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I have never heard that a wedding budget should be two months salary. I have heard that DeBeers pressures a couple into spending two months of his salary on an engagement ring.
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 I'm not in the metro area , but I live VERY near Palm Beach FL. So prices are slightly above most other areas in the state , no where near NYC though. I'm right there with you though. I'm very proud of always being able to find the discount deal.Â
I don't think there is any set guideline for anybody, especially not the engagement ring rules.
There are NO rules to budgets for anything. I only have a few recommendations. Spend whatever both of you feel comfortable with so long as it isn't a hardship where it will greatly affect your situation and possibly strain your relationship.
I think that the two of you should sit down with any one who might contribute and find out what, if anything they are going to contribute - then determine how much you can afford to spend. Go with that total amount.
What I learned was, we said "Here's what we can afford $XX" and everything had to fall in it. Did we go over a bit? Yes but not by much and it was only because we forgot (duh!) to add the tax and gratuity in for the reception hall.
Also, those "spend this on thie and that on that" charts were no help to me whatsoever. I spent a TON on my photography and not so much on my dress. A TON on my reception and next to nothing on flowers.
You have to figure out whats most important to you in your wedding - and go with the flow.
I know maybe none of this even helps....lol. Well I hope something helped even a tiny bit.
Your budget should be whatever you feel comfortable spending so long as you do not go into debt. That's the golden rule. Do not go into debt for the wedding.
Before we really started looking at places for our wedding, we talked with both sets of parents and figured out what they could contribute. After we got that number, we looked at places and figured out how much we would have to contribute without going into debt to get what we want. It comes out to work out with my dad paying 50%, us paying 25% (or hopefully less), and his parents paying the other 25% (which includes the RD).
We live in a semi-metropolitan area (Philadelphia) and knew that we would have to spend since it was important to us to have the wedding right in the city. Since that was a major priority for us, we are spending more on the reception and trying to cut costs in other ways. My goal is to make our invitations, we're going to use flowers that are in season, we are keeping the favors simple, etc. But I knew that my reception venue was the right place the second we walked in so I would do almost anything to have our wedding there. It will all work out in the end!
Baghdad Bride has some great advice. You know you're spending too much if you are considering taking out a loan, applying for another credit card, or borrowing money from someone.
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Thanks for all the advice! We definitely would not consider going into debt for a wedding; and my fiance would never allow that even if I suggested such a plan. We already have the money we'd be spending saved up, it's just that when I think about spending such a large sum of money on one day it doesn't seem practical to me! I grew up with a single mother who could barely afford to feed me and my younger brother, so blowing all this money on a "party" is not what I'm used to. We would be using money we already have saved, but then I think we might be smarter to spend it on other things like paying off our student loans, taking a longer or more lavish honeymoon, buying a bigger apartment, etc. It's just such a large sum of money to me that it's kind of like "sticker shock" and just wondering if other brides had the same experience. :)
I knew from day one that we had to sit down and figure out some kind of budget. i live in the San Francisco bay area, so things are pricey. First thing was first, who was going to pay what? That was tough because I haven't asked my parents for anything for years, so I didn't want to ask them for help. Luckily, my dad <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic">wanted to pay for the big chunk (venue, food, alcohol and hotel rooms) that in it of itself is around 20k. My mom is paying for all my wedding attire, DJ, Mariachis, flowers and photobooth which is around 7K. My FI and I are going to be putting in around 14K by the time the wedding comes around. So, as you can see its not cheap to have a wedding (and we aren't doing anything crazy huge just around 150 people). What my FI and I did was sat down and created a Excel spread sheet and started making a list of all the things we knew we were going to pay for. We guestimated how much each thing would cost and once all that was added up we had a goal to save 14K by September. We broke it down to how much we put away each payday and so far we are on track. It's really hard to look at the numbers, but you don't want to start out your new life together in debt. 
I hope this helps you get started in the right direction! 
