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That's me! We're having between 60-80 people and are doing it for 10K. We're having a restaurant reception, the min. bill at the restaurant is $3800 and we'll struggle to get there. We're having an ipod reception because dancing isn't super important to us... My dress budget was under 1K and I spent 900. We're DIY-ing flowers for the most part (except bouquets), and my mom has a wedding cake business so she's doing our cake (that helps a lot). We also booked a photographer who is just starting out so his prices were low.
Hope this helps!
$8000 here for 80 guests! We ditched open bar all night and got good deals on dj and photographer, our split menu of lemon chicken and roast beef will be served family style too, we originally had 100 guests but had to cut down the list and by cutting it down, it will pay for our honeymoon
We're trying to keep it under 8k, but it's looking more and more like it'll be under 9k.
We are getting married at one of the city parks so the venue fee is minimal. We're keeping the bar choices limited (i.e. NO open bar). We're also doing an iPod for music. Flowers are minimal (I'm DIYing the centerpieces). Find a cheap(er) dress.
For us the most important thing is photography, so that is where we are splurging.
Here's a link to my blog to see how it's all coming together:
www.sandiegobudgetbride.blogspot.com
Good luck!
We're spending under $10k for almost 100 guests and we started by finding a venue that normally doesn't cater to weddings (marrying at a yacht club with private beach). Throwing the title wedding on anything seems to triple the price. I bought my dress from China off ebay ($126), my veil from an ebay seller ($30), shoes off Amazon ($47), we're making our own centerpieces ($.69 blue glass cylinder vases with $1 pink gerbera daisies and two blue votives--3 for $1), we're buying a three tiered wedding cake from our favorite supermarket bakery and getting a sheet cake for the rest (all total $165). We kept the flowers simple (and from supermarket) doing gerbera daisies for BMs and calla lillies for me, spray rose bouts for the guys (haven't gotten the quote but she said it should all be under $350). No favors (we'll donate to American Cancer Society in honor of my father), no limo (ceremony, reception, and our hotel are all in the same place), and thoughtful instead of expensive gifts for attendents. Keeping things simple and planning it as though it's a kick ass party is my best advice!!!
We're doing $7,000 for about 100 invited. Near Chicago, too, which everyone will have you believe is impossible. Our main savings were finding an amazing caterer who does not charge "wedding" prices--seriously, her quote (including rentals, servers, etc.) was literally half of what all the well-known caterers were quoting us. And her reviews are excellent. I'm loving working with her.
We also decided pretty early on that we did not want a hotel wedding and began looking at less typical locations. Going outside of the city itself was a must--even park district locations there are ridiculous and tied in to super-expensive caterers. We found a lot of great options from local park districts and forest preserves around the suburbs and ended up going with an incredible old mansion owned by a forest preserve. It's gorgeous, located on beautiful grounds and is dripping with character. We'll do a lovely daytime wedding with lunch buffet and dancing and be married in an amazing old library with the most beautiful windows and woodwork.
The other major thing was going basic or simply eliminating anything that wasn't too important to us. Like a 12-piece letter press invite suite. I think they're gorgeous but it was really far down the list of important items to me. So instead we're ordering card stock and printing a simple (but meaningful to us) design on a 5x7 card and enclosing them in nice colored envelopes. Any other info we need to include will just be printed on heavier weight paper and tucked in. Since our main color scheme is black and white (another easy way to look coordinated without spending a lot), it's all going to go together nicely and not break the bank. We've kept a lot of things simple like that.
All in all, we're managing to keep it personal and nice without going overboard or feeling like we HAD to include all these silly little expensive things we didn't care about. I highly doubt any of my loved ones are going to judge us because we didn't spend $10,000. We seem to have found a happy medium between nice, personal, and reasonable.
My fiancee and I have set a 10k budget for 400 guests!! I think we're going to end up being just over budget (probably in the 12k range), but we've been fortunate enough to get some good deals. We're getting married on a Friday, which has lead us to discounts on the reception hall and DJ...a friend of my family owns a photography studio and is giving us a hellacious deal on pictures...we're getting a small two-tiered cake to cut and serving our guests sheet cakes from a local bakery (they'll never know the difference!)...we're keeping the flowers simple...I bought a sample dress of the rack...and so much more!
It's a tight budget and I never thought we'd be able to do it, but little by little we're making it work!
We're inviting 200 & hoping to be about $10K. We're doing a lot by ourselves, and bartering some of our services. We're having friends do our ceremony-officiating & music. Our reception venue is $400 for 2 days, and we'll be doing cheaper food. our ceremony venue is $0, and we only have to give a gift to those doing things for us.
