowers. Go to the farmers market or whole foods the morning of the wedding (or the day before) and pick up whatever looks best to you. It is IMPOSSIBLE to make a bunch of beautiful flowers bunched together look bad, even for someone who is 100% amateur. It will save you MAJOR coin and make you feel pretty goddamn good about your budget when they're disposed of 12 hours later.
Or hire a freelance florist. I was going to do my own, but for a *very* small upcharge, I didn't have to do all the work/scratch up my hands de-thorning roses/buy/store flowers and buckets in which to store said flowers/worry about them dying overnight.
Check out grocery stores too. Some will only be good for informal bouquets and boutonnieres, but some do full service weddings. Definitely shop around though because the quality of florist is anything from 'made in someone's basement' to award winning/magazine quality.
My brother's wedding was 75 people and ended up being about $8k. And my BFF who I'm the maid of Honour will have 65 people and the budget is $10K. So I think you're on track. I think a wedding budget is a nightmare. Because everything is SO expensive in the BRIDAL WORLD. Seriously add the word WEDDING and things suddenly double in price.
I often joke with my friends that I'm going to say I'm throwing a birthday party and then about a week before the event I'll disclose that it's actually a wedding. Everyone marks everything up 30-40% for weddings. It's absolutely ridiculous.
If you aren't already, I would recommend reading A Practical Wedding (the book & the website). I got married last month and bought my dress through preownedweddingdresses.com which saved me over $200. I've also heard that Craigslist can be a good place to find a dress if you don't have a specific style in mind. To keep floral costs down, we used candles from IKEA as our centerpieces. We also ordered our wedding invitations through Zazzle.com when they were having a 75% off sale.