- Blog
- Bios
- Boards
- Classifieds
- DIY
- Gallery
- Vendor Reviews
- Shop Weddingbee
Weddingbee boards
My budget exploded too but it isnt anywhere near yours. We were originally going to try to do our wedding on $5K. That didnt happen. Then we pushed it up to $10K. That didnt happen. Now we're at about $12K and I'm really hoping to cap it there. I think I have taken into consideration the cost for everything needed for the wedding so I'm crossing my fingers that I dont have to cought up anymore cash.
I don't think it's unusual at all. In fact, I think it's rather common for a budget to just about double - mine did!
When I started out, I had a somewhat arbitrary goal of around 12-15K for an semi-intimate, semi-destination wedding (about 80-85 guests, approximately 2-3 hour drive for most). And then I started researching actual costs and quickly realized I was off the mark. So I increased it to 20K.
And then I started reading wedding blogs and seeking inspiration... ack! The more great ideas I came across, the more I wanted to incorporate into my wedding! And despite DIY-ing quite a few things (invitations, centerpieces/flowers, liquor, photo booth), skipping others (pie instead of cake, no bouquet toss, no limo/transportation expense since we'll be on-site) and intentionally keeping our attire budget low ($600 dress, $100 linen shirt & pants for groom), I'm up to about 26K. That includes paying for 2K in hotel rooms, though, and a second dinner for about 55 guests since it's a weekend wedding, so I still come in well below the "national average" (I believe that's in the range of 25-30K?)for the actual wedding & reception portion.
I have joked that I'm going to spend 25K, $25 at a time, because I keep finding cute things on etsy.com and other places that are "just $25" ... it's so easy to tack on an extra $25, or $50, or $100 when you bounce it against the overall cost, but that's the dangerous part! Oh, and a long engagement doesn't help, either - I think the best way to save money on a wedding is to plan it in 6 months or less! LOL
Oh, well... :)
You're not the only one. We went in thinking we didn't want a fancy wedding. I was thinking 20k, and my fiance who is kind of pretentiously disgusted by money in general wanted to spend under 5,000. For an open bar, Saturday night wedding for 100 people in a venue we could have to ourselves for 2+ days. Which, um... I'm pretty sure ordering pizza and beer for 100 people would get you pretty close to that.
I don't have a full number yet, because we still have a lot to plan, but I think it's going to come in at about twice my initial estimate. Which sucks when I look at the number, but we're lucky enough to be in a position to be able to have a fun destination/weekend-long celebration for our friends and family.
I'm worried this will happen to us!! We chose $13,000 (not sure why we didn't do 12 or 15 haha) but so far we're doing okay. We aren't including HM or rings in this cost, and I've already saved $600 on photography, and I'm hoping to find my dress for under $1000. Our venue for both ceremony/reception will cost around $5000 including food/beverages. I just keep hearing "you'll never stay under budget, we didn't blah blah blah" but I'm determined to!!!
@Ryansgirl: Good luck to you and to everyone! It's definately very tough. My problem is that I kept on adding things- more roses on the centerpieces, more decor, and lil things here and there realllly add up!
We are pretty much in that situation, and I knew it would happen but FI didn't believe me when I said getting married in Connecticut is no joke so I had to let him find out the hard way. We started out thinking 20K, now I am certain that we will be lucky if we only spend 30K.
@plantains:I feel you! It's ridiculous to think that all that money is going in to one day of fun! Eeeek!!
@KIKI82: It's so hard when I see ideas on here that I want to add!! I never heard of a photobooth until WB but they're about $1500 to rent and I definitely can't justify that. We might just set up my DSLR on the tripod and get a remote so people can take their own pics with some props. Actually yes, that's what I will do! hah.
I hear ya! All along I wanted to keep our budget to about $20,000... well we'll be more in the $30,000 plus range, NOT including my ring (which my fiance chose & paid for) or our HM. My fiance hired a wedding planner ($3,000)...I decided to have a videographer ($2,000)... having a photobooth ($900), see where I'm going with this. We can EASILY add another $5,000 or $10,000 by adding a couple of vendors. And we're having a fairly smallish wedding, approx. 125 people! Yikes!