We are spending about $8k for 100 people. We are doing a lot ourselves though! Our venue is at least 1/2+our budget, so that means minimal everywhere else!!!
My dress was $400. I am ordering our flowers from fifty flowers and making everything ourselves. We are making our own invites with a kit from Micheals. Making our STDs. Our photographer is a friend with a nice camera = $50 plus film! You just have to be able to budget everything and willing to not do/get everything you want. A lot of DIY too! Good luck!
We had about 50 people and spent around 4K. We held a restaurant, cocktail-themed reception. There was so much food, we were sending boxes home with people! We had a cash bar (I know, etiquette on this is specific to your region), iPod music and a friend of mine who does amateur photography did our wedding photos as a gift to us. This was a risk, but one that I felt comfortable with taking. I used fiftyflowers.com and did the bridesmaids' and my boquet. We used tealight and votive candles for centerpieces.
Our best deal was probably on our reception costs. Only $1,600! We're talking platters of coconut shrimp, chicken skewers, dynamite scallops, flatbread pizzas, bocce balls, etc. I still can't believe it was so affordable.
It can be done!
This all sounds amazing. Thanks for your input!!!
I'm having the hardest time with the food/drink numbers. I have this idea in my head that if you don't spend at least a hundred a head that people will go home starving. What is the going rate, I'm curious? What are people spending per head roughly for food and open bar. The last few weddings I've been to we've left STARVING and I don't want to do that to my guests. You could tell they skimped and if these people are spending a hundred a head then FORGET the wedding! He'll have to elope with me or find someone else!
where are you located? we spent about $7k on 65 guests in orlando.
Krissy- We're in central pa but we have decided that our wedding will be in Philadelphia as most of our guests are from that area.
@MissSheva we're doing $40 a head, but just beer/wine/pop, not open bar. It's a luncheon, though, so I'm not too worried about people leaving hungry. Dinner probably would have been pricier.
I am doing 12,500 ish for our wedding - wanted it under 10K but just couldn't do it for 60 guests!
Our per head 89.95 which is all-inclusive comes with linens, chair covers, 4 hour open bar, cocktail reception with alcoholic and non-alcoholic punch and appetizers, 3 course meal (with a dessert we will serve cake as late night), room rental and night for bride and groom at the hotel.
Honestly If we didn't go with the all-inclusive package I know that we would not be able to stay under 12,500. Good luck and keep searching!
We spent almost 8K for 65 guests (in reality it was $7770)
Our most expensive thing was the venue rental. Our venue was $2K and then we spent aprox $1200 on food and $420 for the bar (aprx. $25 pp including water glasses, wine glasses, silverware, cloth napkin, and glass plates) we had a cheese board w/ bruchetta for apps. Plated salads. Then a pasta buffet (hearty full plate servings) of beef lasagna or chicken fettucini alfredo w/ breadsticks.
We got away with spending so little on the bar because we could bring in our own booze so we did beer & wine only.
We also saved on our catering bill b/c they charged a very small service charge & they are builiding up their business so their rates were great for the amount of food our guests got. Our guests did not go home hungry & eveything was hearty and all our guests said the food tasted so rich & yummy :)
I am planning on doing a budget breakdown this week so I'll add the link on here after i do it :)
thats where our budget started (10k) but it has grown, not because we have more money, but because things are more expensive than I thought they would be and I forgot about some things, like rentals and alterations.
:( wish I could have stayed there like you guys!!!!
We aimed for $10K for 100 people and probably came in a little closer to $12K, but I am NOT a DIY person, so I couldn't really go that route. Here is what we did:
1) Found an amazing venue (local Yacht Club-not a fancy one) that had in-house catering. The food we tasted was good and they had good reviews. As a PP said, they aren't dependent solely on weddings for income, so their prices are a bit more reasonable.
2) No DJ - iPod. We had our musically inclined friends pull together a great playlist. But, we didn't really have dancing. MrsDG did an iPod reception with dancing and had some great advice.
3) The only outside rentals were chairs for the outdoor ceremony, and we went with the least expensive white ones available.
4) We did a cocktail reception. Just hors d'ouevres, beer, wine, champagne and cake. I was a little worried about having enough food, but everyone seemed fine and we timed it to be just after lunch and ending early enough for people to get dinner.
5) My dress was $800 total (including alterations) and it is totally doable to find dresses in this price range. Mine was a Casablanca.
