Hello All!
So now that I've FINALLY gotten to tell you that I'm writing the book, I can ask you guys to weigh in on it. Actually, I sort of cheated and did already back here (because I really wanted your input and I couldn't tell you why), but now we can talk about it for real. Obviously, Team Practical is all over the pages, in spirit and in quotes, giving advice to future brides, but I want more specific input from you guys in some areas.
Like budgets, because budgets are a total b*tch.
Most wedding books give you a break down on what you should spend on budgets (5% on favors? Really?) which are total nonsense, because obviously there are as many ways to do budgets as there are people. That said, I don't want to stick future brides with a SWAG budget,* so I need to give them some details.
So that's where you come in. I'm hoping to give four examples of real life budgets in the book, that break roughly along the following lines:
- Under $5,000
- Around $15,000 in Manhattan
- Around $15,000 in Manhattan, Kansas (by which I obviously mean big city and not big city)
- Around $25,000
If you'd be willing to share your budget with me, email budget at apracticalwedding dot com, with the rough amount of your budget and the location of the wedding in the email title. If I pick your budget to go in the book, I'll get back to you with forms to sign, and if I don't pick your budget (it really is not you, it's me) then I'll make out with you on the book tour anyway. Deal? Deal!
And now that we've brought it up, let's dish. What was the best thing you learned about money while planning your wedding? And, rather specifically, what did you learn about who pays? If your parents helped pay, how did that work? If you paid for all of it, how did that work? What advice would you pass on? Because for serious, I'm going to use whatever you say to help me figure out exactly what needs to go in this chapter, which pretty much means you're all in the Library of Congress. But we knew that when I got the book deal, right?
Ok, and now I'm all excited about the book! And you about guys!
Wiggle!
Meg
*To quote the excellent Sarah: "SWAG = seriously wild a** guess. I think that what it's called when you Google 'how much does a DJ cost?' 'how much does a live band cost?'"
Hey, I am getting married in Manhattan, Kansas! Although our budget is $3000 and not $15000. (And last night my fiance told me he has serious doubts about getting married, so maybe I get to skip this whole wedding planning thing after all.)
February 24, 2011 9:10 am
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Ohhhh HUGS.
February 24, 2011 9:16 am
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Thanks. :) I’m a bit dazed.
February 24, 2011 11:02 am
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I did it in Burlington, VT for about $1,500. It can be done, don’t lose hope! I was amazed what people offered up to help out. If you want anyone to talk to who’s been-there-done-that you can email me at trisha dot partlow at gmail dot com.
February 25, 2011 1:21 pm
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What about a few tips on the virtue of a court house wedding? It’s budget friendly. But can still be personalized in little ways. I am so facinated by them and have seen a few that were sweet. I love seeing a gorgeous bride with beautiful flowers having a super special simple wedding.
February 24, 2011 9:11 am
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Of course that’s in the book! It’s not in the section about budgets though, because that section is just about numbers and money, no matter how much you spend. It’s in ‘types of weddings’ in the first chapter. I think. For now.
February 24, 2011 9:17 am
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I can’t contribute my thoughts from a post-wedding perspective yet, but I think it’d be great to talk about having the conversation with your families about budget. My fiance and I talked to our families over Christmas about what they realistically could and wanted to contribute. It’s definitely a less pretty side to starting your wedding planning, but so essential to really see what category you fall in. I know I would have appreciated some tips on how to talk to them about that.
February 24, 2011 9:13 am
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In the book. Helpful. Awesome. Thank you.
February 24, 2011 9:18 am
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Oh gosh, such good advice. Also good to have a rough sense of what things cost in your area so you can give them guidelines. I learned the hard way that my parents ideas of what things cost was easily 20 years out of date for our area.
February 24, 2011 12:25 pm
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Yes, very important to do this. We actually wanted to do something that came in much less than our current budget, but were lucky enough that our family really wanted to and were able to contribute because their visions of what they wanted for our wedding were a bit bigger than ours. So keeping the communication open is key.
