I am incredibly blessed. I work in a higher-paying industry, have no student debt, and while I live in a high cost of living area, I have been able to save a significant amount of money. I am going to give you numbers so I can get better advice. I have about $30k in savings (not including retirement) from about 4 years of working. This all while my fiancé has ~$80k in student loan debt and is currently in school making a stipend a little less than half of my salary, although he says he is willing to contribute up to $8k of his savings to a wedding (though I don't want it to come to that point! That's almost all his current savings).
My dream wedding is going to the courthouse then hopping on a plane for a bomb 2-week adventure vacation with my lovely fiancé. He wants an event with friends and family, food and dancing. The idea is to compromise on a low-key/low-budget event.
Problem is, even low-key events seem to cost so much money! I can't believe it. Especially wanting a venue where we won't be forced out after 4 hours and we can just hang out, unrushed, with our friends. It also doesn't help that I have anxious and perfectionist tendencies, so I feel pressure to be the best host and provide the best experience for our guests. First step in all the articles and podcasts about wedding planning is setting a budget, but I'm having such a hard time! I've never spent more than a couple thousand dollars at a time. We could "technically" afford to spend $38k right now, but that seems like too much, especially considering 1) his debt and 2) we're still renting and would probably be looking to buy a house in 5 years, once fiancé finishes school and we have a better sense of where we'd be living (East coast or west coast? With our lines of work, those are the options.)
How did y'all go about deciding what was "reasonable" for you to pay? And how did you get over the guilty feeling that the money spent on this one day could be better spent somewhere else?
