"If you've got the money, honey..."

1.) First we decided how much of our current savings we were comfortable spending on the wedding. Then we decided how much we could realistically save each month and multiplied it by the number of months until the wedding. There was our budget.
2.) This is up to you and your FS. Decide together what your top 3 priorities are. For us, it was photography, food, and an open bar. We didn’t care as much about an elaborate cake or tons of decor.

View Quoted Comment Thank you!!

We decided how much we could realistically afford. Which is about 5k for us. Then we set budgets in each category, venue, food, dress, tux, etc. etc. it’s definitely doable with a small budget. Look for venues that are just starting out they are usually the cheapest. We got our venue. All outside, in a forest, comes with lighting decor, and is absolutely beautiful for $1800 on a Saturday in September.

I think it also depends on the area you’re getting married at. We’re getting married in the Chicagoland area and we’re having about 200 guests, with that many people it would probably be very hard to plan a wedding with a small budget. So it also depends on how many people you plan on inviting, the more guests the more expensive it is. We planned our budget based on the average cost of weddings in IL and our joint income/savings.
I’m not sure if we even splurged on anything because we had such a tight budget on everything. I guess the one thing we’ve spent the most on are our decorations- ceiling draping, up lighting, large and small centerpieces, an arch for our sweetheart table. We want our wedding to have an elegant environment.

We went with $15-18k because my parents gave us 10k and we both decided we can do 2.5-4K individually, preferring the former of course. This budget originally did not include DJ (weren’t going to do one), honeymoon, or transportation (thought it was incl with hotel). We ended up saving on the dj by in laws paying for it, paying on the transportation. We split it up where Fh pays for left over venue cost, photographer, and transportation and I pay for the odds and ends: bouquets, centerpieces, HMU (obviously), and stationary. We split up the bridal party and parent gifts and we got our own attire of course

I forgot about question 2:
Venue was our biggest choice because ours includes all food and drink and is pretty easily customize able without being overwhelming. I figured we didn’t have to spend as much on our flowers (getting them through an online retailer) and the transportation (Uber gift cards)

We figured out how much each of us could save every month until our wedding date, and received cash upfront as a gift from my mom. That was our initial budget (we went waaay over but accepted each decision we made).


For where to save/splurge, that depends on your priorities. We had a small guest list so that helped a lot. For our tiny DW, we prioritized the venue & food/drinks. For our local reception, we prioritized entertainment. We skipped flowers (except my bouquet), which can cost a few thousand dollars. We did pretty well on invites & printables, waiting for 20-60% off sales on Zazzle. No videographer.

View Quoted Comment Thanks! That venue sounds beautiful!

View Quoted Comment Thank you, Nicole!

View Quoted Comment Great plan, Maggie. 🙂

View Quoted Comment Ok, Ms. 60s bride!! 😁

We decided on how much we could realistically spend based on savings and how much we could save.
After we had our budget, we figured out what was important to us and that’s how we decided where to splurge and where to save. We don’t care about the flowers so we went minimal on that, but we care about awful lot about the party and spent on a dj, full high end open bar and food. Really only you guys can decide what to put the majority of your money towards

Definitely splurge on a photographer and videographer! Save on flowers and decor!

We came up.with our budget by what all our bills were at the time(includes food gas and fun &dollar. Then we usually put a few hundred in savings so after bills and our normal savings we just subtracted that total from our monthly income. Whatever number was left we multiplied by how many months until our wedding and boom that was our budget. We also had my FH bonus and my part time job. Our wedding budget came to be about 24K. We splurged on food, open bar and honeymoon!

So I’m not super good with numbers but my FH is. He basically put together an entire excel sheet for us to track our finances. I also did some research into the average costs of wedding last year to help guide us. But this was essentially our method:
1) we sat down and first figured out our monthly finances, like how much do we actually have to take home after bills, gas, loan payments etc. 2) From that we decided on how much each of us could comfortably and realistically put towards a wedding
3) We gave ourselves a ballpark wedding date (March 2021)4) added up the potion of our current savings with what we’re each putting towards the fund monthly. 5) from that number we were able to determine how much we would have saved for our March wedding. 6) it was only after we figured out how much we have to work with, that we really settled on a budget which is 40k
Every situation and couple is different. But this is just what worked best for us

We sat down and talked about how much we were comfortable pulling from our respective savings accounts and putting in a joint wedding account.
Then we worked out a rough budget, $x for y vendor/expense. When we hit a number from both that matched, that was our budget.
We didn’t really splurge on anything, but kept everything close to the budgeted amount. My HMU (paid by me, not wedding account) was probably the closest thing to a splurge.

