Keeping A Wedding Affordable.... How Much Did Yours Cost?

Quote from tresh : in the end, it doesn't matter where the value originates, it matters where it resides.

Disagree. If your wife to-be honestly believes that her engagement ring should be worth two months of your salary, she has been brainwashed. Go check out pictures of your grandparents and great grandparents weddings. Think those cost $50k? I bet if you called up most places and said you needed to throw a retirement or birthday party, the price is reasonable, but the moment you say wedding, it is a 300% markup, cause dumbasses will pay it. The whole wedding industry has radically changed in the last 100 years and it started with DeBeers scamming people into thinking diamonds were worth a crap.

Quote : if your wife [to-be] has always wanted a fountain punchbowl at her wedding, do you try to get her a fountain punchbowl or do you tell her she's a silly, misguided sheep in the grip of corporate marketing geniuses?

Maybe your wife to-be, but mine won't be so shallow.

Quote from MoonAssassin : My fiance and I are getting married in roughly 7 months. We're getting married it right before he deploys. Anyways, I've talked with various people I know and done research and I know wedding costs can vary per area, based on size, etc. I'm curious though (for Slick Dealers that is), how much did yours cost and what was the basic break down (what did you spend the most/least on?) We're trying to get an idea of our budget right now and thankfully Slickdeals has helped a lot so far for getting gift cards to purchase items and discounts and such. Unfortunately, the biggest cost it seems will not be the reception (food, decorations, etc) but rather the church itself. I've called over two dozen churches (three of which family were members of) and they are all quoting me prices of $1,000 to $2,000 just to use the church for an hour or two. We're currently trying to think outside the box but not having much luck as the local historic houses, rental houses, museums, plantations, farms, country club, bed and breakfast, etc are all charging just as much. Also, any advice on budgeting, planning, etc is always appreciated. We're looking like a 100 to 150 person wedding with just our family and close friends invited.

Just remembered one from our wedding -- scale back the fancy clothes. We had the groomsmen wear button-up shirts, ties, and nice khakis rather than renting tuxes. It may not necessarily save tons based upon rental costs, but rather than returning the clothes, you have a nice outfit for work/nice dinners.

Quote from travathian : Disagree. If your wife to-be honestly believes that her engagement ring should be worth two months of your salary, she has been brainwashed. Go check out pictures of your grandparents and great grandparents weddings. Think those cost $50k? I bet if you called up most places and said you needed to throw a retirement or birthday party, the price is reasonable, but the moment you say wedding, it is a 300% markup, cause dumbasses will pay it. The whole wedding industry has radically changed in the last 100 years and it started with DeBeers scamming people into thinking diamonds were worth a crap. Maybe your wife to-be, but mine won't be so shallow.

Quote from sd444 : Says who? Why does it have to cost ridiculous amounts of money? Why do people have to rent a fountain punch bowl? You can still indulge. Take the exact amount of money you are going to spend for one day and use it for vacations after you are married. You can have "special weeks and weeks." Eliminating frivolous wedding expenditures is the topic. Statistically the chance of divorce is high. A lot of you are basically given your ex a really expensive wedding.

Hooray internets! Thank you for filling an honest question and answer session with blatant insults and gross overgeneralization of consumer culture.

Telling someone they're going to get divorced because they don't want to cheap out as much as you think they should on a wedding is pretty much the definition of "how to be a dick."

Especially if you're going to claim "you'll remember your vacations but not your wedding so you should spend your money on that instead" like some people here.

We tried to do things on the cheap as well. We were both young and unfortunately, my brother got married the same summer AND my wife's brother and her sister both got married that year as well (not to each other of course). Needless to say in our family we had a total of 4 weddings and cash was tight. We got the church for free but we had to pay the organist for her to play, even though we didn't use her. My wife is a musician and had her friends do all the music as wedding gifts.

So some things that we did and wish we had done to save money
- If you can not find a cheap/free church, I would recommend looking into a park or museum. A good friend got married on the grounds of a museum and it was beautify surrounded by the marble statues and a wild flower gardens. I think they made a donation of $100 and was required to set up and take down the chairs.

- Look to your friends and family for any special gifts they may have. My wife's dress was custom made by a friend. It was amazing with embroidery and bead work done. She did it as a wedding gift but we still gave her a really nice thank you note with money inside because it was so beautifully done.

- Friends want to help make this day awesome.... don't be afraid to ask. We had friends do our catering for us (looking back big mistake because it hurt our friendship). We had a friend make the cake (amazing). We had friends do the bar tending, and we had friends do the DJing. I think our biggest expense was the wedding photography because we didn't have any friends that did that kind of work and my wife REALLY wanted good photos.

- One more big piece of advice would be this. Figure out what is the most important thing to you and your spouse to make this day great and memorable. Is it the cake, the dress, the music, or the party? For us it was we wanted the reception to be a party. And for a non dry family, what better way to party with great music and some drinks in your hand. So how we saved money on this was by providing 2 kegs of beer with tap, a case of "Two Buck Chuck", and TONS of canned pop that we had collected from sales for 2 months leading up. We then asked all of our bridesmaids and groomsman (a total of 13) to each bring a bottle of their favorite liquor to share with the guests as wedding gifts. Most of them brought 3 or 4, so we had PLENTY to drink.

In the end, it turned out great. I have good memories from it and even though I would have done quite a few things differently now that I have planned one wedding, I am super happy with the way it turned out. It did not cost us to much in the end (a couple grand) but I think we got a great value for the money.

Quote from 8mpg : courthouse... Why spend so much money on a single day in your life? Your reception is where everyone goes to for the free music and alcohol. Save your money and pay off a house/car/something.

Quote from sd444 : How about a 7-day cruise, once a year, for 15 years? Every other year for 30 years? Going ahead with it anyway? Budget in a lawyer for the prenup.

Heh. I see where you're coming from.

I do have a solid prenup - and i believe all trusting couples should. As well as various other protections because of my business.

Also, investing just under about a month of income is easily affordable. It really isnt that much money in perspective. We could do something like that every year and still live comfortably while maxing out Roth IRAs, both maxing 401k/403b, me putting a good chunk in SEP, and having comfortable cash on hand. I would never spend that much if we couldnt afford it.

It cost under $100, justice of the peace, no fancy clothes and didn't get the wedding bands until later. Neither of us wanted anyone around, family or otherwise so it was perfect for us. Hubby had to work later that day so we ate lunch at mcdonald's afterwards, lol. True story.

Two words, Taco Guy. We did a 150 person wedding for 4$.

Costco has some nice large serving jugs you can get for 10-20$ a piece. Margaritas help the booze go a little farther if you're able to supply your own at the venue.

I agree with the person who said not to tell the venue it's a wedding.

I did a backyard wedding but we rented tents, it ended up being around $4,000 anyway. We were misquoted on square footage and it ended up being almost double (orignal quote was $2200).

On the subject of weddings. Please do no invite any one. People either have weddings during the week and people have to take off or get married on the weekend and working people have to spend their time-off going to a silly ceromony they don't want to attend even though you will be divorced in 5 years.


Goes for your kids birthdays too.

Quote from bonkman : Hooray internets! Thank you for filling an honest question and answer session with blatant insults and gross overgeneralization of consumer culture. Telling someone they're going to get divorced because they don't want to cheap out as much as you think they should on a wedding is pretty much the definition of "how to be a dick." Especially if you're going to claim "you'll remember your vacations but not your wedding so you should spend your money on that instead" like some people here.

OP has the audacity to want to defile "the single most important and sacred day" in a couple's life by making it "affordable." And I'm the bad person here for bring up a very real statistical probability? The OP could have asked about buying a house. Would it be just as bad to mention that people often change jobs and have to move a lot today? Seems I hit a taboo subject with you.

I gave my wife a $30k budget for our wedding. She spent $28k, which included $5k for the photographer, $17k for 10 course reception dinner at a restaurant. The actual ceremony was held at home (traditional) so that only cost about $2k for decorations, flowers, etc.

The good news is we asked for and received gifts in the form of cash so we ended up even. Each guest gave us about $50 each ($15k??), and my parents and family (blood and in laws) gave another $14k or so. We tactfully asked for the gift of being debt-free after our wedding, and everyone obliged which we're still grateful for. Only a few people gave us "stuff" like a BBQ grill and china, etc.

Quote from qtbrye : I gave my wife a $30k budget for our wedding. She spent $28k, which included $5k for the photographer, $17k for 10 course reception dinner at a restaurant. The actual ceremony was held at home (traditional) so that only cost about $2k for decorations, flowers, etc. The good news is we asked for and received gifts in the form of cash so we ended up even. Each guest gave us about $50 each ($15k??), and my parents and family (blood and in laws) gave another $14k or so. We tactfully asked for the gift of being debt-free after our wedding, and everyone obliged which we're still grateful for. Only a few people gave us "stuff" like a BBQ grill and china, etc.

You gave her, huh?

Mmhmnnn

Quote from gloreglabert : Oh, and the dress was also a great deal at $100, marked down from $600, not that you could tell. No need to spend thousands to get a nice one.

where the heck did you find a dress for 100

Quote from eruk : where the heck did you find a dress for 100

Clearance!