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We've got a 10,000 budget. Our guestlist is 50, no more. Our photographer is a friend of the family that's not charging. My aunt is marrying us. I found my dress dirt cheap. We also found an inclusive venue that's taking care of the catering, cake, tables, linens and champagne toast and reception. 90% of our budget is going towards the venue.
We'll probably go a couple thousand over budget overall, but so far we're in good shape.
Hey, you can always downsize your ring to save some money. ;) I kid, I kid!!
I'm with ya sister... except we are expecting 300-350 people!! To be honest, we are actually looking at more of a $12,000 budget (those extra couple thousand make a different on a small budget).
We are trying to keep things simple, yet fun and classy. We decided to have the wedding/reception back home (small town) to save money -- I think our photographer has been the biggest expense (right up there with the catering).
I am DIY-ing all our centerpieces and we will also have to have cash bar (maybe a few kegs if we can scrap up the extra cash). Flowers is a big way we're saving the budget -- I wasn't dead-set on having tons of flowers so I plan to elimate the alter decorations (I am making tissue paper pomanders to hang from the pews lining the aisle instead) and none of our centerpices have flowers either!
Hope this is helpful! Good to see someone else on a limited bugdet. GOOD LUCK!!
We're $10,000 too, and our guest list is about 100. I'll probably spend the most on photography and my dress :). We're doing wine and beer too, but that's actually out of my fiance and I's pocket, whereas the rest of the budget comes from my parents.
My sister got married a few years ago, and they had a full bar that my parents wouldn't pay for because most of our family doesn't drink, so the "you buy the booze" rule was born.
We had around 130 ppl. We did our own alcohol, hired friends to bartend, did a casual buffet dinner (which was delish) and used an ipod. We had our venue for the whole weekend, so that saved on costs (camping/cabins instead of hotel). We splurged on photography.
Our budget is right around there, too. We limited our guest list to 50, so that helps right there. I'm doing my bouquets/corsages/bouts myself with flowers from fiftyflowers.com - and we're keeping it simple and just using roses and spray roses. Also, we're having our reception in a restaurant's banquet room. The room is gorgeous, so I've decided to skip room decorations totally - no centerpieces or anything. It saves money, but also, we don't really need it. Food will probably be our biggest expense at about $50/person, but with the smaller guest list, we can swing it. We're also serving sangria only for alcohol, plus non-alcoholic drinks of course. So that helps too. We chose a photographer who I think is super talented and only booked her for four hours - I won't have "getting ready" shots, but that is ok by me since I really need my makeup before getting in front of the camera :) I'd rather have a few (relatively) pictures that I love than a lot that I hate. We're also not doing a limo or anything like that - our regular cars will just have to do! Also, with the minimal amount of alcohol, I don't feel like we need to have transportation for our guests -and a lot of them don't drink anyway. Most of our family is local, so we're not doing OOT bags, and we decided not to do favors. We couldn't think of anything good, and I didn't want to spend the money on something people would throw out.
We are "splurging" a bit on our honeymoon - we're driving to the coast and then staying at a nice B&B for the whole week. It's more than we would usually spend on a vacation, but it's worth it :)
According to my spreadsheet, including travel to our destination wedding, we will be right under $11,000 (that doesn't include my dress, which my mom paid for). We limited our guest list (40-50 people) and have diy a lot of the little details that I wanted. I made our "just married" parasol, hair flowers for me and the girls, all paper signage, and been shopping the clearance sections of hobby lobby and michaels.
We splurged on our food and our photographer. Everything else has been pretty cut and dry but it can be done!
Our budget is 10k for 175 ppl and including honeymoon. Here's what I'm doing to save $ on the wedding, lots of other ideas too:
http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/budget-brides-what-are-you-doing-to-save-on-your-wedding
Good luck planning!
oh yeah, we're doing a cash bar too, we're providing wine for the tables and champagne for the cocktail hour and toast, though.
