Help! Wedding under $10k 80-90 guests

So $10,000 is a pretty low budget for a wedding. For context, we got married five years ago and we spent approximately $23,000-25,000 for 85 people which doesn't include the alcohol (my parents covered), my dress, veil and shoes (my mom covered), and the rehearsal dinner (my mother-in-law covered). Everything has gone up in price since Covid. We also had our choice between PA (where I'm from) and NJ (where my husband is from) and we picked PA because it is sooooo much cheaper. Several of his friends also from Jersey decided to get married in PA because of the cost. We got married in Scranton, other couple got married in Mt. Pocono, and another in Stroudsburg.

The best option if you are looking to only spend $10k is probably going to be to look for non-traditional wedding venues. The venue and catering are usually the most expensive. You might also need to consider cutting your guest count because the more people you have the more expensive it is. Other options are going to be having it during non-peak wedding season on either a Friday or Sunday because Saturdays tend to be more expensive. I'd also limit the type of alcohol you are going to serve to just beer and wine. Open bar is definitely more expensive. For a wedding dress I'd probably look into options like Azazie. I got my wedding veil on Amazon. I ordered three I liked and returned the two I didn't end up using. The one I picked was just as nice as the ones I saw in the bridal salons but for a fraction of the price.

Honestly, if I were you, I'd micro-wedding at a destination with a livestream. Reasons being:

1) Get your honeymoon and wedding in one go

2) Save money while including people virtually (guess that's one blessing of the lockdowns of 2020, that industry's done very well)

3) There are companies that specialize in getting you the right vendors at a package deal, won't flake, and save a ton.

For instance, I was looking into a company for my Vegas wedding. They're called Cactus Collective. Although they mostly work out of Nevada they also do a summer season up in Black Hills, South Dakota, because Vegas summers are hot and unpopular for weddings.

Additionally, I secured Lovestream for my virtual guests because they have producers who work remotely to do a multi-cam stream. They can even picture-in-picture relatives to do readings and toasts if you want. Seriously, the money you save on catering a reception for even 80 people, you can throw a portion of it into the virtual attendance. We even plan on shipping people bottles of champagne with the portion we saved.

Of course the expectation I have and you should probably have as well in going this route is that gifts won't be plentiful. And that's fine. Maybe after being with your future spouse for four years, that isn't necessary. Just creating a special day for the two of you and trying to include people in a way that still economical yet thoughtful, is all that matters.

Best of luck!