6) Flowers - I ordered bouquets and boutineers from a florist, and a bunch of single stems of dahlias and gerbera daisies. We got a bunch of bud vases, and each table just had a single stem. It looked better than I anticipated! Nice & simple.
7) My friend did our invites on her Gocco machine, so I only had to supply the paper. I did all the other paper products on my parents' color printer, which worked better than I thought it would.
8) My photographer gave me a deal of 5 hours of coverage for half her usual rate (and no second shooter). If you don't feel like the photographer needs to be there till the bitter end, this is one way to get a really good photographer and not break the bank.
8) We didn't have favors. I looked into it, and they really add up quickly.
Good luck with your planning!
I'm doing 80 guests for $10k. We're spending about $50/pp w/ full open bar. My tips?
1) Dont be afraid to ask for a discount. Almost everywhere I asked for a lower price, they were willing to work with me. I got huge discounts off of my flowers, photog and venue/food/bar this way.
2)DIY- I'm DIYing my veil and hair flower as well as my invites.
3)Shop around and compare prices.
4)Try to find small, local places. My florist is a tiny mom and pop shop and their prices were insanely reasonable.
For catering-- Go all-inclusive if you can. We're having our reception at a restaurant for 150-200 people, and it's going to cost us $4500, (prob. $6000 when including gratuities and tax). That cost covers food, dance floor, tables, chairs, alcohol, sound system, etc.-- all that stuff that you'd have to rent to go elsewhere. In the end, it was really the cheaper way to go.
Other tips:
- Have your wedding off season if you can, and in the morning if you can. It'll save you a ton! (it's not a popular time, so rates are discounted, and guests will probably drink less in the morning/early afternoon, so you won't pay as much for a bar)
- Negotiate wherever possible. Just tell vendors what you can afford. If they can make it happen, they will. If not, they might steer you towards someone who can help you out. That's how I ended up with my photographer. :)
AND--- man, am I kicking myself for not buying my dress online. It's a popular style and lots of brides have it for sale on eBay, weddingbee, etc. If I had only known to do that in my pre-weddingbee days I would've spent anywhere from $200-$400 less!
Thanks again all for your advice!! Looks like negotiating with the caterer will be in order for me. We've pretty much cut everything that isn't necessary: favors, fancy flowers, expensive dress, bridal party etc. The food/drink is what's killing us so if we can get the catering costs down we should be good. However I am extremely nervous that negotiating will equal a lesser quality and quantity of food.... please let me know if this is actually not the case!
We are hoping to spend just under $10K on 100 guests. We found a HUGE price range for services depending on the city we were looking in. By choosing a venue for the reception that is in a smaller, not as well known town, we are saving a lot! We are paying about 1/3 of the price as compared to other placed that I had price quotes from.
The person who runs the facility is very nice and helpful as well, and said from the beginning that she will be as much involved as we want. Basically, we ended up with an event coordinator as well by choosing this venue. It's really nice to know that I can just give her the contact information for the photographer, cake person, etc. and she will make sure she gets in contact with them to work out the details. She has made some good recommendations as well regarding the baker and a pianist.
I really wanted pasta for dinner (we have a lot of younger guests and who doesn't like pasta...) but it wasn't on any of the wedding brochures/ papers they gave us. I eventually decided to ask if we could come up with something together, and I found out that they have a pasta buffet. They don't typically see brides looking for that food though so they don't put it on the wedding menu lists. So... moral of story, it doesn't hurt to ask (and then we found out it was a little less expensive even, so that was nice!)
From the beginning I was upfront that we would have about 20 guests under 21 years old. Some places would have required that we pay for alcohol for these guests too, even though they can't legally drink. This facility doesn't charge for those guests, so that was another plus.
I guess I spend a lot of time working out little things to try to keep everything under budget.
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We're having 120ppl with a $10,000 and at first I was also very worried that it would be impossible, especially when I spoke to other girls with huge budgets! What saved us the most money was finding a restaurant that has a large party room and using their standard banquet package (salad, rolls, one appetizer, entree,and dessert, coffee/tea/soda), not the wedding package. Always ask if the venue has a separate party package, like the other ladies said as soon as you throw the word 'wedding' in the prices go up! We also moved the time so we could have a lunch reception, this saved us a few dollars per head. They also offer the option of a consumption bar, but we have opted to only serve a champagne toast (we think we can get away with this b/c it will be much earlier in the day). Best of luck on your venue search and try not to get too stressed out! When I feel down about my budget, I try to remind myself that it's about the marriage, not the reception
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Picked a day that was not a popular day. We chose the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Definitely cheaper!