February 24, 2011 2:00 pm
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Kind of along these same lines…Pretty much all of the wedding-related publications I’ve seen seem to assume that the couple’s parents will be contributing to the budget, with maybe a passing glance at couples who pay for it all themselves (if you’re lucky). And that sucks for people like my fiance and me. We never even brought it up with our moms (neither of our dads is in the picture, for two very different reasons) because we know that their financial situations won’t allow them to help. APW is one of the only places I’ve ever come across that talks openly about all the options for the origins of the money that goes into the budget fairly equally. So I hope that’s included in the book!
February 24, 2011 3:17 pm
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Also, I think, it would be interesting to hear from people who have a parent who is totally and completely incapable of helping out, but that very same parent wants to make a generous contribution. My mom just recently offered us money to go towards wedding planning and while I appreciate how much she wants to help, I also feel enormous guilt taking any of her money and don’t know how to reconcile that. I’ve thanked her profusely, and she knows deep down how much I appreciate it, but it doesn’t keep me from feeling guilty for using her money. At this point, it’s a day by day struggle of gratitude and guilt.
February 25, 2011 5:30 am
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I think giving your contributor’s something tangible to say they contributed to is a good idea rather than just taking their money and adding it to the budget. My parents paid for a large chunk of our venue and my dress. It also allowed them to get the visa points which they loooooove. So I got my awesome dress and venue and they get points towards their next vacation. Everyone wins!
February 24, 2011 9:18 am
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This is exactly what we were thinking when we were married in September. Though my parents had first brought up the idea of pitching in financially, we just didn’t feel right about accepting a check for the dollar amount they had proposed–especially so because I was not the only one who got married last year–two of my sisters did too.
We were absolutely able to reduce our costs–collectively–by buying certain items in bulk (wine glasses, appetizer plates, etc) and then sharing them throughout our year of family weddings! So some of those items my parents purchased to help all three of us–and some of them we picked up ourselves.
My parents picked up the food bill for our wedding and I believe most of our liquor as well–though we were fabulously frugal and well below what they had initially offered to share with us.
February 24, 2011 10:18 am
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A friend of mine contacted two other brides using her reception venue the same weekend and they went splitsy on decorations. They were able to agree on a neutral white & silver color scheme and shared a candles, a fabric ceiling-hangy thing, a bunch of twinkle lights and a couple of floral arrangements. Awesome deal if you can get it, double points for spending less time in set-up and tear-down between events.
February 24, 2011 11:11 am
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That is so freaking clever! I hope this works out for me. I love APW.
February 25, 2011 10:47 am
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Everyone says this but its true: figure out what is super important to you and spend more money there and figure out what isn’t the important to you and dont feel guilty for skimping there. We’re spending a lot on photography and almost nothing on (silk) flowers. My best friend did the opposite. I went to a chef’s wedding last weekend and the food was amazing (duh) but all their paper was the print at home kind. I mean, it seems so obvious in that case, that spending money where YOU think it counts will result in a wedding that feels like your own.
That, and Google Docs. Google Docs for life!
I have so much more to say on this. The accountant wants to talk budgets like crazy. So expect an email from me : )
February 24, 2011 9:20 am
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I’ve heard this a lot, too and it makes sense. But, I think it is important to feel around for special “deals” that you can come by based on your family connections first. If you happen to know a baker, have special access to a venue, have a friend that loves to arrange flowers etc. Figure out if those options will work for you before you set a budget on that item. I spent extra by going with a family friend for the photographer. But I did save a ton by choosing a free reception venue in my parent’s residential community.
I guess part of the priorities list would include your connections and *who* you want as much as *what* you want. Also, keep in mind that hiring friends might not be cheaper in many situations and that when it is much cheaper you might have to relinquish some control over the details.
February 24, 2011 9:41 am
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Speaking of Google Docs, have you seen this? http://www.google.com/weddings/
February 24, 2011 10:12 am
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I saw it and totally squeed over it. My love of Google and spreadsheets all in one happy planning place!