Our budget is about $8,000 and we're having 50ish guests. Food and photography are the most important things to us so we chose to spend over half of our budget on these two things. Everything else we are going to do ourselves. We are having our ceremony in a beautiful building that is operated by the park district in Chicago so it's only about $150/hour to rent. Our reception will be at a restaurant that we love and we are allowed to bring our own alcohol. Since it's a small restaurant, we won't be having a dj. I will be doing our flowers. Do you live near a farmers market? Many of the vendors at the farmers market I go to sell bouquets of wildflowers for $5-$7. I'm just going to get a few of these bouquets and stick them in Ball jars for our centerpieces. Also, you can save money on a dress by getting a bridesmaid dress in white (which is what I am going to do) or look for white dresses at Bloomingdales, Nordstroms, or Macy's. I tried on some super cute dresses at Bloomingdales and Nordstroms today that were under $300. My fiance's mom will be making our wedding cakes and pies and we'll be making our wedding donuts. We'll also be making our own invites and favors.
Honestly, I haven't felt constricted by our budget at all. Weddings can be expensive, but if you are creative and focus on the things that are most important to you, a $10,000 budget is definitely doable.
We had a 10k budget and we had about 175 people attend (We invited approximately 240). My grandaddy is a wonderful cook and has cooked for large parties before. We had a buffet style dinner and my grandaddy did most of the meat, so we only had to cater the sides. We hired amateur photographers who were trying to build their portfolios. They were phenomenal and I love every picture. If you choose to go this route though, I suggest having engagement pictures and bridal portraits. It gives you an opportunity to see their work before the wedding so you know what kind of quality you are going to be getting.
To save money on flowers, we had non-floral centerpieces. The florist only did the bouquets and bouts. For centerpieces, I ordered vases from dollartree.com (amazing find!) and decopaged them with tissue paper to give them color and put a candle inside.
I also had the ceremony and reception in the same park so that eliminated the cost of paying for two separate locations. We also only had a wine/beer bar.
That's all I can think of right now, but if I think of anything else, I'll let you know!
Our budget (not including rings, honeymoon, or rehearsal dinner) is 13k for 110ish people. The biggest portion of our money (over half) will go to venue/food/alcohol. We found a place that lets us bring in our own alcohol so that is a huge savings. We are seriously cutting back on florals-- we'll have the bouquets, bouts, and corsages only. The centerpieces and all other decor will be made by me and will be non-floral. We're doing an ipod reception with a friendor MC. I scoured the city to find the cheapest baker and we're doing a smaller cake with a sheet cake to save costs (the guests won't see the sheet cake). Our venue is an all-in-one so we have no transportation costs at all (FI will drive us to the hotel at the end of the night, he does not drink). My aunt is marrying us as her gift to us. I DIY'd STDs (vistaprint... cost us $19 including postage) and invites. That is all I can think of at the moment!
ETA: I forgot to add the biggest savings-- getting married in February! It is off season so I negotiated for crazy discounts. For example, we would be paying $1,700 more for our venue/food if we were getting married in the spring, summer or fall. I also negotiated for about $450 off the price of our photographer.
I'm a $10K-and-I-inherently-refuse-to-go-over bride :) We're having about 65-70 guests so that helps with keeping costs down. Our reception venue is a wine cellar so we have to get our wine through them (prices per bottle are not outrageous, average around $15-25/bottle) but we can BYOB beer and liquor; we decided to stick to beer and contemplate a signature drink.
Our biggest splurges are definitely the photography and the food.
I'm determined not to spend lots of money on flowers (but this is just me, because I'm decidedly not a 'flowery' type of gal). The GMs will not have bouts - I think pocket squares should work just fine. Also, all centerpieces will be candle-based w/o flowers.
Check out my feature on weddingbee!!! I did my wedding for 100people for a little over 10,000.00 it might help :) That includes honeymoon, rings and an open bar!
http://www.weddingbee.com/2010/08/09/real-wedding-budgets-2/#more-156518
We have the same budget which doesn't include our cake and my dress. These are gifts from a cousin and my aunt. We are having around 200 people. Found our photographer on craigslist. She's charging around $800 for 8 hrs wedding day, rehearsal dinner, E-pics and bridals. She takes great pics. Also found our DJ on there too. $250 for the whole day. He has his own equiptment, will MC and also had lighting. We've seen him work, and he's awesome. He's a college student so that's why he's so inexpensive. We are having very few flowers, I'm not a big flower girl. My uncle's sister is doing our decorations at cost of supplies so that saves us a lot. We are having a full meal with 2 meat carving stations, mashed potato bar and 2 veggies. We are also having an open bar. There's a place here that has great prices and will refund your money for any unopened alcohol. We are also having a band (again college students), building our own photobooth and having a cocktail hour.
