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I'd start figuring out how much you want to spend on your dress, flowers, and cake. Those few things vary greatly in price, and can totally bust your budget if you're not careful. Also, there's rings, honeymoon, wedding party gifts, and hotel room rentals (if you're staying in a hotel before/after). Good luck with the planning. I'm sure it'll be great!! :)
Yeah, dress, flowers and cake would be my next 3. Followed by rentals/linens.
Don't forget the flowers! Your breakdown sounds similar to mine - I think that you can do invites for DIY at a reasonable price (we are going to get them printed up with catprint - they did our save the dates - Love Them!), cake, favors, transportation, guest book. I'm also considering offering to pay for bridesmaids and their beautifying treatments...if it's in the budget!
i agree, dress linens and cake. find out if your venue offers linens - or if you can get them online for a discount for what you want (several really good vendors online - and you can sell them after the weddign to recoup money)
the cake and dress are usually huge money sucks - make sure you factor in $$ for alterations, veil (or headpiece) and accessories.
who's paying for honeymoon if you are doing it?
i suggest for DIY invites, check out paperandmore.com - cheap paper that looks great - my invites printed for 100 at a local printer were perfect and gorgeous!
flowers you can cut down the cost by doign flowerless decorations (we are doing mostly candles) or getting bulk or cheaper flowers.
but bouquets and bouts for the boys, any ceremony decor, things of that nature.
honestly though if you want to spend 25K Max, i would set the budget at 17-18K max, because 99% of people go over budget.
both me and my friend had budgets of 15-17 and we are spending about 22-25K - theres tons of stuff you just dont think of.
like officiant fees, rings, licenses, rehersal dinner, tux for groom, hotel rooms for yourself if needed, gifts for your family and weddign party, transportation if needed to and from your venues and locales....
you got the big ones, but theres not much to work with for the rest unless its ALL DIY... and even that costs $, not as much but still costs.
Hey fellow Massachusetts bride :) We have 150 guests and spent approx. 27K on the wedding itself so I will share what our breakdown is...
Reception: 13,860.00
-includes 4-course plated dinner, cocktail hour, full open bar, wine with dinner, champange toast, cake, cake topper, centerpieces, hotel room for bride & groom and parents, and linens (chair covers and floor length linens), and gratuity for coordinator.
Photographer: $2800 ($2600 for the package, $50 travel fee, $150 tip)
DJ: $880 ($800 for DJ and $80 tip)
Ceremony: $1040 ($740 for church fees, $120 for ceremony flowers, $150 for gift to priest, $30 for marriage license)
Attire & Beauty: $2740 (includes dress, alterations, veil, jewelry, shoes, crinoline, hair & makeup with trials & gratuity, mani/pedi the day-of, groom's tux, and ALL bridal party flowers)
Reception Decor: $211 (includes guestbook & photosharing cards)
Stationery: $450 (includes all paper and other supplies for DIY invitations, STDs, programs, menus, escort cards, thank you notes, signs, and postage)
Transportation: $600 (classic car for FI and myself)
Rings: $1085 (wedding rings only, engagement ring is not included)
Rehearsal dinner & pre-wedding: $1152 (Dinner $877, Engaged Encounter $275, Dance Lessons $365)
Gifts: $2173 (Bridesmaids $970, Groomsmen $660, Parents $300, Readers $90, Bridal Shower Hostesses $150)
All I know is that we started with a $25,000 budget and when everything was said and done it ended up being almost $40,000. There are so many little things we did not budget for AND I didn't include our rings or hair/makeup/dress in the original 25K budget ( I have no idea why I didn't). So good luck!
Thank you for all of the replies and wealth of information!
I am *planning* on going pretty flowerless. I like to rummage around thrift stores and since we are over here in Germany I would like to find neat things here and have each table decorated differently (just an idea floating around in my head)
We do have table linens included within the 15,000 fee. It does not include chair covers but I don't mind.
For the cake I am considering making my own cupcakes (we are treating our guests to an ice cream sundae bar included in the 15K), or budgeting no more than $350 for it to be made.
