What was/is your budget?

[blondelildevil]

Don't think I've seen anything like this before.

I know it varies from where you are located....



What was/is your budget for your wedding??

Did you exceed your budget?

[Aramelle]

When we first began planning, we budgeted $10,000 for the wedding and another $5,000 for the honeymoon. We ended up a few hundred dollars under budget for the wedding. For the honeymoon, we ended up bumping the budget up quite a bit, with the final cost being about $7,500. We decided it was worth it to find the extra money so that we could have our dream honeymoon. :)

[mengarelli09:)]

My wedding is still a year off but I am planning for about $10,000. the break down I am using is:
Reception(Cerimony included): $5,000
Flowers: $1,000
DJ: $1025
Photographer: $950
Dress and atire:$1000
Ivatations/Stationary: $400
Favors and gifts: $600

and about $25 to mess around with....

The deals are out there you just have to look....well that is what I keep telling myself....:heee:

[ashleyjp]

I never really set a limit, but I had hoped we wouldn't had gone over $5,000. We got real lucky becuase we have a DJ in the family, my grandma makes cakes on the side and she is even decorating our arch, his grandma can't work so she made all our favors, my veil, decorated out card box, Dress and all that goes with that around $750, we have a photographer who costed an arm and a leg $3500, we are doing our food buffet style and as of now(still need to get a little more) has came up to $326 + $50(still need to get more) in drinks, the tux we got free thanks to mens wear house! $100 for flowers, about $300 for the small odds and end things, We got our hotel free due to knowing the owner. If we didn't know the people that we knew we would have to add about $700 for DJ, $300 cake, $200 favors, $150 for arch, and hotel $250. I NEVER though it would get so high. Never.

[DeeGeeBride2Be2009]

We were running on a $10K budget because of the fact that at that point I would have been graduating the day after we got married which would mean we would be a 1 income family until that spring. However, now I'm graduating in May 2009 so I'll have a job and we'll be a 2 income family. So, we've now decided we can boost the budget up to $15K! Thank goodness too because these things get expensive here. The only thing I know the exact cost of at this point is the church which will be $1610.00 and then the dedication to the minister is going to be about $400.

[Poloke]

We budgeted 5k for the wedding. I DIY a lot of things but it wasn't enough around here and we ended up spending 10k, inclusive of rings & HM. Had I bought everything outright instead of the DIY items it would have been far higher.

[That Girl]

I wanted to spend around 10K or less for everything except the rings and honeymoon. We ended up spending about 13K. I was happy! :)

[~Sara~]

Our original budget was $15K but we ended up over $20K. We really didn't do a great job of tracking our budget so if we had, we would have had a much easier time sticking to it!

[thefuturemrsgoss]

My budget is $15k... That's just for the wedding. My dad is paying for the wedding, and Hubby's parents are paying for rehearsal dinner/honeymoon.

[Soon2beMrsSpicer]

We really don't have one anymore. We did have 25k-30k but my dad had to close down his business and went from making 7-8k a week to a by the hour job of 4-5 hundred. So we are paying for half were think not going over 10k. I found a place that with recteption room, outdoor ceromony,color table clothes and napkins, and all the food. It is going to be around 3,000. We are getting are cake for free and DIY pocket folds that i priced at 90.00. SO I think that we can stay under 10k.

[nikkiscott]

We never set a budget. One was never talked about. But I knew myself that I didn't want to spend a lot. Plus with planning for over 2 years, I had plenty of time to look for deals and do a lot of stuff myself. I think in the end with everything paid for it was around $6000-$7000 maybe $8000 at the most. But my parents and Scott and I shared the cost of wedding. Cause Scott didn't think it was right that my parents pay for everything. Everything worked out great.

[jillian]

Until our parents said no which they never did. I still say we were reasonable no matter what he says. I cheaped out on the flowers though and I regret that. We paid for the DJ, the photographer, half the flowers, the HM, and the detaily things.

[pharmgirl]

We haven't really set a budget yet but I have crunched some of the numbers and I think it will be around 8K on the high end. Man, that sounds like a lot of money :wow: but I know that it's really cheap compared to other parts of the country.

I think I (and my parents and XILs) probably spent about 5K on my first wedding, maybe even less in 2001.

[*Diane*]

Sadly, I am not sure what we actually spent on either of the girl's weddings but I know they were well over $25,000 and not too much under $50,000. It is the little things that drive up your costs, trust me.

[Aramelle]

It is the little things that drive up your costs, trust me.

So true! We tracked every penny of money spent on the wedding, and it still amazes me to see how much it added up when along the way you're thinking "well, it's only $20 more." $20 here, $50 there, etc probably wound up being about 1/5 of our money spent!