February 24, 2011 11:41 am
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Holy awesomeness! Good to know about! Thanks for that link!
May 16, 2011 2:10 pm
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We funded our wedding ourselves (though the rehearsal dinner was paid for by my in-laws), mostly because we didn’t want to burden them with the costs. They supported us in other many ways, like being our people on the ground to check out reception venues as we live 2,000 miles from them.
At the beginning of planning we actually came up with two budget numbers. We had the “goal budget” of what we wanted to spend and then we had the “maximum budget” we were willing to spend. In the end, we went a little over our “goal” but we had that built in buffer.
But the most useful lesson I learned was getting quotes from three local vendors before making a decision. Googling really gets a wide assortment of SWAGs but calling/emailing three places helped me to compare more realistic values specific to my location.
February 24, 2011 9:28 am
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Ohhh, I could have REALLY used that advice.
February 24, 2011 9:30 am
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I love your “goal” budget and your “max” budget. If we’d done that, and aimed closer to a “goal” budget, I think we would have done a little better. Having a buffer is really helpful.
February 24, 2011 10:02 am
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I never understand why the budgeting tools you see don’t have a “slush fund” line to absorb costs in case you go over on something (because, let’s face it, we all do). I plan events for a nonprofit, and whenever I do a budget I build in a 10-15% slush fund so that I can say to my committee, for example “you have $2,000 for a band” but if the chair falls in love with a $3,300 band (true example) I’m not over budget.
February 24, 2011 1:42 pm
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It just makes SO MUCH SENSE. And we had a slush fund! Until my mom got laid off. Ouch.
February 24, 2011 1:49 pm
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Me and the man are doing this: aiming for $8,500, but okay with (unless he doesn’t find a job!) $10k. Which still seems like wayyyyy to much for us.
The whole thing kinda makes me feel like I’m on one long Ross shopping spree–What kind of deals can I get today, wedding wise? And then I want to show off my deals, you know how when someone comments on a cute outfit you scored a bargain on, and you HAVE to tell them where and for how much you got it…or is that just me?
February 24, 2011 5:26 pm
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My advice is that if you are accepting help from family, plan to have about 10-15% less to spend than they tell you they’ll give. It’s really awkward to ask for that last $500, and even if they do give you everything they offered without complaint it’ll build goodwill if you return some of it, either in cash or unexpected-thank-you-gift form.
Because, honestly, some people say they want to help and then can’t or don’t – and while I honestly don’t mind that my MIL couldn’t contribute anything to the wedding expenses, I was annoyed that she offered to pay for certain things and then never came through. I’m so glad I had wiggle room in my budget!
February 24, 2011 9:28 am
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Oh I’m so glad you brought this up. My mother offered to help pay for our wedding photography, but in the end she couldn’t/didn’t/wouldn’t/who knows. Wiggle room was key.
February 24, 2011 9:42 am
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For the most part, when accepting money for the wedding we mostly mentally earmarked it for “extra stuff” that we knew in the back of our mind that we could do without it, or if necessary, cover it ourselves.
February 24, 2011 12:01 pm
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This. Totally. My mom wouldn’t even give me an exact number, and when her ballpark suddenly jumped from “maybe 6k” to “around 4k”, I was so glad I had gone with the cheapest options I could on as many things as I could, because she was insistent I would pay for NOTHING and at the very end I ended up shelling out money I didn’t have to pay for things she couldn’t quite afford. So I guess I would say first make sure they GIVE you a number- and then remember that things come up and money they might have meant to put towards your wedding might go to their car repair/mortgage payment/impulse buying instead.
February 24, 2011 10:01 am
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Ha! Just be super cheap ;-) My mother-in-law informed me that they would be paying for the ceremony flowers. We each had our one sibling as an attendant and that was all, and I made everything using artificial flowers. So, when my father-in-law got wind that the ceremony flowers were less than $100, I’ve been told the exact wording was, “Write that girl a check for $200 and include a note that says ‘Way to be frugal!’”