We had a $10,000 budget, and came in a few hundred less than that. That was for a dozen guests at the ceremony and luncheon afterward, and 60 guests at the at-home reception. Here is a breakdown of the budget.
We have a $10,000 budget for our 75 person wedding. The biggest thing we did to save money was hold our event on a Friday. We saved about $5,000 by just doing that. By far the majority of our budget is going towards food (roughly $4k). I found an awesome photographer on craigslist for $900 (his work is worth triple that). We are using a ton of pumpkins in our decor (fall themed wedding) and thankfully my parents grow them so those are free. I'm limiting our flowers to only bouquets/bouts/corsages and every other table centerpiece (5 total). As of right now our $10k budget is closer to $11k but I'm hoping to save some money by doing some of the things that I planned to pay for, myself.
Wow.... I am really impressed with how many of you seem so at ease! lol
We are on a $10k budget but as the wedding nears I am FREAKING out and I feel like there really aren't many places I can cut back on. We opted for Sunday, we are having NO flowers, bouquets will be fake hydrangeas from dollar tree, MAYBE if there is any money left I will get to do feather centerpieces (5-7 peacock feathers in a vase from dollar tree). I am DIY my cupcake tree with my MOH. making my own veil.
We fell in love with our venue, and felt we were getting a great deal. Even though there was A LOT of unexpected charges from them we thought we could swing $5500 for the food/venue/rentals. Now we have 4.5 mos left and I am panicked we are pretty good and stuck. It is now clear that due to unexpected expenses from life over the last 6 mos, we will have nothing left for our honeymoon. Maybe not even enough to put the deposit down to have it booked before the wedding.
If this was your budget, how would you move things around?
Dress: $950 secondhand. Already bustled/hemmed, but will need let out in bust and the straps lowered back to original position.
DJ: $595 before tip. No ceremony sound. Planning on borrowing I-Pod and speakers. We were restricted to a list of 3 DJs from the venue, this was the most affordable. Originally we had planned on going on CL and spending about $300.
Photog: $875. Includes: several e-pic sessions (already had 2 unofficials, still plan 1 more at least), a bridal session for 2 hrs, up to 8+ hours day-of coverage, 2 8x10 photos, UNLIMITED images, 200+ Edited & Touched-up images,CD and rights,Slideshow, coffee table style album.
Venue:
rental for sunday - $1400
chairs - $450 for 2 sets of white folding chairs (ceremony/reception)
Linens - $600.90 napkins/table cloth for 8 guest tables(seating 10 ea), cake, sign-in, gift, bartender, food tables.
China - $68 for 75ppl
Flatware - $110
Glassware - $56
Food - $25pp for 75ppl = $1875
Servers/Bartender - $670
other fees they worked in + their gratuity: $687.50
Here's some catches - if we want a meal at all, their prices start at $20pp. We cannot get tables/chairs/linens from other providers. They are providing all kinds of services we like such as valet parking, day of coordination, all set up/clean up including whatever decor I bring of my own. They are also allowing me to DIY my cake.
We are now debating moving the wedding to early afternoon so we can serve only appetizers, this may also result in our turnout going up leading to more guests. Right now we expect a 50% turnout since its sunday and EVERYONE is traveling 3-16hrs to be there. We want alcohol and were budgeting about $500 for kegs and a rita machine. As you can see we are still missing some major stuff like invites, officiant, beauty/attire, rehearsal dinner,boutineers, GIFTS, etc...
If we dont change anything we are $8800 into our budget with SO MUCH left to buy. We checked with the venue today and dropping china/glassware and appetizers doesnt make a dent with only $300 or so saved and we'd still have to bring plastic and paperware in.
We origninally had a flexibility of about $5k with a $2k honeymoon... now all of that is GONE it seems.
ANY thoughts? We already postponed the wedding from Oct to March and will be engaged for 19mos on our wedding day.
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Our budget for our wedding is 10k, and we are desperately trying to NOT go over. Anyone have any creative ideas for saving money?
Those of you who are on this same budget: how many people are you having? what are you spending the MOST money on?
we are having around 150 people, and our biggest chunk of money is either going to food or photography.
wish we could have a bar, but it is just not affordable. i think we are going to go with wine and bottled beer. if people want to get trashed, they can get trashed on their own dime. :)
any suggestions or tips would be great! i am sort of lost on flowers... i dont really want to do them myself, but i don't want to spend a couple thousand on a florist either.