OH yeah I remember that. My mother promised to help me with my wedding.....money which she promptly used to install a new heating system in her house because apparently those that would stay at her house....didn't like the old heating system? I was pretty lucky being a simple gal with simple tastes but yes, I went over my budget and I'm pretty sure that was the start of my husband losing his hair. ;D
I was the bride who insisted that I didn't need to spend over 500 euros on my wedding dress.... 1700 euros later....We managed to keep the rest under 6K which was good going for a wedding with 250 people (thank god it was 15 Euros per head for the food and drink!)
BIL wanted a wedding under 5K because he didn't see the point of a wedding. ILs are still 20,000 Euros in debt, trying to pay the damn thing off that's only their half (I think they took out loans of 30K for the wedding)
The only ones I know who spent less than their budget is my brother, and that is only because after paying their deposits, getting p*&$ed off with interference, cancelling everything and eloping to New York by their tod - MASSIVE money saver! lol!
I raised my budget a couple of times as we went through the planning process. It's really hard to stick to a budget when things are so out of control. I found that I had no idea what things cost when it came down to it, and that some of jmy budget was just completely unrealistic, originally I'm sure you can find ways to get under budget in other areas, or find things to cut out. A wedding car isn't necesary - maybe you can borrow a nicer car from a friend, or, just have your own car decked out for a fun getaway! Save up for a honeymoon and go on your one year anniversary. There are ways around so you don't feel like you missed out on all this stuff just because of money!
I thought i could do a wedding under $10k. Boy was I wrong. Budget is now $26k not including honeymoon :(
I was a budget bride and managed to keep it under budget....even with the international flights for our DW....which was 25% of our budget. I KNOW how all those little things can add up. I DIY'd our STDs and invites b/c I refused to pay several hundred dollars for invites when only 25% of our guests came to the wedding.
Married a year and still no HM but I know that will be expensive! We got quite a bit of cash for the wedding (even from those who didn't attend) and bought new furniture b/c I didn't want DH's bachelor furniture anymore.
We never gave ourselves a budget, but we're definitely over what we thought we'd spend.
Thanks guys. Ugh. It's just that every time I look at the budget, I see nothing which can be cut completely! Wedding favours? LMAO, they weren't in the original budget, or this one. Groom/bride gifts? Massive LOL. Gifts for bridesmaids? Hell, I have to buy their dresses, so they aren't getting any gifts!
Fresh flowers were cut this week. I am now running out of options, trying to decide things like: well, I could buy napkins for £40, or I could make my own... but I wouldn't get a bulk discount on the fabric, so would that be more expensive? Maybe I could take a calculator to the fabric shop and work it out...
mmmm... linens... I could rent tablecloths for £50, or buy some for £100 and then resell them... but the ones for sale for £100 are less nice than the rented ones, and it's only a small amount of money anyway...
*sigh*. How did it ever come to this?
I feel your pain, we are the same. Initailly we thought we'd have a £5000 budget. The venue alone was £7000 (although that includes all the catering and alcohol all day). So then we thought £10,000 was ok. Wrong again. Now we're up to about £22000 including the honeymoon :(.
It's not a huge deal I suppose, we're paying for it all ourselves out of savings, and I've been haggling my backside off to get everything as cheap as possible, but we realised that to have the wedding we wanted we'd have to up the budget. Ho Hum. On a positive note I added up the other day how much it should have come to if I hadn't haggled and bargained our suppliers down and we've saved over £15,000 by haggling!!!
I guess you could always cut the guest list - it's still not until next summer!
I did try to do a wedding for $6k, and it got up to $10k. I literally wanted to throw up thinking about spending $400 on wildflowers in mason jars that will be tossed after 4 hours! The wedding was turned into a DW elopement and no more throw up feeling about spending $.
I went through it with my wedding costs. I will spare you all the details because I really really....anyway. I love my hubby. I wanted to spend 5k and I KNOW we got past that. The last 48 hours were so stressful because we owed 4k for various things! So, at first I thought that I couldn't count my darn self. I would say we did around 10k, i am afraid to count it.
You are not alone lady! I figured we could do a wedding for 10k initially (I never included dress, rings, honeymoon though). Ummmmm... Try almost tripling that? Now we're talking.
Budget??? What's that? Lol I originally planned to spend 5k buuut after venue and photography that was out the window I think I am still going to be under 10 k but I'm not counting I'm just blending it into regular expenses like just another bill.
Don't look at yourself as a failed budgeter. See yourself as a successful spender!
I just wanted to jump in and say that we didn't have a wedding car. I drove in my car with my mom and sister to the venue in the morning and then while I was getting my hair and makeup ready and out with my now-husband taking pictures, etc. my sister and another bridesmaid decorated my car. They painted all over (pretty, not sloppy), drawing hearts with our names, Just Married in beautiful cursive writing, with cute little cans on the back - the typical "just married" decorations. It was really cute and I am happy I have those memories because it really meant something. Just to make you feel better about the no wedding car.
Also, we still haven't gone on our honeymoon and I'm not sure we're ever going to have one to be completely honest.
@Rachel631: You could always take a nice honeymoon later! And could you do drink tickets for the bar instead of having it open? The English wedding I went to did this, and it seemed to be rather accepted (much more so than it would be in some places in the US).