On the other hand, I never asked my dad & step-mom for a dime, and they never offered anything (but gave us a nice monetary wedding gift). My mom and step-dad told me they would pay for the caterer, which seemed fair, since they were the ones who insisted there be food other than cake & punch… and my mom’s family is giant and probably made up more than half of the guest list.
February 24, 2011 10:41 pm
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My parents gave us a huge bulk of the budget, but this came with my father planning our wedding. Yes, my father. He basically picked out the venue, the menu, etc. Definitely bent gender expectations, and we had quite a few awkward “mother-daughter” conversations.
February 24, 2011 9:29 am
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hmmm.. i had a small town, roughly $11,000 wedding. minnesota’s pretty close to kansas, right? ;) maybe i’ll see if i can write something up for ya.
things i learned about wedding budgets:
1. if people pay, then their opinions should probably at least be considered.
2. if people pay, they will think their opinions matter a lot. most of the time. which is sometimes false.
3. things you are willing to pay up for can fall through, and other (cheaper) things will still be awesome.
4. having your parents help you out is awesome, but sometimes the discussions (arguments?) take an interesting turn. like when your dad wants to pay for a hugely expensive open bar and you don’t want one. or when they want to treat the WHOLE guest list to hotel rooms, which you think is crazy. or when you choose a cheaper photographer than the one you really wanted out of guilt.
our budget was not very carefully planned at the detail level… it was more of a ballpark number than anything. that being the case, it was hard to know whether we were staying within it or not. i sometimes wonder if it would have been easier for all involved to just put a lump sum somewhere and stick to a strict budget. ah well… all’s well that ends well. :)
February 24, 2011 9:35 am
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Email me that budget. And these are really helpful thoughts on who pays, thank you.
February 24, 2011 9:50 am
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I actually had a similar parent experience. I found that my parent’s didn’t think them paying was an option, but was what was happening, and that turned out to mean many, many arguments happened over what they thought weddings should be like versus what we wanted our wedding to be like (for example, getting married at a country club versus getting married at a camp in the woods). The were helpful being “on the ground” for us since they live near where we were married, and we live in another country, but making all those plans (having all of those arguments) over the phone was terrible and made for some surprisingly terrible nights (or days at work). Looking back I think setting out ground rules at the beginning would have helped keep those almost daily discussions from feeling like a battle. That would be my biggest piece of advice: not letting help with paying for the wedding turn into a fight over “control” over the wedding, focusing on compromise or going without that help altogether.
(also… ditto on going for the cheaper photographer out of guilt)
February 24, 2011 10:29 am
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I found it helped to have a general vision for the wedding before I went into budget discussions. “We would like to have a big wedding, 200+ guests, very formal, not at all religious. We’re thinking live music, open bar in Chicago. I know you’ve always said you wanted to help out with expenses, can you take some time and think about what you would be interested in contributing to our wedding?” That way no one is blindsided by unrealistic expectations. If that’s not the type of wedding they’d like to support financially they can choose not to contribute.
February 24, 2011 11:24 am
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Exactly! We had already talked through a lot of what we wanted before we spoke to our parents. That meant we could already give them a rough idea of budget and the things we would/would not be including within that. Plans changed somewhat of course but already having some lines in the ground was hugely hugely helpful.
February 24, 2011 12:03 pm
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Oh god, can we also discuss the expectations vs. what things cost? I do events for work and knew very well that the Saturday night, full open bar, sit down dinner with band my parents wanted simply was not going to cost what they thought it should (roughly $25k all in, in NYC, for 150 people). Maybe 10-15 years ago, or on a Sunday, or during the day, but they weren’t hearing other options. Sigh.
February 24, 2011 12:03 pm
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This is very wise, and something I already have down, and will triple underline. Let people know what they are helping out with, and then see if they want to help. No surprises is good for everyone.
February 24, 2011 12:23 pm
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I can relate to the parent’s having a say if they pay. His actually offered to pay for a different (more expensive) church that was prettier and closer to our reception venue. In the end, although it was hard to turn down money, I went with my gut and had it at my home church – acoustic tile ceiling and all. And I’m definitely happy with that decision.
