S/O wedding finances (Clicky poll)

mamie329 · December 2009

Some of the posts today have got me wondering about our wedding budget. And with the lovely Nest clicky poll, those who are skittish discussing such things can answer anonymously. Or discuss if you want.

[Poll]

gmk1784 · December 2009

I'll discuss.

My parents paid for the majority of our wedding. They gave us a budget of $15,000 and I was very mindful to choose things like a venue, DJ, dress, photographer etc, that I wanted and still fit into the budget. I never heard the final cost of the wedding but I'm pretty sure it was close to $15,000.

My mom however is very strange when it comes to money for things like that so I ended up buying a lot of things myself and probably spent around $2,000 or $3,000 of my money on things like the place cards, favors, programs, BM gifts, hair trials, reception flip flops, toasting flutes and cake cutters and other things that you don't "need" for a wedding but they were all the speical touches I wanted (and am really glad I had) and I know my mom would have given me a hard time if I asked my parents to pay for them.

mamie329 · December 2009

I didn't want to be the first responder. To my own poll! Shame shame.

Anyway, I think our total cost came to around 9K. I paid for everything myself (nothing on credit), with DH contributing about 15%.

stjoespirit04 · December 2009

We paid $25k+ a little on ours, by ourselves. I had an offer for cash from the parents that I didn't take, which I ended up glad I didn't since the economy tanked and my dad lost his business.

And really, if I found out my parents had thousands of dollars stashed away for my wedding, I think I would have punched them. It was my party, not theirs. I didn't see any reason for them to pay for my wedding other than the antiquated reasons of the bride's parents paying for the wedding and the groom's parents paying for the honeymoon. I wouldn't change a thing about how we saved and scrimped to pay for our "big day" - it made it a thousand times more worthwhile to us getting that first glimpse into the ballroom of the country club and knowing that we picked out and paid for every single thing in that room.

Kellybeth124 · December 2009

In our initial discussions with my parents (who paid for the majority) the budget was ~15K. 15 months and two venues later, the final figure came to ~24K. The loss on our original venue was about 2.5K so that hurt. My grandmother gave us $500 because she wanted extra ceremony flowers for the arbor. The ILs paid $1500 on the DJ and the bar tab (which was surprisingly inexpensive - gotta love a brunch wedding). DH and I paid for a lot of the extras as well as almost all of the paper products like STDs, invitations, monogrammed napkins, etc. It all adds up pretty quickly.

Leigha12 · December 2009

I answered 15-20K, I believe we hit right about 19K. My parents paid for the majority of it, but like pp, I paid for a lot of the little things I didn't feel like justifying to my mom, who despite telling me I had 20K to spend, would freak out every time I took money from the account. It was a headache. If I had to do it all over again, I'd have agreed with DH and eloped (and accepted my dad's offer of the cash toward a house instead), telling those who wanted they could join us in Jamaica or something, honestly. I was really disappointed with the turnout from my family, and they were the only reason we didn't elope.

luckycooky · December 2009

Ours was probably in the vacinity of $9K but it was in ND where things are generally dirt cheap. Our meals only cost about $15/person and that was for 2 meat options. The other big cost was our photographer which we paid $2400 for and he was there for 11 hours, we got the rights, 3 albums, and 225 pics. We would have gladly paid much more but it was an independant guy from a small town who only does weddings and can work from his home with no overhead.

clarisa_b · December 2009

I voted $5-10K, I think we were at about $9,000. We had a small wedding, about 40 guests so that contributed to the cost a lot. My parents paid for the food and most of the photographers fees, his parents paid the church fees and we paid the rest. We did put a few things on the credit card, but we paid them off within a few months of charging it onto our card.

mofe · December 2009

I voted 20-25k. We paid for about 2/3 of the wedding ourselves. We came in a little over 21k and so we have about 5k left over which was awesome! We had no debt from the wedding or honeymoon.

samantha7806 · December 2009

I answered $30 - $40..because we basically had the wedding that kept on coming. My parents gave us $25k. We went to the Virgin Islands with 40 people and were there for a week - DH's parents paid for the welcome dinner the night before the wedding (about $3500) and then we had a reception in Louisville when we got back for a little over 200 people - like, a full-on reception at a really nice location, dj, cake, photo booth, great food, open bar, etc. DH's parents paid for the booze, servers, etc at the reception - so all in all I think they put in about $6 or $7k which would put us around $32k.

I still paid for some things myself, too, and being a graphic designer, I did all my invites, place cards, etc.

We have yet to take our honeymoon, but we will be paying for that ourselves.

So really - destination weddings are not less expensive like most people think!