Instead of a rehearsal dinner, I had a rehearsal lunch. $12 per person and included soup, entree, beverage and a dessert. It was a plated meal too.
I got food stations with a carving station, two pasta stations and a salad station. With coffee, iced tea and hot tea, soft drinks. I paid less than $50 per person.
(Also, I don't live in a cheap area. I had my wedding in one the most expensive counties in PA. Chester County. The suburbs of Philadelphia. )
Made my own bm hydrangeas bouquets, hyrdrangeas centerpieces
Bought stuff off craigslist. I got tall vases for less than $2 each!
Checked out Davids Bridal clearance and sale websites and told my bm about them. My sister bought on clearance $80 dress in my color, while the other bridesmaids bought dresses for $150.
Bought my dress at a sample sale. $100 for my dress.
Bought placecards that doubles as favors on ebay.
Got a brother of a gm to do our photos. He does weddings on the side. $400
Hired a sister of a bm to be my DOC $120.
Bought my hydrangeas from a discount flower shop. Flowers cost me $80. All of those flowers made 17 floral centerpieces, 8 bm bouquets and random decorations.
Husband went to art school and drew the drawing on our invitations. I got white wedding invitations for $6 for 50 invitations. I added vellum and ribbon to it to dress it up. My invitations cost me about $0.50 each to make.
Oh our first venue, was nice but it was really expensive for alcohol. $30 per person extra for wine and beer. We cancelled and lost our deposit but found a reception site and got an outside caterer that supplied us with bartenders and allowed us to bring alcohol. We spent about $900 in alcohol and it was more than enough for 130 people. We had about 10 kinds of beer and bottles and bottles of different type of liquor.
Let see... $3,900 for a open bar or $900 for alcohol if you can bring it.
I posted a few photos of my wedding. Definitely did not look cheap.
http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/my-wedding-photos-diy-038-planned-mostly-by-me
I love saving money... and especially for a wedding that we were mostly paying for.
Good luck, there are ways to save money without looking you did.
People thought I spend a lot of money, but I didn't. I had 130 guests and everything cost me about $13,000. My budget was $10-11k but I forgot to track it. Oops.
We did it! (Well, pretty close to it... but we did have 130 guests)
I'll link you to our photos. http://www.anniexblog.com/index.cfm?m=7&y=2009
We did our own alcohol, we used an i-pod, my sister did cupcakes, we did all the decoration, we forewent the DOC (skeery), we did delicious but down home food and we bargained for everything. Our one splurge was photography and it was worth every penny.
we did about 13K for 140 guests
the main thing that helped was that we had up and coming photographers (I already loved their style, but it was their first wedding)
got married at my church who didn't charge us anything
went cheap on the DJ (and regretted it, though)
we also picked a pretty simple menu (chicken and past instead of steak and fish)which we got tons of compliments on!
My son and daughter-in-law had an outdoor elegant rustic wedding reception. The total cost for their wedding was $7,000. That included her David's bridal gown, dj, caterer, 2 photographer's, linens, flowers, limo, guitarist at chapel ceremony, cake, ect... their cake was in the shape of a flower pot
They had 75 guests in attendance.
I will add some photos of their day.
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...more of their day
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Tris and Doug's wedding cont.
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their outdoor reception
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Tris and Doug at their elegant rustic reception<p>
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We spent under $10k for 116 people. Here's the budget breakdown that has links to ways we saved. http://www.weddingbee.com/2009/09/02/the-joeys-final-budget-breakdown/
We're doing $10k for about 65-70 guests. Here's our breakdown:
That's as far as we've gotten so far.
We cut down - way down - on the guest list. We wound up with 30 guests attending (out of about 50 invited), and that was hands-down the biggest money saver. We were able to splurge on a really good string quartet for the ceremony ($680 for an hour), as well as good photographers ($2400), because we only spent about $4500 on food/drink/room fees/service fees/linen rentals for the reception. Florist was $1100, DJ was $595, cake was $510 (which should have been less because we should have had a smaller cake). We had an open bar with great wine and beer, plus hot buttered rum (it was a December wedding), passed hors d'oeuvres and a seated dinner. So it wound up looking like a very expensive wedding - which it would have been - if the guest list had been larger!
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If this is you.... how the hell did you do it?!? I would LOVE to spend 10,000 for our 75 guests but am finding it near impossible. Need realistic inspiration.
p.s. eloping is not an option, believe me, I've tried!!