February 24, 2011 1:17 pm
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Ours was $6000 if you take out the honeymoon and flights. Let’s chat! I even have a Google spreadsheet I can share.
What was the best thing you learned about money while planning your wedding?
I need more. Seriously, it inspired me to get off my butt and get a better paying job.
And, rather specifically, what did you learn about who pays? If your parents helped pay, how did that work? If you paid for all of it, how did that work?
Self-funded, but we didn’t do a lot of “traditional” things like a rehearsal dinner. I am so old (haha) that I cannot actually imagine what would happen if someone else told me what to do – no one ever tries. Which means I’m a beast, but whatever. Yes, no one had opinions. They wouldn’t have if they paid, either. I’m bossy.
What advice would you pass on?
Even at $6000 I felt like we spent too much. That’s not advice. I did this thing where I’d pick things up thinking I’d use them later (ribbons, gold tape, little trinkets) and instead while I was getting dressed well meaning people wrapped the cake table with crazy. So. Don’t buy anything you don’t have a 100% use for. And don’t leave it laying around!! Things I left out because I needed were hidden (like film!?!??!) and things I didn’t need were used as questionable decor.
February 24, 2011 9:45 am
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YES! Email me. SUPER DONE.
February 24, 2011 9:48 am
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i did the SAME THING. i would see something pretty and buy it, not knowing how i’d use it. i ended up with spools and spools of ribbon, yelling in the catering hall “quick! tie bows on SOMETHING.”
February 24, 2011 9:56 am
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I had fake robin’s eggs. as of today, they’re still in the box. what was i thinking?
February 24, 2011 2:45 pm
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I need more. Seriously, it inspired me to get off my butt and get a better paying job.
TRUTH. Complete and utter truth. The experiences of the past year have inspired me to get off my ass and go find a job/promotion/life that is more worthy of what I can do. It’s pretty awesome.
February 24, 2011 10:17 am
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Oh god, I totally fear this will be me. I bought all kinds of fabric and lace at a store going out of business. I hope to hell I don’t have elves wrapping lace bows around the trees just to use the sh*t. Argh.
February 24, 2011 5:31 pm
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I’m not married yet, so I won’t submit my budget for the book, but here’s how we’re rockin’:
We’re looking at $10-$15 (live in St. Louis, wedding in Southern Illinois)
Parents are contributing what they want to/can, which included some lump sums ($1,000 from one side and $5,000 from another) and some select items that they wanted to support (flower girl dresses from one and rehearsal dinner from another)
We’re covering the rest!
Our decisions have been based on looking at our budget and saying, “Is this about right? Is booze about as important enough to us to be the 3rd largest item?” Answer: HECK YES, we want to party. (also, HECK yes we want to feed everyone and go on a relaxing vacation afterward and feel confident that perfect photographs will be taken) Pretty much everything else is done by friends, ourselves, or small vendors. We feel good about it so far, and our favorite part is that we found ways to give our money to great causes vs corporate vendors. We’re getting married at the summer camp where we met (nonprofit), having our ceremony at another local camp (division of a university), and we’re using local vendors or places when possible. So far money has been almost no source of stress for us, once we got over the initial shock of this costing (no matter who’s paying) more than we’ve ever had in an account.
February 24, 2011 9:49 am
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One additional comment: Part of when we decided to get engaged was when we felt ready to plan a wedding, financially. (We’d been dating for 5 years, living together for 3, but just getting out of school/grad school and into jobs where we could actually save.) I think this was the key to us being able to avoid stressing out about money. I know it’s not how everyone would want to plan (but the engagement was still a surprise to me!), but it helped us not jump into a huge expense and process that we didn’t feel confident we could conquer. And thus, having been thinking and talking about weddings and living together for a while, adjusting to this new cost in our lives was not so overwhelming. Our engagement will only be 9 months, but it’s been fairly peaceful and celebratory!