HOLY MOLY $27K. I could put a down payment on a house! :p Originally I didn't want to go over 10k but the reception alone is going to be about 7k.
You said it, HOLY MOLY! I had the same reaction when I was reviewing my spreadsheet yesterday. Thing is I don't think I went crazy on a lot of things. My venue is a bit pricey, but that is only about $15,000 and includes ceremony so where did the rest of the money go??
Photography- 2100, Decor & flowers 2,800, priest 400, rings 1500, and the rest is everything else dj & mcee, favors, invites, and soo on
Thank goodness the guest count did not get out of hand! Wanted 150 guest, have 154 coming! Not including 6 children and vendor meals
If you don't want to spend more money, you need to stop and cut back somewhere. If your budget is firm, find a way to make it work.
I don't understand the whole concept behind "i lost control of my money" if you are tracking your money and planning carefully. If you spend too much, you may regret it! It's always the little things--that's how some people go in debt!
I had a budget range of 15-20K and came in right at $18,500.
@ejs4y8: Definately important ot stay firm! I think FI and I got swayed by add ons and upgrades! At first we wanted a conservative budget but then adopted the "well it';s only one day...." mentality. Thankfully none of this is going on credit cards or loans. This is all are hard earned money and not dipping in to our house saving either!
In my case, I don't have any crazy addons. No photobooth, no videographer, no wedding planner. The simple fact of the matter is that getting married in Mystic, CT costs about as much as getting married in Manhattan. The venue and catering alone will come to 20K at the cheapest. It is as though all the people in this town have banded together and made a pact to squeeze every last penny possible out of brides.
It's crazy how all those little $500 and $1000 things add up QUICK. My budget ballooned (mostly on our outfits/alterations, rings, accessories) to levels that shocked me.
Try to rein in any extra costs that creep up in these final weeks ... yet don't forget about the big picture either - meaning, you might not want to pay $500 MORE for something that will matter vs. a little detail that won't really matter in the end. Take a deep breath, figure out what's left, and then just ENJOY the efforts of your labor.
For whatever reason, I started to feel better about money when I realized how much left I had to spend... the money freakouts I had (which was OFTEN) did dissipate once I figured out how I would pay for everything.
HANG IN THERE - it does get better!!!!!
Mine is bigger too simply because we have to invite more people than I expected. FH's family is just so large and there is no cutting it back.
As it is we are doing alcohol really cheap about $14 per head for the whole night of open bar. Food could be cut back, but only if we did just pasta or something really simple, but I am a food person and I want something tasty. Even so its not that expensive per head compared to many quotes I have seen or got.
@ejs4y8: I tend to agree with you. I think when people PLAN to have a 20K budget then it explodes to 30 or 40K it's because compromises have been made (overspending on too many areas) or because it wasn't realistic to begin with.
I don't think anyone should set a budget without first figuring out what they want (guest lists, time of day, food type, location). Then your budget will be more accurate and you won't have as many surprises, as opposed to just picking a number out of the sky and then it doesn't work.
However if a couple only has a set amount of money to spend (no room for extras) then they should start with that and work their way backwards only including what they can afford.
I based our budget on what my parents and we wanted to spend. I didn't add anything we didn't absolutely need until we got to the end and had extra money to play with.
@oracle: Thanks! I totally get you. What makes me feel better is the fact that we are paying for 95% of the wedding ourselves! And not using credit cards or house money! Well I'm impressed with myself that I'm able to save so much! It helps having paid off my car and no huge debt either!
I am so jealous of brides who can spend 15k on their whole wedding! We just started planning and were shocked by how expensive everything is here in North/Central New Jersey....I thought we could do our whole wedding for 30 but it turns out the venue (food and alcohol included) is going to be around 30 alone, and I am not even planning anything fancy!
I'm sure there are ways to do it cheaper, but it seems to me that we are stuck either spending tons of money or having a much smaller, simpler wedding. I was really stressed about it, but I've come to accept it now. Luckily we have some help from our families, but we are paying for most of it ourselves. We definitely will not be taking loans or putting it on credit cards either....just lots and lots of saving!
