How do you afford a wedding?

View Quoted Comment I completely agree. My fiance and I have talked about not wanting to start marriage off with debt. It's definitely going to be from us saving our own money. We've been together for over 6 years and have most household items we need, so we were thinking that instead of a gift registry, we'd just have a donation box on the gift table to help with the costs of the wedding and honeymoon. Even if we only get $1000, it's something.

View Quoted Comment Great advice! I feel like we do most of these things. We're pretty frugal already. We used to have a $5 jar that we HAD to put $5 in every time we ever got a five from cash back or even if a coworker needed change or whatever and we ended up with a five. But we don't use cash as much as we used to. I did just recently (in the past year) open a USAA account and I've received more in interest than I ever did with WF. Even if now it's only pennies. We live in such a small town that there are no coffee shops close by, so that makes it easy lol. I prefer my freshly ground French press coffee anyway 😂

View Quoted Comment That's an amazing price! The only grocery store we have in town is Walmart, so it's cheap enough I guess lol. I've looked into getting a dress online since they're so much less expensive! And they come custom fit for like $20 more. The big ticket items are of course the venue, photographer, and our tickets to fly there. It's gonna be like over $10K just for those! We don't live in my home state anymore, but that's where we want to get married.

View Quoted Comment That's how I feel too! Like it's forever! And when my fiance and I discuss it, it's like "is it irresponsible to want to spend this much money on a wedding when we could put that money on student loans?" And of course we are expecting this to be our only wedding, so we want it to be memorable and amazing, and student loans will still be there tomorrow lol.

View Quoted Comment We've thought about eloping but I really want my whole family there and my best friends! We're on the fence. We even thought about getting married while we're abroad in May, but it seems to get complicated when trying to do that. I'm also afraid that if we elope, we'll never get to the planning the party part lol

View Quoted Comment Also, I saved a bit of money by finding a venue that includes everything when it comes to rentals. For example, I don’t have to pay for chairs, tables, silverware, drinks are, I’m paying nothing for my bar tenders, waitstaff or service staff. I’m also not paying for my centerpieces as they have a decor pamphlet I can choose from. That helped immensely. And they decorate verything for me. Inpaif $2,000 for the venue reception and ceremoney space and like I said, that includes everything I mentioned above. My cousin, in an attempt to save money has her ceremony at our grandparents house. What she paid in chairs and other rentals I saved by far. Her reception hall was $900 that only included tables and some really ugly chairs that she had to cover. My chairs are super nice, padded and don’t need covers. Unfortunately for her, but fortunately for me, I watched the way her wedding panned out and compared what she spent vs what was included at my venue. I turned out to be saving a lot more money by going with our venue than attempting to have the wedding at a different location.

Also, bargain shop. The little bit of decor I needed to get, I got at a thrift shop for $12.25! It includes 20 small candle holders, some tall crystal glasses for tea lights, our champagne glasses and our cake cutting set. I also got our charges on Craigslist for less than 40€ a piece! Used is not a bad thing if it’s in good condition!

Having a longer engagement (18-24 months) helps spread out the costs. You and your FH need to ask yourselves: how much am I actually willing to spend? What are important components to our wedding that we want? We decided that the venue and food is where we didn't want to skimp out on.

If you have friends that have recently been married ask for advice, what would they do over again? A friend of mine told me that getting a photo booth was a waste of money because it kept crashing. Another told me that all of the favors and printed materials promptly made it in the trash at the end of the night.

And don't be afraid to ask parents for help. Granted my parents couldn't give us much because my brother is also planning a wedding, but they did offer to pay for our venue deposit. My FH's father offered to cover the entire rehearsal dinner and promised a very nice gift for us.

But my biggest suggestion is to shop smart. Vague I know, but it has been so helpful. Sign up for emails and keep an eye out on sales. Thrift your heart out on Facebook Marketplace and your local second hand store. With holiday sales and coupons we're done shopping for everything we need for our wedding and have saved over $600!

Also, once you have a venue ask for preferred vendors if you can. Or ask for referrals from those aforementioned married friends. We needed to rent chairs for our wedding and used the same company our venue uses when they need extra for events. Just going with that rental company saved us $300!

Once you meet with vendors, ask how you can cut costs. Ask for seasonal flowers. Ask for a smaller cake with a sheet cake in the back for serving. All of these suggestion will cut costs to an extent. Our florist is willing to knock off the $100 delivery fee because they were referred from the venue which is less than two miles away.

I'm a saver by nature and have been sving since I started working, our parents are helping and our bonuses/tax returns are going to the wedding as well.

Everyone's financial situation is different. Some people don't have car payments or student loans. A lot of people have parents contributing to their budget or paying for the whole wedding. I've been in two weddings, one cost $20k and one cost $3k. The 3k was entirely funded by bride & groom. The 20k was funded half by bride & groom. I think saving & setting a strict budget can be really helpful.