February 24, 2011 10:11 am
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wait, someone else here is in st. louis? i think that makes 2 of us, so meg, now you have to come here on your book tour :-)
February 25, 2011 5:14 am
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Emma and Elsye,
I live in Chicago, but I am from St Louis and am getting married there in August 2012. I would love to pick your brains at some point about APW spirited vendors.
February 26, 2011 7:24 pm
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The thing I learned about money, and my relationship with money, through the wedding planning process is that sometimes, sometimes, it is okay to just spend the damn stuff.
I’m not one of those people who likes spending money on clothes and other pretty things. I’ve been known to go to the mall in dire need of new attire and return home with nothing because I couldn’t bring myself to spend money on something I totally loved but that was over my self-imposed idea of How Much Things Should Cost. (I have a pretty good idea that I got this from my dad who I spied washing out his paper coffee filter the other day.) And since my parents surprised me with a good chunk of money that I could spend on my wedding when my husband and I decided to get hitched, I also wanted to stay true to their and my own thrifty nature. I thought for sure my husband and I could plan our wedding on the cheap and then have tons of money left over for traveling or a downpayment on a house or whatever.
But, when we started talking about what we wanted, and then started looking at how much that would cost, I almost threw up because it all went against my ideas of How Much Things Should Cost and our very thrifty budget started getting continuously bumped up and our potential travel funds started to shrink. We wanted good food and lots of booze. I wanted pretty pictures. I wanted a dress made in the USA. That all cost more than my idea of How Much Things Should Cost, and so I was annoyed. But at some point I just had to recognize that I was paying people’s salaries. They’re independent business owners and artists and they deserve to charge what they charge and because they are providing a service I want, it is OK to spend the damn money! I think that by trying to shop around to find the cheapest options, I ended up grating away at my sanity and probably even spending more money than I could have because I ended up buying a few things twice to get it right. If I’d just paid for the thing I liked the most in the first place I could have made the whole deal more practical and sane.
February 24, 2011 9:50 am
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This, so much. I walk a fine line between guilt and happy spending on the wedding EVERY DAY.
February 24, 2011 10:45 am
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This has been a big thing for my parents ever since they crossed over from “scrimping and saving” to “really comfortable”. Things they used to scoff at for the expense they’ll now splurge on. My mom often says things like “It’s worth $15 extra dollars to me to see the look on that self-employed woman’s face when I buy her product.”
I tried to compare the gains and losses – would I rather get a massage on our honeymoon or another hour of photos of our reception? Would we have more fun with a dessert bar or welcome baskets for out-of-town guests. Where possible we tried to do the thing that would be the most fun or the least stress, though it helps that we were always making decisions within our set budget. We re-evaluated and raised our budget just once early on, and we raised it enough that all the extra $$ wasn’t already allocated. We had some room to make new decisions or upgrades.
February 24, 2011 11:45 am
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My advice is to include EVERYTHING in your budget. It was really powerful for my then-fiance and I to list out everything we would need to spend on related to the wedding, not just the ceremony and reception. We included things like the engagement ring, the wedding rings, our rehearsal dinner, our bachelor/ette parties, our flights to Texas for a shower, the day after brunch, the hotel rooms we paid for our bridal party and grandparents, the honeymoon, thank you gifts to our parents for after the wedding, our photo album, name change fees, etc. Including all those things certainly made our final number bigger than we wanted to see, but not accounting for those costs at the beginning of planning would have led to more trouble in the end when costs we hadn’t discussed together popped up.
Many of the budgets I see in wedding magazines or blogs are basically just talking about the cost of a reception, which, at least for us, was only a small part of our total wedding-related costs.
February 24, 2011 9:50 am
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Absolutely yes to this. We almost didn’t get to go on a honeymoon because we simply hadn’t included it in the budget. We ended up registering for our honeymoon, which helped, but there was a time when I thought we wouldn’t get to go on a honeymoon, and I was so disappointed. Plan ahead.
