Wedding budget post about our expected wedding expenses! What you’ve all been waiting for 🙂 The picture to the left is of the venue we looked at yesterday (Kuhs Farm in St. Louis).
Anyways, happy Monday everyone. I thought I’d mix it up this week and post about our wedding and our wedding budget. I made a post a couple of weeks ago about some of our (ok they’re all my ideas, he doesn’t care about anything) wedding ideas.
I’m not going to lie, I am so excited to plan an awesome wedding. I am excited for the food, the dress, the venue, the pictures, EVERYTHING! And of course, since I am a personal finance blogger, I have also been thinking about the average cost of a wedding and I’ve been adding everything up over and over again.
I don’t expect anyone to help us pay since we have been together for almost 7 years, and moved out of the homes we grew up in 6 years ago. The average wedding cost over $25,000, which is a scary number. The average cost of a wedding seems to be so expensive!
Money, Money, Money
Paying for our own wedding is definitely possible, but I would prefer to spend less than $20,000 since we do want to buy a new house next year. Now, $20,000 is a lot, but we do plan on having probably 200 to 300 people at the wedding. The number was going to be higher but we decided that there’s a lot of people that we could cut and make it more of a family and close friends event.
Yes, I know most think this is an insane amount to spend (especially in the personal finance world), but I do think it’s worth it. I have almost no family. I love W’s family, and having a big wedding to celebrate everything is very important to me. I never once had a family gathering in my family, so this means a lot. It’ll be fun and if we can afford it, then I see no harm in it.
Around 150 people will be W’s family (all of them are close family members) and there will be some of my family, and the rest will be friends. I have 8 bridesmaids and W has 9 groomsmen (possibly 10 if we have my brother be a groomsman). So we will definitely be having quite a large bridal party.
Also, how many of you invited coworkers to your wedding? Where do you draw the line? I just don’t want to upset anyone by not inviting them. It’s not like I can say it’s only close family, since we will have hundreds of people.
So, since we do want so many people at our wedding, and have a budget of less than $20,000, we do need to find ways to save. I will be listing our budget categories below. And within the next couple of weeks I will be making a post on how we plan on saving money in different categories. Around 50 people will be under the age of 18 also, so we will be saving money with the fact that they will not need to drink alcohol or eat tons of food (just thought I should throw this out there).
Our wedding budget categories:
Wedding Venue – $4,000
This is something that I’ve of course been putting a lot of thought into. When I say $4,000, I mean just for the actual rental of the venue, with nothing else included such as food, etc. I loved the the wedding venue that we looked at yesterday, but I’m just not super positive that it’s the one for us. I did send my friend all of the pictures that I took because I knew she would love it for her wedding. She is in love with it so now I’m positive that my trip to the venue was not a waste.
We both really want to get married at W’s grandmas. The property is beautiful and is over 200 acres with a lot of flat land (perfect for the wedding), cliffs, creeks and everything else. The property is perfect for an outdoor wedding venue, as there is a lot of room for parking and the actual wedding. The scenery is beautiful and just the thought makes me so excited. Even though it is technically “at his grandma’s house,” I would still expect it to be a semi-formal event, and I would have to make sure that guests know this (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, read my Twitter from yesterday afternoon).
If we get married there, it would be slightly more expensive than $4,000 for the venue. This is because I had to price out how much it would cost to rent everything. The clear tent that I want is $3,500, restrooms for the wedding (these would be portable FLUSHABLE toilets – they are called luxury toilets for outdoor venues) and this is $1,500, tables and chairs would be $1,000, and I’m sure there are lots of other little things that we would need to rent such as a heater or air conditioner (depending on weather of course), table cloths, etc.
The place that we end up choosing will be for both the ceremony and the reception. This sounds bad to some (some have told me that it’s weird to have the ceremony and reception at the same location, however, I don’t care), but I want an outdoor wedding so it’ll all work!
Food – $6,000
I have already called some caterers. Since I do want an outdoor wedding, most venues are okay with me using my own caterer. Now, don’t make fun, but for food I want really tasty comfort food. Preferably catered BBQ. I have seen some really awesome pictures on Pinterest, and I feel like BBQ will make the wedding a lot of fun and more intimate even though there will be a lot of people there.
And I definitely want an open bar also. The caterer said she could supply the bartenders as well. She said if I wanted to save money, then I could buy all the alcohol (or at least most of it) and then I would save a lot of money. She also said she would give me a checklist of what to get for the amount of people we will be having.
I then also want a dessert table. I would be going to a local bakery for this. I want a table full of cakes, apple pies, sweets and everything.
I can never turn down good BBQ! What do you all think of this idea? Am I being stupid/crazy? Please let me know what you think of this idea. I want all opinions! W and I really love this idea, so I’m pretty positive this is what we will do.