Ugh, I feel your pain! Our budget has increased several times since we started planning, and I'm nervous about where we will end up.
@Daisy_Mae: I love it! Made me LOL. Not so sure I'm successful yet, but at least we can recoup a lot of the costs after the wedding, because we're having to buy in all the linens (probably), china for the buffet, displays, and glassware. If I can get them cheap then I will be a successful spender for sure!
@bowsergirl: Yeah, the two places we have not cut the budget at all are food and drink. I think that the most important aspect of the wedding is hospitality, so we deliberately decided to splurge on it. We now expect to spend just under £5,000 for our 120-150 guests. In fact, we deliberately chose a venue which didn't have an alcohol license (ie we can serve alcohol, but not sell it), and didn't have an inhouse caterer. This means that we can bring in our own caterer (we have access to a professional kitchen within the venue) and serve our own alcohol (we also have access to a bar) without paying corkage. I'm going to do a white van job to France or something the week before in order to get some (probably questionably legal) duty free, and we'll order in beer casks.
In fact, to afford the complete catering package we want, FI and are are making our own hors d'oevres, wedding cake, cupcakes, and evening buffet (the costs for which are included in the £5,000). I still think it's worth it to provide beautiful food and a stunning free bar, with drinks which are full of flavour. This is the only part of our budget which we have decided is completely sacred! But you're right, most UK weddings don't have completely free bars unless the bride and groom are extremely wealthy, because they pay for so much as it is (bridesmaid's outfits, groomsmen's suits etc) unlike in the US.
Anyway, at least I'm in the same boat as a lot of you lovely people!
I'm not over budget, but that's because I'm not done spending yet. :P Hopefully I don't go over. My wedding dress budget total was $600. ... I just picked up my dress and spent $1198, not including alterations. So yeah, that's twice of how much I wanted to spend. :|
i had a bit of a nervous breakdown last weekend. We had a wedding budget of around £16,000 which i thought was reasonable. well it would have been if we werent expecting Baby B in April just 4 months before the wedding. i had done so well in saving for the wedding and now everything is going on baby bits. My dad said he was going to give me some money for the wedding, and now he turns around and says he already gave it to me- he gave me money for the house not the wedding and now says he cant give me anymore. so thats go to come off the wedding budget too. im getting to the point where i just want to forget about the whole thing until 2014 as originally planned but we have paid deposits for almost everything and cant afford to lose all that money.
@babecake: I know that feeling. I thought 10k was realistic until I started getting quotes and thinking about all the things we would need. In the end we were just about 28k all in. We quickly adjusted the 10k idea to 27k so coming in at 28 was fine as we had not budgeted gor guest transport which totaled about $900.
Ack... just had to explain the new projected budget to FI. He nearly had a heart attack. All he could say was "but we don't have it... we just don't have it!". To be honest, I really understood how he felt, because that was my initial reaction as well, but I had to try and calm him down and explain that we could afford it... but only just!
Heck, but we need to come under budget on everything now. We need to cut back to afford wedding rings, stationary, and the stag and hens, for starters. It's all going to have to come out of the decor budget somehow... we need to get super cheap glassware and linens etc etc...
I feel really, really stressed now...
We use a spreadsheet for everything in our house. We did go a little over budget, its SO easy to do, but just write everything down in the spreadsheet and keep track. Make sure you include all the little things e.g ribbon as all the 'little bits' do add up to big amounts! And also make sure you do enough research to get the best deals on things 
@Rachel631: it seems like many bees have been in your position so don't fret that you are not alone. breathe, relax, it will all be ok in the end..
Our original budget was $8k everything included, then we went up to $10k and it looks like we're going to fall at $10,500 including everything (wedding party gifts, wedding, dress/tux, honeymoon, decorations ect. ect) and a little less than $8k for everything minus the honeymoon.
We originally wanted to keep it under $5,000 and realized that was unrealistic for our "must haves". After we re-sell our decor (and my dress) at about half of what I paid, we should be back down to just under $10,000 including rings. Not that the decor was a huge part of the budget, we just have no use for it after the big day. And the dress well, not gonna wear that again.
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What can I say guys? I started out with a preliminary budget of 6-7K (GBP). I redid the maths today though, and I nearly had a heart attack. We will probably spend almost £10,000 at this rate... and that doesn't include the wedding car, wedding rings, honeymoon, stationary, or stag and hen dos. I added up everything... the 50p ribbon I bought to make headbands for the bridesmaids... the £6 set of kilner jars I sneaked in with the shopping to use as part of a display. Everything. And I was horrified.
Now, we will probably skip the wedding car and the honeymoon, but even then then we are going to have a hell of a job keeping this under £10,000... and that's with all of our friends and family chipping in to provide the entertainment, photography and videography for free/very cheap!
.... **** me. I fail. I am officially no longer a budget bride. I feel sick at spending that much, but there isn't much that can be cut. It's a big wedding with super luxe food and a free bar (which were the main things we wanted). They aren't cheap!
I just hope that we come in under budget on some of our other areas, because if we spend 10K then we will literally have nothing left. We will be absolutely wiped out, without a penny in the bank. I also hope our guests are feeling generous... thank G-d the norm in the UK is to give cash as a gift!
Please tell me I am not the only one... make me feel better guys, or at least make me laugh a little!