So You're Getting Married for under $5000

For me, the cheapest way to go about it was to find a venue that included everything. $39.95 for hall rental, 4 hours open bar, centerpieces, wedding cake, food.. we're using silk flowers for bouques, and only hiring a photographer for 5 hours instead of the whole day.

Our wedding cost well under $4K. We invited 18 people, got all our paper from Vistaprint, wore mostly clothes we already owned, had both our ceremony and reception in our caterer's restaurant, skipped a formal wedding cake and just went with our caterer's included dessert, provided our own wine and hard cider (we skipped sparkling wine), and had a nearby congregational rabbi do our ceremony.

Our crowd was tiny and most of them don't dance much, so while I made sure dancing music and space was available because I really wanted to do a first dance, we actually wound up playing the games we brought for most of the night -- mostly Timeline, but I think a couple games of Forbidden Desert were played at some point. For decor, we did floating candles in beribboned mason jars for the aisle and DIY bouquets from Trader Joe's for the chuppah, and it worked really well, partly because our space was so small. One of our friends (who's been doing photography as a hobby for many years and whose style we like a lot) offered to do our photos as a wedding gift, so I don't have any universally applicable tips about photography.

TL;DR: Think hard about your top priorities and don't cheap out on them, but for anything other than food, making sure the guests are physically comfortable, and some minimum amount of alcohol (unless you have a preponderance of recovering alcoholics as guests, or the two of you are recovering alcoholics or have some other special circumstance that means you can't have alcohol at your wedding), it can be skipped or done very cheaply if you just don't care much about it.

I had a $3K wedding and I find this thread weird and annoying.

Rustic is fairly cheap... But venues are definitely out for me. We decided to rent a tent and have the wedding/reception right on my future in laws lawn. Getting a couple kegs and BYOB for who doesn't like Bud Light lol. I'm excited to do my own decorating and have it done my way... Oh and also we are planning on a pot luck BBQ!

Bud light and pot luck bbq. No.

I'm with Celia. My two cents....I mentioned this on another thread, but the more people you invite on your budget the "cheaper" your wedding becomes, i.e. food, attire....everything. It's one thing to find great things that are inexpensive to use but don't "cheapin out and settle" just to fit more people on the guest list. Care about everything, phenomenal food, a beautiful small cake, pretty invitations, a beautiful dress, shoes, veil, and bouquet that you will love and cherish and hold dear. It's great if you want to DIY; I did it myself because it's what I love to do, but DIY that looks great is not always cheap. Have a guest list that fits your beautiful wedding, not a wedding that fits your guest list.

Oh. My. Gawd. Potluck and BYOB?! Nope.

The best thing you can do is search around for a venue that does everything for you and snatch it up! My venue is $1600, I get both indoor and outdoor area, they decorate for me with my colors and theme in mind (I can help them too if I want) they provide all seating, tables, tablecloths, beverages (tea and water, soda), (I can supply my own alcohol and they will serve it), they serve whatever food we have catered or they will cook and serve for us for $10 a person. They do all the lighting, sound, and the owner is even a JOP so she's going to marry us. They are also throwing me a rehearsal dinner (fish fry) the night before my wedding free of charge.

I highly go by the saying that bigger is not always better. Look into any local small towns nearby for unsung venues, that's what we did. It's in a town that has a population of 1,200. But the venue is beautiful and will seat 180 people which is more than I even need. And I'm saving so much money because I don't have to buy any excess crap! The venue's logo is "You buy the dress, we'll do the rest" and it's so true!

Mines under $1k just depends on how "traditional" you want your wedding and what you want to spend. Getting married really only costs the price of the wedding license

I feel like I'm reading OP's posts like they're blog posts. But this is a forum...

This is also as bad as the "Big Budget Bride" post from a while ago.

Budget and cost is relative to your area, income, and means. $5000 will go a lot farther in some parts of the country than, say, NYC.

I got a little excited when I saw the potluck and BYOB comment.

Wow ok, some of these ideas are horrible. OP, please listen to people like Celia and Mrs.CK. Please DO NOT listen to posters suggesting potlucks, byob, and self catering. Those are terrible ideas and you can see why if you use the search function for the forums (on a desktop) and look up those words.

Also, rustic or backyards are NOT cheaper in most cases and it ends up being a lot of work. We considered a local park for a hot second and then dropped it as soon as we added up rentals.

You can totally have a beautiful wedding for $5k while still being a good host. The biggest step to take is to keep the guest list small. We would save $1,800 just by cutting 10 people on our guestlist. Thankfully we were able to save to cover those 10 people but if for some reason something happens financially between now and the stds, that would be the very first cut.

Skip items like stds, programs, favors. Those alone can be a couple hundred dollars sometimes. Skip bridal parties since gifts, flowers, etc gets super expensive. A very intimate ceremony and a restaurant reception would be your best bet.

Most of the people on these forums have great advice and with it you can totally have a great wedding!

Instead if your traditional venue...at **** for 4-5 hours (not including police escort @75/hr)..we are renting a house for 1500 for 4 days overlooking lake winnipesaukee...