Wedding Attire – $3,000
Wedding attire includes our outfits, makeup, hair, etc.
I don’t want to spend too too much on my wedding dress. My limit will be $2,000 (unless of course I see something super awesome) but I would prefer to spend less than $1,000. I am really excited for once it’s time to start looking. I am waiting on this until the actual venue is chosen and booked though.
For his suit, I do like the look of the suits that are on the JCrew wedding section on their website. I’m in love with it all and since W’s favorite store is JCrew, I’m sure he will love it all also. I would prefer to spend less than $1,000 on his suit.
Photography – $2,500
We want a good photographer for our wedding. I have been pricing this out and expect to spend around $2,000 to $3,000 for this. I’m in love with a photographer and have been in contact with her. She charges $2,000 and has the exact type of pictures that I want.
We will be taking our engagement photos soon and that will be around $500 with the same girl. I’m looking forward to those! We are waiting until the spring time when everything is pretty outside to do this though.
Also, do we want a videographer? I don’t really know of anyone who has done this so I am unsure about it and whether it’s worth it to hire one.
Music – $500
W really wants a band, but I would like a DJ so that I can listen to all types of music. DJs around here are around $500 with everything included (setup, etc.). What did you choose? How much did you spend on music?
Miscellaneous – $4,000
I do realize that there are a lot of little things that I did not list above. Save the dates, invitations, stamps, thank you cards, marriage license, bridal party gifts, decorations, flowers, etc. If there’s anything BIG that you think I’ve forgotten, please tell me in the comments! I definitely would want to know.
We also plan on providing transportation to our guests who are staying at local hotels. Our friend recently started his own limo party bus company, and we definitely plan on using him for this. It’ll make it a lot easier on everyone.
How much did you spend on your wedding? Does the $25,000 average cost of a wedding scare you?
If you have any wedding posts on your blog, please leave the link below! I will read every last word. And if you’ve ever negotiated on anything in your wedding, please tell me all about that also.
Leave a Reply
We had to cut our headcount. That was painfully accomplished by removing all non-family that my husband or I had met less than 2 times. Now that knocked out most co-workers and personal friends, but we were able to drastically reduce our headcount. And for those that were offended we were able to say… this was the rule… sorry you did not fit the rule. Good friends will understand that you cannot afford to feed everyone.
Don't forget to check the clearance racks at David's. I was able to get mine for about half of the cost and I did have a 6 foot beaded lace train (which felt like I was carrying a small child on each hip throughout the whole night).
We also kept our alcohol budget down by giving the groomsmen flasks of rum to hand out to guests at the party who they noticed were drinking mixed drinks. As soon as the guest was included they were happy to switch drinking over to rum and Pepsi as they felt it made them a part of a secret circle. Our venue was surprised at how little alcohol was drank at our open bar, but how much Pepsi was consumed.
Thanks for the tips! I definitely plan on looking at sample sales and clearance racks.
I think food, pictures and music are always the most important Wil there be younger children? My cousin hired 4 teenagers she knew and set up a arts and crafts section for them and it was a huge hit She also set up their own sweet table for them which majorly cut down confusion at the main one
I love the idea of BBQ . But any outdoor wedding that we have attended has been casual dress, nice casual but casual so if you want semi formal make sure that your guest are well aware
Pictures are so important because the day will go so fast Congrats again
Yes, i plan on telling everyone that there is a dress code. I would die if people showed up in jean shorts and a t-shirt.
The BBQ is a great idea, I think anything different you can think of that breaks the mould (within reason of course!) Will make the wedding stand out and be remembered. Most people have an evening buffet over here but we had a hog roast instead which was a major hit! And it was the same cost anyway! Lots of small but inexpensive touches make a big difference as well when it all comes together.
I think I am unlike most men in that I really got into helping out with a lot of the stuff. I designed our invitations and we printed and hand made them ourselves for example. I’m sure you can do that too with your computer skills? We found they were really expensive to get custom ones and didn’t want to buy off the shelf. Also made our table plan. I liked art at school so found all that quite fun though!
I think you’ve done extremely well with the number of guests on that budget. We had about 95 day and an extra 40 evening guests and came in around £13,000 which is around the $20,000 mark.
Thank you! We chose BBQ because we both usually hate normal wedding food – it’s usually bland.
Our catering was significantly more than yours and was our biggest expense at $11,000 for just over 100 people. I hope you are able to do it for that price as weddings are so expensive
I think we're able to keep it down as we are outsourcing the catering and also because we want BBQ.