Within our ceremony fee includes flower arrangements and we have a BEAUTIFUL site overlooking a valley so I don't feel there is a need for anything additional. I am toying with the idea of something besides a traditional bouquet. Not quite sure yet.
We are considering booking a Sandals honeymoon and registering with their gift registry department to have our guests help pay for little things. Has anyone done this before? Is it tacky? We are forking out a good $100+ dollars per person and since we move 3x a year due to the fiances job we don't need to stock up on household items yet so I feel that it is appropriate but has never known of anyone to do it before.
I do not consider honeymoon registries tacky at all. Especially in your situation where you travel a lot and don't really have a home to store things in. That being said, I would probably not give a gift off a honeymon registry because I don't like how they take a cut from my gift. Isn't it usually 10% or something? If I was going to a wedding for a couple like yourselves, I would give cash for a gift.
I love your idea about doing different centerpieces of local decor. I went to Germany with FI last year and we loved it! The people there were so nice and it was such a FUN country.
My friends did a honeymoon registry. I think it's a great idea. I put $100 towards a fancy dinner (for the shower gift) and plan to pay for the rest for their wedding gift. It seems so fun!
SBoston - I think Sandals takes like a 3% cut or something? I quickly looked at it, but you are able to put gifts in increments for guests to help pay for the overall cost, or they can purchase a dinner for two, couples massage, snorkling, etc. I think it sounds neat.
Amani - THANK YOU! I am bookmarking that site for sure.
Flamingred - thanks for sharing your personal thoughts about it, much appreciated :)
Will you have a lot of out of town guests? Then you may need to consider guest transport. Also, think about your flight from Germany (or wherever you are by then) July is an expensive month to fly from Germany to Boston. We are in the same boat and our first budget was $26,000 but I can imagine the total will go over $30k. Places where we went over budget (or didn't include in our first draft) include; rings, flowers, bus for guests. Besides what has been mentioned, you should also consider gifts and the cost of paper products to DIY is often more than expected.
We are in a similar situation as far as living out of the country and unable to transport gifts but my parents were recently invited to a wedding using Honeyfund and noted that no one at the shower used it. We just spread the word via family that cash is prefered due to our lifestyle.
If I were you I would definitely go pick out my dress now since you have a date and venue and are starting to think about the finer details. You want to be able to get your dream dress without too much of a $ restriction so you know if you need to cut back a little elsewhere. Like for example guests won't care if they get chicken instead of beef and it might add some $ to your dress budget.
i would also work on getting your dress next..it's probably the most expensive thing that you have left.
remember to dress your groom too! :)
Our wedding is being held about an hour from my home, and about 4.5 hours from my fiances home. We will not be providing any transportation or hotel stays. If we have more than 35 booked rooms at the same hotel they will provide transportation to our venue for free, so I am crossing my fingers that will work. Luckily, my fiances hockey team is paying for our flight home back to the states so that is not an added expense.
I was planning on holding off to get my dress - we are currently living in Germany and won't be back in the states until April..I would LOVE to go pick out something from any country over here in Europe, but it is important to me to have my mom, sister and grandmother there. Maybe I can hook up my skype and go "with" them :)
Ohh yeah I forgot about him. Just kidding ;)
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Hello all!
As some of you may have read in my first post, I am a recently engaged bee! 8/4 to be exact :) We are planning a 7/7/12 wedding and have decided to have a $25,000 MAX budget!
We have found our ceremony and reception venue, as well as our photographer and DJ. Nothing is set in stone (deposit wise) but here are the figures we have come up with to date
Ceremony - $1,500
Venue - $15,000 (for 150 people, all food, open bar, tax etc included)
DJ - $1,200
Photographer - $4,200
So, we have approximatly $3,100 left to work with.
Everything we have taken care of is whats important to us. We want to feed our guests well, keep them entertained, and believe that the photos are truly an investment. The remainder of everything (save the dates, invites, table decor) is all going to be DIY.
Any advice on what I should break up the rest of our budget on?