My husband and I knew we only wanted to spend X amount of money and didn't want to start our marriage off in debit. We were fortunate to be under budget.

A lot of things impact wedding budget. I think the biggest are 1) where your wedding is, 2) who is paying for it/if you are getting any contributions from family, 3) where you are in life and your future goals, 4) size of the wedding, 5) when you have your wedding, and 6) your overall vision for what you want the wedding to be.

1) Location: Just like the cost of living varies around the country, so do the cost of weddings (see this link https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-cost-of-wedding). Nearly identical weddings could cost $15k in one area and $25k in another. I'm in NH, so weddings here tend to be pretty expensive.

2) Who Pays: If you and your partner are paying for your wedding without any help from family your budget will likely look a lot different than if someone offers to help you pay for your wedding, in whole or in part. Both sides of our family are contributing something to our wedding, so we have a little more wiggle room then if we were paying for it entirely ourselves.

3) Current Life Status: If you are saving for a house or planning to start a family right away, a less expensive, low key wedding may be more important to you than an elaborate, more expensive affair. If you are younger and less established career wise, you may not have as much financial security or savings as couples who get married after they have been in the workforce a while.

4) Size: The more guests you have, the more you need to spend to host the party. One of the easiest ways to keep cost down is to have a smaller wedding. However, economy of scale means that you typically pay less per head the more guests you have, although this isn't a hard fast rule. In general though, fewer guests = less expensive.

5) Timing: Saturdays and Holiday Weekends during wedding season (May-October) tend to be more expensive that mid-week weddings, Friday or Sunday weddings, or weddings held during the off season. However, some things like florals can be more expensive during the off season, so I would be cautious about choosing a wedding date that is based solely on trying to save money. When we compared options in our area, there wasn't a huge cost savings in having our wedding at one time of the year vs another and we didn't save enough money but having a Friday or Sunday wedding to justify the inconvenience for guests, since we have a number of people traveling for our wedding.

5) Vision: If you want an elaborate wedding at a historical estate with gorgeous flower arches, ice sculptures, and a horse drawn carriage, your wedding is going to cost a lot more than a low key BBQ at a state park.

I strongly strongly recommend NOT going into debt for your wedding. If you are finding expenses are way more than you envisioned, consider skipping the honeymoon, having a smaller wedding, or having a longer engagement to give you more time to save. DO NOT start your married life by taking on additional debt.

As far as the splurge vs save question, I think that really depends on your priorities and is very personal for each couple. You should be willing to spend more money on things that are important to you, and skimp on things that don't matter to you as much. For example, I got a pre-owned wedding dress and saved thousands compared to buying a new gown, but we splurged on a venue and food because the overall experience of our wedding was really important to us. Many couples looking to save money will do their own music instead of hiring a DJ, and florals are another area in which a lot of brides DIY to save money. Traditional wedding cakes are also really expensive, and you can save a lot by having an alternative dessert option, or getting a small cutting cake and a sheet cake to serve, instead of a multi-tiered wedding cake. Some couples go crazy on elaborate stationary, and while people may notice details like a velvet lined envelope, few remember them after the wedding. So there are many areas where you can save, you just need to decide what is important to you. One area in which I think no couple should skimp is on quality service though. You cannot replace having good people providing a good experience for you and your guests on your wedding day.

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much, Kari!! ❤️

My parents are paying for my wedding so my experience is a bit different but hopefully still helpful. My FH and I did not want to spend all of the money from our parents so we can save it, so we have been trying to figure out what is important to us and what is not. We saved on our venue by getting married on a Sunday, cheap save the dates and invitations, ice cream bar, no alcohol, buying and arranging the flowers ourselves. Doing these things allowed us to splurge a bit in other places such as my wedding dress and food, while also staying under budget.