Wedding on a budget

You could save by having a bruch/lunch reception or any day except Saturday, but it still would be very difficult to properly host 160 people on a $15,000 budget.

I live in Pennsylvania and got married in Scranton and I will say $11,000 for that number of people especially with how close you are to Philadelphia is going to be difficult. Just to give you an idea of what we spent on food/drinks it was $70 per person and we had to send a minimum of $7,000 on just food and drink. We had only 90 people attend and we went over the $7,000 minimum by about $1,500. This didn't include the extra money we spent on uplighting which our venue provided, the ceremony fee our venue charged since we were having our ceremony there, and I think there were some other fees it didn't include as well. This was also three years as go before Covid when things were cheaper and not as limited due to couples having to postpone their weddings.

Not a realistic budget. That's 93.75 per guest. Food alone would probably cost at least 30. A dress, photographer, and DJ typically cost in the thousands. Our 80 guest Friday wedding added up to over 25k.


If you can't cut your guest list, your best bet is to have a "cake and punch" wedding. It is perfectly within etiquette as long as you hold it during non mealtime
Or you could have a microwedding and draw a clear line at immediate family members
Best of luck

Our 50 person wedding is costing around $25k. Not granted we’ve picked some VERY expensive vendors. And you super don’t have to do that but you still don’t want to go very cheap either. I’ve seen people go really cheap on wedding photography and pay the price of terrible photos or getting cheap food and it not being good. A decent photographer can run you $2k. Wedding cakes especially for that amount of people could run you hundreds of dollars. I’m from NY and I know Pennsylvania will also be very expensive. 160 people is A LOT of people.


Also as an FYI. I know a lot of vendors and wedding venues already booked for 2023 and since you’re under a year now you’ll have to get going asap

I would consider having a brunch/lunch wedding. It's much cheaper, and people usually go easier on the alcohol. I would price that out as an option.

If you are getting married in a church you could see if they have a community room to hold your reception. Then you can check restaurants to see what they can provide for catering food. Other than that, like most people have said, that is a very low budget for the amount of people you want.

For a classic, start at 5pm + 4 hour reception with DJ, photographer, the works? Even if you DIY all of your décor, no, not realistic. We started with 160 people and cut it to 120. We think 60-90 will attend and it cost us 20k and I live in Texas, which I believe is much lower cost vs PA.

My advice? Cut your guest list, there is always room to cut it. If you're sticking to not doing that, you can:

1. Dry wedding

2. Lunch wedding @ Jacks advice

3. Weekday/Sunday wedding [etiquette to start and end a lot earlier than Fri/Sat]

This is going to be extremely difficult to do and will depend on exactly the type of event you're looking for. I have heard of people doing bigger weddings with a lower budget but it's A LOT of work. For reference my 150 person wedding cost $30k in Cleveland, OH, however I had almost no DIY, I hired people for everything and for us it was worth it. Like others have suggested do a weekday wedding, maybe brunch on a Sunday, no alcohol or at most beer and wine only, rent your dress or buy a used one, find a state park or community center for the venue, spotify playlist (no DJ), LOTS of DIY. The biggest suggestion would be to cut your guest list, that is the most effective way to drop the cost. Just having 50 people decline our wedding dropped the cost almost $10k. I recommend following Jamie Wolfer on youtube, she is a wedding planner and specializes in weddings on a budget. I have followed her since before I was even engaged. Good luck!

Aware I'm coming at this from a UK perspective but we did a serious budget wedding (came in under £4500 for 100 guests) and it all depends on what cuts you're willing to make and how much effort you/your families are willing to put in to make it happen.

For instance, we didn't invite everybody for food (we had 75 for food and a further 25 joined for the evening), we had to do buffet instead of a sit down meal, we had to DIY (or get a friend/family member) to do cake, decorations and flowers (the latter which we purchased from cheap supermarkets the day before).

DIYing takes some serious work and my family probably put in 1 - 2 weeks work in the lead up to the wedding to finish the decs etc.

I also had to seriously cut some corners with our attire. Firstly we kept bridesmaids and groomsmen extremely limited to save money on their outfits. Budget for bridesmaid outfits was £50 per person and my dress came in at £53.99 - and, whilst it was a perfectly nice dress, it was by no means my dream dress.

These were all decisions I/we were willing to make to be able to have our wedding this year - but I would recommend sitting down and writing out what is important to you guys to have at your wedding and then work out some rough costs.

Its a boring answer, but a good spreadsheet will help you work out if what you want is attainable with your budget