February 24, 2011 10:22 am
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Yes! We got our clothes custom-made by a designer in Seattle, about a 350 mile round trip drive from where we live. Gas costs for driving to the fittings were a wedding-related expense–not including them in the budget wouldn’t have made them disappear.
February 24, 2011 11:18 am
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We spent roughly $28,000 for our January wedding in Boca Raton. That did not include our honeymoon or my ring. We paid for our wedding with the assistance of my parents. Money was a difficult subject to initially approach; when we first got engaged my mom said, “We’re so happy you’re getting married, but it is not a good time to pay for a wedding.” So we figured out what we had to have, who had to be there, and then where we could save (and save a lot). Ultimately my parents were able to contribute and that made a huge difference. The other difference was knowing very seriously what we could spend, tracking it on a spreadsheet (I lived and planned via Excel), and steeling myself to negotiate. Mazel on the book!
February 24, 2011 9:50 am
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I already sent over a quick e-mail on our roughly $4,800 budget for a wedding at the Chicago Cultural Center in downtown Chicago. It was basically a civil ceremony and our 22 attendees got treated to a sweet luncheon at the Italian Village, a Chicago classic.
I couldn’t agree more with the person above who said to focus on what is most important to you. For us that was a memorable honeymoon (we spent about $8,000 to do a Mediteranean cruise, obviously not listed in the budget above), a great dress for me and a nice suit for the husband, getting to hand make fun invitations, and having our immediate family there to see the ceremony. We got all of that and it was an amazing time! I remember sitting at lunch seeing the 22 people in the world who love us most sitting there with us and I was almost in tears. At the end of the day it didn’t matter that we didn’t have favors, real flowers or any of the other things we’re told you should have. Before we knew it we were on a plane to Barcelona to start our honeymoon and the rest of our lives… and we were married….and it was fantastic!
February 24, 2011 9:55 am
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The Chicago Cultural Center is absolutely gorgeous. What an amazing place to get hitched!
February 24, 2011 6:29 pm
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Here’s something I learned along the way. If you have a broken family and lots of different people are helping pay, try to avoid giving numbers to anybody. My dad loves to compete with my mother, so when it came to wedding financing he wanted to budget his contribution based on what my mother would contribute (yeah, they’re *those* people). I kindly refused to let either one know what the other was contributing because it seemed unfair that their weird relationship should dictate their level of generosity. Money frequently means power and politics when it comes to weddings and inevitably you’ll end up in the middle, but you don’t have to answer to anyone’s pissing competition if you don’t want to.
Now, of course not all separated families operate this way. But if you know you have fragile egos in the room, keep in mind that $$ is usually very closely associated with self-worth, so the less anyone knows, the better.
Luckily, if you’ve been dealing with your crazy parents forever, you probably already know how to handle this situation.
February 24, 2011 9:55 am
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“But if you know you have fragile egos in the room, keep in mind that $$ is usually very closely associated with self-worth, so the less anyone knows, the better.”
Um, yes. Not to get too down on my MIL (she’s great, really), but she was very into giving the appearance that she paid for things when she didn’t. So when she wanted to act like the “host” at the rehearsal dinner because “that’s the groom’s family’s job,” I just let her even though my FIL paid for it. not her. But I did draw the line at letting her dictate the guest list.
February 24, 2011 10:03 am
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oh my yes. thank you!
February 24, 2011 12:45 pm
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Ahhhh, the budget. My arch-nemesis.
The best thing I learned about money? Saving money is amazing and fun, and debt really, really sucks.
My parents and my husband and I paid for the wedding. We sat down and sketched out a game plan. They would pay half- the first half, mostly, paying for everything that would crop up as we went (deposits, invitations, etc). We would save-save-save our little butts off, and at the end of the year, we’d pay the second half. This is basically what happened, with a little credit card debt thrown in for good measure.