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isnt it such a buzzkill how much weddings cost?? no matter if the budget is $10K or $1M - it never seems like enough...
definitely spend what you feel comfortable spending... how we divvied up the money was we decided our top 5 most important elements and went from there... food and beverage took up most of the wedding pie, with photography and honeymoon following in importance...
we try not to charge anything and are paying cash in monthly installments - which makes us happy and the vendors happy since theyre getting paid way ahead of time...
my best advice - dont go into debt or refinance your home (one of my gfs did this and she's now 2 months behind!!) or over-extend yourself or anything like that for just one day - do what you feel is comfortable for your lifestyle but most of all - enjoy the process!
you dont want to be eating ramen and 99cent burgers so you can have a fab wedding ya know??
Wow... well, what my fiance and I did was just come up with a number. How much could we afford to spend before our wedding got here - without going into debt. Once we had the number, it was my job to make sure everything fit within our budget.
There are many ways to save - consider a weekday or Friday night wedding. Our venue, for example... the first time I looked at it, it was way too expensive, and they had huge guest & food/beverage minimums. (We're having a small wedding) I looked at it again, about a month later and decided to call them. We're having a Thursday afternoon wedding, and they took their price from $2000 to $900!!!
You also have to decide what is the most important to you. The things that are most important, you can spend more money on...
I didn't have a fixed budget. I just had ideas of if I pay $xxxx, then it's too much for the venue, $xxxx, then it's too much for a dress, etc. I had my comfort zone for each type of vendor. If a vendor is really important to me, then that limit would be higher.
Granted, we are paying for the wedding ourselves, so we didn't have to take into account any parents' budget & wants :P
I think we are doing pretty good so far I think it would come out to be way lower than the "regional average" -- who knows how they come out with those numbers, maybe just to make you happy :P
We figure out how much we were comfortable spending. Which is not to say how much we can afford - we could technically have spent more - but how much we felt was reasonable to spend on what at the heart is a party that basically lasts one night, even though it celebrates a momentous event. We knew that there were things we really had to have - photography was pretty important to us, and we knew the photographer we wanted, so we priced that out early. We also knew the venue we wanted - so the main thing remaining was how many people we could afford to invite. Both our venue and our photographer are good but not spectacular; our photographer does beautiful work that we love, but he doesn't have a fancy website; our venue is our local country club, where we are members, and although there are fancier places in town they have no facility fee, and very good food at reasonable prices. We wanted to do something nice - definately dinner - for our reception, and so came up with a max guest list of about 50. At that point my parents stepped in - they wanted to invite about 70 more people - and offered to help financially.
I think that we did several pretty smart things. First, we started with a pretty good idea of what things should cost on average. Second, we figured out what was really important to us. Third, we then made the rest of our decisions within that framework. Our wedding is still relatively modest - at a budget of just over $10k - but nice. I don't really think we ever had "sticker shock." And I realize it's a little different in the big city, but we could have easily spent three times as much right where we live. It's just that we would rather have a much smaller party, and a nicer honeymoon, or new kitchen cabinets, or put a down payment on a new car. Don't feel like you have to spend some amount of money that feels out of hand to you just because other people spend that much. If you think something seems way to expensive, look around for a less expensive option. And this website is great for comparing cost of different things - venues, flowers, catering - to give you an idea of what might be reasonable, or possible.
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Budget was the first thing we addressed. We already have mortgage payments so we had to budget carefully so we could still afford our home!
Needless to say, our whole wedding is costing around $5,000. But our venue (my cousins lake house - free use), my dress (grandparents bought it), our cake (grandparents again), and our honeymoon (staying at cousin's lake house) were all gifts to us. We are paying for everything else.
I probably won't even end up spending $5,000. But I feel good knowing I have $5,000 set aside in case I need it.
That sound so lovely nicolby! I wish we had a family home we could have ours at , it seems so much more personable!
NYC weddings are crazy as far as costs- the sky is the limit with the budget. It seems like $60K weddings in NYC are not at all uncommon.