[~LeAna~]

Our parents agreed to pay for the entire reception (my dad the food, ILs the open bar) and didn't give us a budget, so no we didn't exceed that. I think the reception ended up being a little over $20k.

Since all we had to pay for were the photographer, honeymoon, rings, etc we budgeted $15k for our portion of the costs.

We ended up going over budget for our portion since we decided to take a three week trip to Europe for our honeymoon. It was totally worth it!

[*Ashley*]

LOL, Diane you make me feel better! It was $45K for mine, with everything (excluding honeymoon) :) I agree COMPLETELY about the little things driving up the costs!

[Mel]

our budget for the wedding weekend (no honeymoon) is about $25k combined btwn both sets of parents and what we plan to save to contribute...
we are doing a lot of DIY and bargain hunting where we can because we want to spend the money on what we feel is most important - food, pictures, and music... [though i am insisting on chair covers and will sacrifice to contribute more money if we have to b/c the chairs at our venue are hideous and covered in food stains.]

[navybaby1113]

We have a budget of $5000 and that's not including my dress which I'm paying out of my own money.

[*Kim*]

our budget is $10K and we are running right around that mark. it might end up being 11K and i'm ok with that. that of course doesnt include our rings or honeymoon.

[*Diane*]

OMG, navybaby- I just realized that your wedding colors are the signature colors of my wedding company! Nice choice! :giggle:

Kim, you are doing so well staying in budget. Any tips for others?

[blondelildevil]

I guess I can answer my own question now... The MAXIMUM budget is $10k. I know we can stay under that, and are trying to get around $8,500. Right now, not including food we are at $6,750 :)

[beachyarmygal]

I am going low...lol. My budget is 3k. We have a lot of friends who are helping us, so that helps with the budget. My photographer is giving us a deal, and so will our food. I don't think we are doing a DJ, it will be robably just an mp3 or something with music. I m not 100% on dancing yet. And I am DIYing a lot! So we shall see how close I get to that budget.

[jillian]

We ended up spending around the $50K mark.

[*TanyaJeanne*]

We wanted to stay around 10k but ended up going way over.

[Mrs. Bebe]

I had a set budget of 20K. I met my budget (actually just under, with approx. 17.5K)...except DH family decided to invite 60% more people than I had agreed to. So the total cost of the wedding was somewhere around 30K with the inlaws paying for their portion of the extra guests. My mother, who did not contribute financially to the "wedding" itself because she hates wedding, threw the rehearsal dinner, flew in my family from Ottawa and paid for the wedding party hotel rooms. Her contribution was over 10K, but she won't tell me exactly how much. I would estimate that our total wedding cost was somewhere around 45K. We had over 300 people in attendance. (I knew about 60 of them.)

[Carrie429]

When we first started planning I set a budget of 20K. I never actually stuck to it and we just spent what we could afford. Our parents gave us $14,000 and we covered the rest. We ended up spending a little over $55,000 on the actual wedding. I don’t regret spending a single penny.

[nene0182]

We're leaning towards about 10,000. We have to pay for it completely and Im not sure we could afford much more then that

[*Jenn*]

i guess when we get engaged, everyone will sit together and disuss the "b" word; BUDGET.

i know that my dad will contribute 90% of the budget;
clif's mother and step father will contribute some, maybe;
and my mother and step father will probably not be able to do much, if anything.

my dad paid for his step son's two weddings, and my brother's wedding (her parents refused to pay anything) so we'll see how much he's willing to contribute.

i know that at one point 30k was thrown out, but that was a year or two ago, so who knows. :dontknow: i am his only daughter, though, and he has mentioned that he will contribute whatever necessary to give us what we want.


[and he suggested a 4-horse horse drawn carriage that he'd seen somewhere - i think it was somewhere around $3,000?! and he said, "oh, that seems like a good deal!" :eeek: FYI - i do not want a horse drawn carriage.]

[shedayz]

hm-my wedding goes something like this:

~35 ppl~
$250 dress (yes, a real wedding dress custom made from China)
$30 a head for food ($1050)
entertainment-FREE (sister is a singer)
DIY flowers for $150 (thanks MIL!)
photographer-FREE! (my photography partner)
about $200 for mint julep vases, table mirrors, candles and various deco stuff
venue-undetermined
beer/wine from Costco for 35 is about $200 (lots of non-drinkers)
wedding planner-$1,000
cake-FREE (aunt works in a bakery)
invites-$60 (I also do graphic design so I am only paying for printing)

Wow, so, not bad at all. Hubby says no budget, just do it. But I can feed a family of 10 for $100 a week so I am quite the budget shopper HAHA