I got married in San Diego and was hoping to spend less than $20,000. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA is what I say to that. Unless you go bare bones, off day, slashed guest list, it isn't happening. We ended up spending about what you are. Ditch the late night sushi snack - totally unneccessary, have a few fewer roses per centerpiece, dial down the shelf level of the liquor, and you'll be in much better shape.
Would it be completely terrible/a social faux-paux (sp??) to ask the Wedding Bee bloggers to post their estimated/real budgets? I'm not saying they have to (don't want to put anyone on the spot), but they did agree to blog about their wedding/planning adventures. I am surprised that, for the most part, there are just vague references to money, especially since (it seems like) most of us can't just spend away to our hearts content. Yes, people in polite circles don't talk about money, etc, etc, but lets face it, in this economy, that rule gets thrown out the window.
If I knew a bride's budget before looking at her wedding details, I would be able to reign myself in when looking for inspiration details....i hope (??). Maybe it would help us (at least here) to avoid going over budget by things we just "have" to have??
(BTW - we have not even booked a venue yet, but I am hoping we don't go over budget - I don't know where we would come up with extra money if we did!)
@Rock Hugger: There have been post about it where some brides don't mind sharing their budgets. The ones who want to participte can and if you don't want to share than don't. I don't see how it should offend anyone. Actually, to be honest, I'm more comfortable sharing this budget here where people don't really know me or judge me. I'm more concerned about telling people I know how much I'm spending. Like if my family asks me how much I'm kind of hesitant to say bcuz I feel they will give me a "talk" about spending so much.
@crayfish:OMG! I am SO there! I'm in San Diego as well, and when we first got engaged, I announced that I didn't want to spend more than $10K on a wedding. It was just one day, after all. YEAH RIGHT!!!! My fiance, who has been married once before, knew that it would cost way more than that to get married, and we had many fights over it, with me saying I wanted just to go to the courthouse, until he made me realize just how special this day was. There are no do-overs, and why should money be an object when we're gathering our closest friends and family together to celebrate the wonderfulness that is our love for each other. Needless to say, I was won over by this heartfelt and passionate argument. :-)
I then, arbitrarily, announced that the budget would be $20K. However, SO manages all of our finances, and actually budgeted $30K. I'm trying to do as much DIY as possible, and am striving to bring the wedding in under that. Our venue is very comprehensive, and includes pretty much everything except for the officiant, the cake, the DJ, the florist and the photographer. We've splurged on the photographers, because pictures are forever, and on the DJ, because wedding DJs that are House DJs by trade are awfully hard to come by! As far as we can tell, the wedding will be around $27K, but we'll have to see! 9.10.11 here we come!
My budget has definitely gotten tight but there's no way it can go up! It's set at 25k and it can't go even a little bit over that. If we have to make cuts on guests, food, flowers, etc. we just have to do it. Going into debt is just not worth it when we're already spending so much!
You must log in to post.
| Visit our sister sites | eHarmony Online Dating |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
| User | Posts Today |
|---|---|
 vorpalette |
24 |
| ellisrobertson | 24 |
| caseyleigh10 | 23 |
| Brielle | 23 |
| les105 | 22 |
| lionskitty | 22 |
| fishbone | 22 |
| SouthernGirl | 21 |
| mypinkshoes | 21 |
| kat2014 | 19 |
| User | Posts Today |
|---|---|
| Steph18 | 3 |
| armychica06 | 2 |
| sylvia.riggle |
2 |
| nerdysarah | 2 |
| pinkshoes | 1 |
| o0olibelulao0o | 1 |
| kate02121 | 1 |
| ElbieKay | 1 |
| MsPiggy | 1 |
| caseyleigh10 | 1 |
Just a vent about budget....
Sooo the numbers are in looks like the wedding is costing us a lil over $27K!!! That is not event counting my expenses- dress, veil, make-up, hair, nails, BM gifts, shoes, grooms personal expenses, and lil things here and there that add up to another $5k! When this all started I thought we would spend $20-25K, I was sooo wrong! I hate to think about it! I was considering adding another hour to the 2-hr hosted bar but I think not since that would cost us $900+ and no after dinner sushi snack a $500 cost!