Looking forward to your post! I need more ideas 🙂
Yay! Wedding! It sounds like you know what you want. If you both want to use his grandma's lot, I'd say go for it – provided that it is OK with her. That would save you $4,000 right there, and it would be a very special place for you. Congrats again!
My recent post 6 Tips for Making Home Ownership Attainable
It would save $4,000, but then we would need to get a tent which is a little over $3,000, and then we would also need to rent tables and chairs. So in the end it would actually be more expensive! ahhhh
Haha yes I had no idea about them either! They are air conditioned and look like normal bathrooms.
I don't think 20k is a huge amount to spend on a wedding. Costs can add up super quick. after our venue cost which included food and liquor we spent the most on photos coming in under 3k. Those were important to me so I was willing to spend the money.
Does the outdoor venue include things like heaters if needed? It seems like it might be more cost effective to go with an established place versus family property.
Love these wedding updates!
My recent post Making Money Online: Surveys
The outdoor venue that we looked at yesterday does not come with heaters. I love the family property 100 times more though.
You don't owe your coworkers any explanations on who is on your guest list and why. Just don't discuss it with them. We couldn't invite all our coworkers so we just invited our bosses and the ones we shared an office with.
You can't control what anyone wears to your wedding. One of our receptions was (mostly) out-of-doors and some people came in shorts and T-shirts, which I didn't like but it's their choice. The most you can do is try to convey on the website what the dress style is.
It's not weird at all to have the ceremony and reception at the same place – I've been to several weddings like this and all that's needed are multiple settings or time to turn the space.
We had BBQ at our first wedding reception, too – as it is the local cuisine and my husband's favorite food it just made sense to us. Bonus that it was the least expensive option!
Why is W buying a suit instead of renting?
We did DIY music, but I wouldn't recommend that if dancing is going to be a major component of the reception.
My recent post Frugal Practices I’ve Grown to Love
I work in a really small firm, so that's the only reason why I was asking. I do know that I owe no one an explanation.
And yes, I plan on telling everyone that there is a dress code. Some people assume that outdoor wedding equals cheap, and some people have already asked if they could wear shorts. I don't know why someone would ask this.
He's going to buy a suit because I like the look of JCrew suits the most, and he could use a nice suit regardless.
And we would do DIY music, but dancing will most likely be the biggest part of the reception.
Thanks for the tips Emily!
That's so exciting, I am so happy for you. I would say go with a videographer. We did and I have no regrets. Getting married at W's grandmothers sounds like a great idea. I also love that picture of the venue you visited.
Thanks! I will definitely look into one.
Isn't it crazy how fast everything adds up? My friend and cousin are wedding planning right now, so I'm going to direct this post to them!
My recent post Purple Tweed
Yes everything adds up super quickly. AH!
That's a good idea about the chairs! Thanks Lindsay.
Weddings outside of the rural south are so very different! We spent $5000 on everything (less than $20k total for wedding, rings, gifts to everyone and a European honeymoon). We included our friends and family in every detail, and they were so happy to help in lieu of presents. Wild, right? 🙂 I hope you have a sensation wedding day!
Sounds like you had a great wedding!
Your budget sounds very similar to ours and it’s definitely doable. We also had an open bar courtesy of my father-in-law. Just be ready for people to go a bit overboard 🙂
“…This sounds bad to some (some have told me that it’s weird to have the ceremony and reception at the same location, however, I don’t care), but I want an outdoor wedding so it’ll all work!”
What the frick is up with people telling you that they think this or that idea is weird?!? You tweeted yesterday that someone said outdoor weddings are redneck. WTH! Why would you say that to someone who is planning a wedding that may be outdoors? I don’t get it…but anyway I ALSO went to multiple weddings that were in the same location as the reception and I can tell you that it was NOT weird. If anything it was nice not having to drive from one place to another.
Yes they definitely sound similar. Please post pictures when you have it!
I think BBQ is a great choice. I'd do what you want because this is your big day. I didn't spend $20K, but we had a much smaller wedding and we did the ceremony in the national forest. Aside from having to chase a few free range cows away, it was free. The reception was inside a few miles away. We did buffet, which was cheaper than servers and had a DJ. I like the idea of a DJ because I've been to wedding where the band played on type of music and no one was into it. A good DJ can feel the crowd and pay what gets them up and dancing. I'll be looking forward to seeing what you choose.
I'm definitely excited for BBQ! And yes, you make a great point with getting a DJ.
We didn't invite any co-workers to our wedding. We had a very small wedding and we didn't want any hurt feelings by inviting this person but then not that person, you know what I mean? Remember, your wedding is about you and your soon-to-be husband and that's all that matters! 🙂
My recent post Would You Spend Money On It?
I work in a super small firm (only 3 others), so that's why I guess I don't know what to do.