If you want to get a feel for what you get in each price range for a New York wedding, there is a fantastic "Spending Diaries" article in the Winter New York Wedding magazine. Here is a link: http://nymag.com/weddings/planner/2007/winter/wedding_spending/. It gives a breakdown of expenses for $13K, $37K, $80K, and $150K real weddings in NYC. It was very helpful to me to see the difference in what you get in the city at each price range, and it helped me determine my budget. Hope this helps!
The cost of an average wedding was never a consideration for us. We just set a number that we thought was reasonable to spend (not the maximum we could possibly afford), and have stuck with that. Also, I'd set the budget *before* you start looking at venues, caterers, etc. Once you set the budget, just make sure that everything fits in it, that's all.
If you think/hope that parents might help, talk to them before doing anything, and get a firm number on exactly how much (or which parts) they'd be willing to cover. There are lots of stories about disappointment when things aren't made clear and hoped-for funds aren't there.
BaghdadBride is very wise. Don't go into debt. It's just a party, after all =)
yeah...we used the "what we could afford" method too.
We are going slightly over bc we originally slated to spend $5k....our overal expenses will come to about $6200. i dont live in a major metro area though, so with lots of scoping around for the best deals, and gifts from friends and family, we've managed to keep our costs pretty low.
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As someone who is getting married in Westchester County, I am familiar with the NYC outrageous-ness. Great advice from everyone, I also wanted to add something my sister in law told me. EVERYTHING is negotiable!! With our reception hall (which is also the ceremony site and hotel), I bargained everything and tore apart the contract until I was happy with it. I got them to give me extra stuff and definitely took extra liberties. Bottom line, they want your business, and the worst thing they'll say is no. But definitely read those contracts and don't sign anything until you're happy with it!!!
Also, Niki, Gigglebride never said anything about 2 months salary for the wedding. =) Anyway, good luck!!
I was very stupid when it came to the budget. I actually thought that $10,000 was a ton of money for essentially a one day party. We had to revise this to $20,000 rather quickly with a guest list of 180 (mostly family!!!) Seems the average food cost is $79 pp around here... that leaves very little for photographers and dresses and flowers and.....
I can think of two ways to set a budget:
1: As suggested before, decide what you want to spend, and then choose your vendors etc to fit that amount.
The problem with this is you may find that there's no way to fit the wedding you want into the budget you came up with. I wanted a dinner reception for 150 people. The first budget number I came up with would have paid for food, venue, and nothing else, even at the least expensive place I could find. So I had to choose whether to compromise the dinner reception or guest list, or to compromise my budget. Because we could afford it, the budget went up.
If, like me, you have some budget flexibility, there's option 2 for budget creation that I came up with in hindsight:
2: Figure out what your venue and dinner is going to cost (call vendors, compare prices). Double it. That's your budget.
(This is assuming you're doing all the usual stuff - dress, photo, video, flowers, dj, and so on. Certainly, there are weddings where almost all the budget is food. And there are weddings where food and venue are done on the cheap. But, I think 50% on food and venue is kind of average).
Hope this helps.
well, if the ring is supposed to be a mans 3-month salary, shouldn't the wedding be a year? Just a though ... I'm not sure if there is a set presidence Linda
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While there are a lot of guidelines out there about setting a budget for the engagement ring (e.g., 2 months' salary), there isn't enough guidance for my liking on what to set as a wedding budget! There are formulas and charts galore describing what percentage of your wedding budget should be devoted to what items (i.e. attire, food, photography, etc.) but my fiance and I are having a super hard time deciding on a target budget! We've seen a few reception halls in what we think is our price range, but really -- how do you know?? With so many options out there you can always spend less or you can always spend more... but I need help in determining the "right" amount to spend. We live in the NYC area so things here are pricier in general and a lot of the websites that provide estimated costs of weddings just don't seem realistic to me. I'm one of those girls who has never bought anything full price and I consider myself a bargain shopper. Weddings are a whole different ballgame though! Any advice on this from brides in metro areas that are facing sticker shock but still want a "nice" wedding? How do you get comfortable with choosing your budget, and in turn, your venues?