Don’t do what we did, chickadees. I hate our credit card right now. That was some bad budgeting on our part, and some bad luck. My mom lost her job about six months out from the wedding, and our little “cushion” or “slush fund” that we’d talked about for months had vanished. Hence the credit card debt. Looking back, I’d make some changes (definitely our baby-family budget, possibly our photographer, possibly our menu, possibly our guest list), because as much as I ADORED our wedding, the fallout we’re dealing with now is frustrating. I was practical and reasonable and fiscally responsible… and still got stuck with money issues. Go figure.
However, we were lucky that we didn’t have any big family drama about money. My parents never threw a fit even though they paid for half, which was amazing. We’d given them (and my in-laws) the opportunity to tell us their Big Important Issues (“get married by your childhood minister!”), so they felt like their voices had been heard. We couldn’t necessarily do all of it, but by asking and talking to them about it, they felt satisfied.
February 24, 2011 9:59 am
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This is really good advice. We waited to formally get engaged until we were ready for the wedding financially. Our budget didn’t include anything that wasn’t already in the bank, and that money set aside for the wedding. We credit-carded everything (for points!!) but we were able to pay the bill every month. This was amazing and meant that we were never stressed about where the money would come from, plus we didn’t accidently do anything we couldn’t afford. Same story for the money my parents contributed.
February 24, 2011 11:55 am
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We knew we could save a significant amount of money in one year (yay for PhD stipends we didn’t have before!), but misjudging our “slush fund” and my parents financial support is what put us in trouble. Thankfully, we didn’t get too crazy with our credit cards, and our tax refund this year is helping immensely, but it’s still a lesson that I’m happy to pass along. :)
February 24, 2011 12:55 pm
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This excellent advice. I know credit card debt is frustrating–I once had thousands–but I’d like to blast some shame lady!! It sounds like you guys sat down and came up with a responsible plan and then shit happened. Well, shit happens. And you can’t predict or plan for every single possibility–believe me this is coming from someone who tries incredibly hard to do it anyway! You WERE practical and reasonable, so give yourself some credit for it. You will get it all paid off, and that will feel like an accomplishment in its own way. And also, if you want to feel better about your financial situation, I highly recommend the show “Till Debt do Us Part” on CNBC (?) where couples cluelessly spend thousands more than they make each month on random crap and make you want to scream and throw things at the TV.
And now I’m off to comment on your lovely grad post. :)
February 24, 2011 12:31 pm
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Oh, wow, THANK YOU for the shame blasting!! I didn’t realize how much I needed that. Incurring debt for the wedding is a HUGE no-no, and I was a little ashamed to talk about it. But you’re right– we slipped up and shit happened, but we have such an Awesome Game Plan right now, and we’re both working at it.
Thanks for the TV suggestion… I love watching shows like that; where in comparison, your problems seem so much easier. It’s a guilty pleasure, but it will help with my (irrational) anxiety and shame.
You’re the best– thanks!!
February 24, 2011 12:59 pm
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” We’d given them (and my in-laws) the opportunity to tell us their Big Important Issues (“get married by your childhood minister!”), so they felt like their voices had been heard. We couldn’t necessarily do all of it, but by asking and talking to them about it, they felt satisfied.”
THIS is BRILLIANT. Why didn’t I think of that?
(Maybe because they would have said something I didn’t want to hear?)
February 25, 2011 12:04 pm
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Thank you!! It really saved us. They got to think it over and picked what was Really Important, and we either accommodated them, or talked about it. We couldn’t get married at my childhood church, which was my Dad’s Big Thing, so we talked about it. I talked about how I WISHED we could have done it there (it was a scheduling/timing issue), and we let go of that idea together. He didn’t mention it again, and it wasn’t a problem. It gives one big opportunity to get things out in the open, and then you can wrap it up and move on, without people being passive aggressive or holding grudges.
February 25, 2011 12:09 pm
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Oh, also, one of the most important thing I learned was this:
It defeats the purpose of not putting any of your wedding expenses on credit cards if you pay for your wedding in cash, but live off of credit cards while saving up for the wedding. Don’t play the shell game with yourself. :)
February 24, 2011 10:00 am
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What, Maddie, are you reading my mind? