How much did your wedding cost??

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LuckyGrl 83

Saved 4/13/07 to Wedding Talk

How much did your wedding cost??

Ok ladies... as some of you may know I just got engaged this past weekend and we are now gearing up to go full-speed with the planning!! Its been so much fun so far! My FDH (Future Dear Husband, hehe) is so eager to check out stores for registries, potential reception places, invitation styles, etc that I'm finding it hard to keep up!!! LOL I am sstarting to feel a little stressed out over the financial side of planning a wedding tho...

Here's the story... we just booked a church so we have a date set. We have more or less about 8 months to go (our date is early january) and no one in my family has planned a wedding before (in the US that is...) We're expecting to invite about 150 people, probably NOT a sit-down dinner but rather have food stations so people can eat when they want... It will be an evening wedding with lost of music and lots of food, we just don't want to have our guests stuck in a chair for half the night... we wanna dance the night away!!

So, my question is... How much did your wedding cost?? Feel free to comment and describe as much as you'd like... THANKS!!

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Wedding Talk

bbkf 5 years 1 week

Location makes a huge difference here. We live in and got married in a very expensive area (lucky us, right?). If our wedding had been in another state, it would have been half the cost.

fcseamstress 5 years 13 weeks

Wow!! We're having a much larger wedding that I really want (thanks Mom), and my initial budget was $8,000. I think in the end we're going to be right around that thanks to so many people stepping in and helping (sometimes it's really handy to have 3 brothers and a sister, all married). If anything, my dress is going to be one of if not the largest expense of the wedding. I totally have fallen in love with this Maggie Sottero dress, but if it doesn't fit right I'll save myself some money and make mine... Oh, here's how our wedding day is probably going to go: Rented community theater w/outdoor gardens for ceremony with buffet style reception (150 people) and trying to book a nightclub in town for the dance that night (300 peopl). A big, loud Tejana to Norteno wedding!

sbgirl 6 years 3 weeks

Congrats on getting engaged! It is such a fun time but can definitely be stressful too! My November 2006 wedding was about $50K. I hadn't planned to spend that much but it is amazing how the costs add up. We had about 130 people for a sit-down dinner. The majority of the costs were in the reception - I think we probably spent about $25K just on dinner, drinks & the site fee. Then you add on the dress $4K(- I never thought I would spend that much), flowers $3K, DJ $2K, cakes $2K (we had 2 different cakes), invites & save the dates $1K, photographer $3K, transportation, ceremony music, favors, menu cards, manicures & pedicures for the girls, hair & make-up, hotel rooms, etc... $5K, and finally the coordinator for $2K. This breakdown doesn't even include the miscellaneous - like dance lessons, facials, etc.. We got married on a Saturday in Santa Barbara, CA (my hometown). You can definitely save $$ if you get married on a Friday or Sunday. So many of the vendors I worked with had minimums that you had to reach because it was a Saturday. However - our wedding was SUCH a wonderful day. We just relaxed and had fun.

SweetPeasMom 6 years 3 weeks

Mine was embarassingly cheap because we eloped. The only thing I regret is that we didn't get more pictures.

Masqueraded_Angel 6 years 3 weeks

We spent about under $500. We flew to Nevada from New Jersey, had a courthouse wedding and had a reception at my mom's house in Nevada, then went out to dinner afterwards. My mom basically bought the plates and decorations for the reception at Michael's, so the only expense for us was the plane tickets and a cute pink summer dress for me.

nycgirl 6 years 3 weeks

The Philly wedding sounds lovely! Mine is in Sept and we are having a destination wedding at the Four Seasons in Scottsdale, AZ. It will be a small wedding, about 50 people, and our wedding budget is about $48K. Mind you it includes my diamond wedding band ($7K), 1 visit there to check out the place (we live in NYC), hotel room welcome baskets, and a post-wedding brunch. We decided if we were going to do this at all, we'd do it in style. We also got a four-string quartet for music, and it actually turned out cheaper than a DJ. We are cutting a lot of corners cost-wise by making our own save-the-date cards, fan programs, menu cards, minimizing florist costs, etc.

wynter 6 years 4 weeks

$30 but we eloped. :p We were planning a wedding though before he got deployed. It would have cost us way less than $10k. Our church was free, our pastor was free, we could use the ballroom on base for the reception for free, my boss at the time made wedding cakes so she was going to make my cake as our gift from her. We would have had to pay for the flowers, invitations, photos, dress/tux, catering, etc... It wouldn't have been very big - close friends and immediate family mostly, and the two of us are very low-key people. I'm kind of glad we eloped now though...lol Looking back, the only thing I regret is no wedding photos.

lickety split 6 years 5 weeks

we got married at the church where my dh went undergrad. they have a HUGE discount for alumni on the reception. we spent about $15k 10 years ago and that included a seated dinner for 120, open bar, 5 tierd cake, band at the reception, pianist at the wedding, photographer and invitations. my mom is a florist so that was a savings. i wore my mil's dress so that was another. it was important to me to have engraved invitations and i found them online for like $2 a piece so that was great. wouldn't do the camera's on the tables again, the pix were silly and the photos very poor quality. i wanted to go to vegas, but dh and my mom were really into the whole wedding thing. even in retrospect it doesn't make a difference what the ceremony and reception are to anyone but you, go with your heart :)

KerryG 6 years 5 weeks

Mine was around $2500. I had a small wedding, about 40 people, and we saved money in a variety of ways. Both my siblings are great photographers, so they took pictures (we also left disposable cameras on every table for the guests to have fun with, which resulted in some great pictures and some "art shots" by my husband's young nephew of things like the ceiling and the lower half of my brother-in-law's face), my mom is an ex-florist, so she did the flowers, using mainly flowers from her garden, which is huge, I bought a white evening dress, rather than a "wedding dress" (you'll quickly learn that anything with "wedding" in the name is going to be more expensive than things of higher quality that aren't specifically designed/made for weddings), etc. The absolute best decision we made, in my opinion, was not to have a traditional wedding cake. I've always hated angel food and white frosting anyway, and those things are insanely expensive. (Often hundreds of dollars.) Instead, we had our favorite dessert chef make three specialty cakes for about $25 dollars each (she works in a small town, they'd be quite a bit more in a place like New York, but still cheaper than your average wedding cake, I'd be willing to bet). They were German Chocolate, Key Lime Cheesecake, and a lemon and strawberry thing I can't remember the name of, and nearly four years later the guests are still talking about how delicious they were! A book I found especially helpful was How To Have the Wedding You Want (Not the One Everybody Wants You to Have), by Danielle Claro, which was fantastic and full of ideas for traditional and personalized weddings alike.

Fancy04 6 years 6 weeks

All the nice weddings I have seen - have been expensive :)

LuckyGrl 83 6 years 6 weeks

:rotfl: :rotfl: I have the feeling i will become a crackhead just like you, SweetC... I wanna decorate my own reception, pick EVERYTHING!!! and I also am a sucker for wedding stories and pictures, and schemes... love it!! :rotfl: :rotfl: ------- :star: :star: :star:

SWEET C 6 years 6 weeks

u must!!! :rotfl: im like a crack head with this shit :rotfl:

LuckyGrl 83 6 years 6 weeks

Thanks SweetC!!! I'll definitely keep you posted :) Wish me luck!!! :rotfl: ------- :star: :star: :star:

SWEET C 6 years 6 weeks

well that should be next on your list.. maybe check out some this weekend or ask friends for great weddings they have been to. and start from there. im preaching now sorry LOL and remember EVERYTHING is negotiable..

SWEET C 6 years 6 weeks

LuckyGrl 83 6 years 6 weeks

:cry: we dont have a reception place yet... thats next on our list! I have EVERYONE i know brainstorming, trying to think of a place where we could have our party... ------- :star: :star: :star:

SWEET C 6 years 6 weeks

wow that will be beautiful! make sure you post pics! GOOD luck with everything!

julieulie 6 years 6 weeks

I haven't gotten my dress yet, but our colors are going to be black and white. I don't know if you've been in the Loews, but it's all the art deco black and silver, so we think it will go nicely.

SWEET C 6 years 6 weeks

oohhhh very nice!!! have you gotten ur dress yet./ what is the color scheme going to be??

julieulie 6 years 6 weeks

Sweet C - we are getting married at the Loews in the PSFS Building. The views from the top floor, where our ceremony and cocktail hour will be, are amazing! I wanted something with a Philly feel since I am not from Philly and do not live there (my fiance is originally from the area and we both now live in DC) so it is an out of town wedding for each and every person I am inviting from my side, including myself!

SWEET C 6 years 6 weeks

oh there they are thanks high sugars :D

SWEET C 6 years 6 weeks

i tried to post the links but i got flagged :( damn high sugars lol well i guess u dont get discounts in miami for a january wedding. lol wow so u have 9 months to plan .. can u send the link for the reception hall.. i love all things weddings .. cant u tell!

LuckyGrl 83 6 years 6 weeks

I'm in Miami... our wedding is Jan. 5 but we are open to changing it to the 4th (if the church has that day free)... we envision our wedding to be simple but elegant... nothing over the top... especially the centerpieces.. LOL I'll def. go check out your wedding pics now! Thanks SweetC :) ------- :star: :star: :star:

SWEET C 6 years 6 weeks

http://teamsugar.com/group/66315/blog/66033 http://teamsugar.com/group/66315/blog/66043

SWEET C 6 years 6 weeks

lucky where do u live tht also is a huge factor of where u can save money.. also, dj is MUCH cheaper than a band for my centerpieces i went with all red roses which means the florist buys in bulk, different flowers=more money, friday nite is MUCH cheaper than a saturday and november thru march is also much cheaper u can check out my wedding pics at popweddings