LarkNow · December 2009

Mine was 30-40. Actually maybe it was more than 40 with the contributions from DH's and my parents?

To tell you the honest truth, I pretty much hated my wedding by the time it was time for it, but I don't know what I could have done differently. DH and I live in CA, DH's family is in CO and the DC area, my family is in Chicago and my parents are in VT. No matter where we had it, it was going to be a destination wedding for the majority of people. I am the first in my generation to get married my family, and DH is the last so we had to invite pretty much our whole families. I really wanted it at my parents' house but it didn't work out so we had to rent a place.

The first place we found, which was an awesome deal (included rentals, good price on catering, we could bring our own alcohol), was sold in December and they sent us back our deposit, so 6 months before the wedding (as in, we'd already sent out STD's, were working on invitations) we had to find a new venue, new caterer, rental company, wedding coordinator, etc.

I think we ended up paying so much because Vermont is EXPENSIVE. Also, it is a small state so there is not much competition. You pay a ton to the only person in town who does what you need.

Also, because EVERYone was flying in for it, we felt like we had to make every event for everyone, so all 90 guests were invited to the rehearsal dinner and also to the brunch on Sunday. Really, the rental of the venue was the most expensive part, probably half of the budget or more. It was an inn and we had to rent the whole place out every night, but most of our friends couldn't afford to pay us back for their rooms so we ended up subsidizing them.

Sorry that's long, but I do feel better confessing it.

ChooGirl · December 2009

samantha7806:
So really - destination weddings are not less expensive like most people think!

THIS.

We paid for four days of food, alcohol and entertainment x 90 people. I get personally offended when people equate destination weddings with cheaping out. In some cases, yes, destination weddings save money, but that is not why we had one.

Our wedding cost a bajillion dollars. Flame away. But before you do, know the we paid for 95% of it by ourselves, with no debt post-wedding-- and I do not regret a single penny. The number is offensive, but it was our choice and the vast majority of it was our money. We didn't start out with a budget. Instead, we decided from the very beginning that we were going to celebrate the past 9+ years together by throwing a raucous, once in a lifetime, no-holds-barred party.

Mission Accomplished.

hawkilady · December 2009

Ours was in the $15k-$20k range... for the wedding. My parents gave us $10k to use as we wanted on the wedding, I did my very best to make choices to stay within that $10k. DH's dad really wanted us to get married at their family church but it was too expensive by about $1500. They offered to give us that money. We "hired" a family photographer who we were just going to pay for her assistant and prints (about $800) but she got pregnant and was due shortly before our wedding so we had to hire a new photographer (with 8 months notice) and that was an extra $2k. We put in part of it and so did DH's parents. DH's parents also paid for the RD (about $3k) and we paid for our rings, the HM, and a few other little things purchased along the way. All told we spent a little over $11k of own money, not including my e-ring.

CTbride320 · December 2009

Our wedding was pretty expensive (it was in CT so that upped the price - around $40k), and my parents paid for it (except our rings, which we paid for, and our rabbi and honeymoon, which my husband's family paid for - about $2k for our SC road trip).

I've struggled with an overwhelming feeling of guilt ever since my dad first told me that he wanted to pay for everything. My husband spent our entire engagement reminding me that it was my dad's idea, and that he was the one telling me to just get what I want. Basically he gave me a budget, I plugged it into TK, and I used that to figure out about how much we should spend on each vendor.

I'm the only girl in my family and I guess my dad just wanted to go all out. I am very grateful but I still feel guilty about it.

kaleyandjason · December 2009

At this point I have no idea. I would have to guess around 10k. Jason and I payed for most of it ourselves, with some help from both sets of parents. His parents are great friends with a florist, so I know that was actually relatively inexpensive. My mother payed for the photog, and we covered the rest. I wouldn't have done anything different.

samantha7806 · December 2009

are wedding bands and engagement rings typically included in a wedding budget? i never counted that since it was something kyle and i bought for each other.

megs1383 · December 2009

we tried to keep it under 20,000. I think my parents contributed about 10,000, DH contributed about 7,000, I contributed about 3500 and FIL contributed about 2-3000 for our honeymoon. I think it was more like 23,000 total.

vhcoleman09 · December 2009

Ours was in the $30-$40K range. It started out at $20K (where DH's parents contributed $10, my Mom contributed $5, and DH and I contributed the other $5). Then things got a little out of control and I ended up paying an additional $15K myself. That's not including the honeymoon, which we put on credit (but have *almost* paid off) and brought it up right around $40K. I wouldn't trade that day for the world. It was worth every penny.

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