When I first started the wedding planning process I was so discouraged because it seemed like I would never get to have something even close to the wedding I had envisioned. I had heartbreak after heartbreak every time I'd find a venue that I loved only to be hit with a brick wall by its pricing. My Fiance and I are paying for it ourselves, honeymoon included. We are having a 16 month engagement and we've both been saving, luckily FH can work OT whereas I am on salary but we both make decent money and don't splurge at all, plus we've been buying little stuff since the beginning of 2018 and have been storing it at our house. This has been good in many ways because I have a a lot of the decor that I'll be using for my wedding so I can reference it when needed, etc. Research your heart out, not all prices will be out of this world. Look at smaller shops when looking at flowers, I am paying 1/3 of what I would have paid for my flowers and I am getting better vases, more flowers and flowers that I want but are out of season. Our venue includes our ceremony space, reception space(different rooms), cocktail hour, hot butler passed appetizers, 3 course plated meal , our 3 tiered cake, tables, chairs, linens, dj/mc, an amazing staff, amazing views and a price tag of less than 10k. This will be for 100 guests, it took me about 3 months to finally start finding venue that made sense. It's possible but you have to think outside of the box and get pretty creative. I live in Los Angeles so just think about that, the average cost for a wedding here is 40k so yes it is alot of money, we've been doing everything we can do save without depriving ourselves of having a life. My wedding is in 2 months so I may have a different opinion on this after the day but I think we've done so good that we are lucky.

View Quoted Comment What kinda stuff were you able to do for cheap? Food? In the process of trying to so the same thing and I’m so frustrated.

I feel this. It’s definitely an issue for us since my FH has lots of loan debt from undergrad and is only about halfway through graduate school (read: barely any income). I think the biggest thing is just cutting costs of the wedding. Don’t invite a ton of people. Don’t buy a huge fancy cake from a bakery: buy a little fancy cake to cut and eat yourselves then serve everyone else grocery store cake (or only buy grocery store cake for everyone). Go with a DIY venue where you can pick your own caterer and BYOB and save (likely) thousands. All these “little” things add up! It’s really a mental compromise between the part of yourself that wants the royal wedding treatment and the part that has to live with the financial consequences.

Honestly,

Weddings aren't cheap, no matter WHAT way you go. If you ask one of your family members or closest friends to use their backyard with a giant tent (depending on how many people you have) and have your other family member take care of all the food (listen, you dont wanna be up cooking the night before your wedding!) - that can save you some extra costs. But, renting out a tent, tables, chairs, (I just literally did this), dance floor and whatever else you made need can become pretty pricey (mine was over 3 grand, but I have a very large tent). You can do it yourself on your wedding favors and your center pieces for the tables and isle pieces. Rent as much as you can - tuxes, maybe table cloths, chair covers if you find it necessary, plates and silverwear. There are a lot of different options, but make sure you read the fine print because a lot of those vendors you are renting those cloths from if they come back even with the BIT of damaged, you will be charged full price for one table cloth (and if they are satin, forget it. it's pretty expensive). Do your research. Honestly, without my wedding dress included in the cost -

The cost of my venue, my photographer (with a second shooter), my tent rental (with chairs and tables, dance floor and a few extra things), I'm just under 10 grand.

Open a seperate bank account, deposit 10$ every paycheck in that account (both you and your fiance!), dont touch it. In fact - put it in your moms name that way she is the ONLY authorized user on the account and you can't touch it no matter what. Give her the 10$ and tell her to put it in the bank account. Set your wedding date for two years from now. You'd be surprised how much money you'll have in that account to get your dream wedding.

I advise planning at least a year before your wedding, do some Pinterest boards, never settle for the wedding dress you think you want (trust me, been there, done that-) ; get the one you fall in love with literally instantly. Buy stuff as you see it (can be one thing here, twelve things here), know your theme (if you have one) or simply just your wedding colors, it will make the buying stuff so much easier. Know if you are having a small wedding or a big wedding. This stuff matters. Also consider how big you want your wedding party to be, because that can be expensive too (gifts, rehearsal dinners, bridal showers, bachelorette party, etc etc). But, always ALWAYS remember, you are the bride. It is YOUR day. Do not try to please everyone, because you simply can't. You come first, your sanity comes first, and most importantly don't forget you are marrying your best friend.

View Quoted Comment We actually just had a pizza station and spent about $250 on pizza from Papa John's and has it like a buffet. I also made all of the decorations, centerpieces, name cards, table map and place settings myself. We bought a package of silk rose petals instead of real ones for the ceremony and I made my bouquet and the bridesmaid bouquets with fake flowers from Walmart and a toy Lightsaber I took apart to use the hilt (movie themes wedding). We got a balloon arch from Amazon for about $40 and got 200 balloons for cheap at Walmart as well and set that up a few hours before the ceremony and it looked amazing. In all I believe we spent about $800 on the entire wedding.

I just want to share a few tips that might help. My wedding is about $2500. I chose a week night and a small intimate number. Because we have business credit cards we get points for every dollar spent and I had enough points that they paid for food and flowers and a few extras.

I had a dress from before I never wore and no one saw, alterations were about $400. I arranged a deal with my videographer to cap it at $200. He agreed. My cake is $160, a small bride cake and 40 cupcakes; raspberry filling with vanilla cake. I am using Pandora instead of a band| DJ.

Days of the week along with creative ideas can deduct a lot of money. Just go in with your ideas and figure how to cut back. Weeknights are better and venues are flexible especially since they are trying to get back to normal. Just ask the worst they can say is no.

Good luck with your planning

We set our goal date 2 years away. I work 3 jobs including a full time and two part time. My fiance just started a new job with OT. We cannot save $1000 a month. I have no idea to be honest. The food is the killer part. I'm abour ready to set out 30 crockpots, play a playlist through a speaker, and call it good. The expectations of the industry is just crazy. I don't want to mortgage my future to marry the love of my life and have my friends be there.