Post # 1

Member
2092 posts
Buzzing bee
I know it will be different for everyone but thought it might be a starting point for working out our budget… I’ve put venue and catering together because they often come as a package deal so I thought that might make it easier for people to answer!
Thanks for your help 🙂
Post # 3

Member
561 posts
Busy bee
watch out for service, tax and gratuity! 🙂 often times not included 🙁
Post # 4

Member
10452 posts
Sugar Beekeeper
Ours will probably be a little over half. But I’m not counting dress, rings, honeymoon, or most of the decorating in my budget, as odd as that might sound. If all of that was included its probably more like 40%.
Post # 5

Hostess
8575 posts
Bumble Beekeeper
We’ll spend around 22,000 total, with catering & venues costing around $4000 combined, a little higher if you also include the tasting hour.
Post # 6

Member
1060 posts
Bumble bee
including tax and tip ours is just under 80%!!! We just fell in love with it and they cover everything for food, alcohol, linens etc. I have been really saving everywhere else to stay in budget.
Post # 7

Member
11465 posts
Sugar Beekeeper
I voted 50-60 percent. (However, I did not include in our wedding budget our rings or our honeymoon.)
Post # 8

Member
4282 posts
Honey bee
I voted 50-60 percent. We included everything plus the honeymoon in our budget.
Post # 9

Member
1542 posts
Bumble bee
venue was 1200 Caterer with tables and chairs and linens is looking at 2500 so 3700 out of a total of no more then 9k
Post # 10

Member
9819 posts
Buzzing Beekeeper
Mine will be about 40% for venue, food, and alcohol (includes chairs, tables, linens, setup, cleanup, barware, bartenders, food). That is a little under $8000 of my budget which is $20,000. That includes everything except the honeymoon (including most of my trip to Vegas)
I have a handy graph. It is fairly accurate with the exception of some rounding errors (some of the smaller things are .5% off-more or less). Reception should be a bit higher now (about 39%) so I will have to remake this.

Post # 11

Member
237 posts
Helper bee
A little over 60%. Final budget ended up being about $33,000 and the venue+catering (bar and cake included) was about $20,150.
Post # 13

Member
94 posts
Worker bee
I’m guessing about 25%. Sorry I don’t have a pretty chart, nor are our numbers finalized. Initially, my in-laws to be were supposed to cover the venue and catering (they were going to host), but the costs ended up being unreasonable… so now they’re just paying for part (about 65% [$3,700 or so]) of the catering bill. If we were paying for it all ourselves, it would be a pretty clean 50% of the bill.
Our venue and caterer are billed separately. We are paying for about $2900 of the $6600 we’re spending on venue & catering, and the whole bill is looking to be about $13000. I guess we’re just lucky to have the help at all. *shrug*
Post # 14

Member
2092 posts
Buzzing bee
@babbot: Thanks, that’s helpful advice.
Post # 15

Member
2092 posts
Buzzing bee
@kes18:
@pinkshoes: Wow I’m so impressed by your graphs!
Thanks everyone, these replies are really helpful.
Post # 16

Member
3765 posts
Honey bee
If I ONLY include the banquet hall itself and the catering for out wine & cheese hour and dinner, then it’s about 20%. We got a screaming good deal on our reception hall and catering, though.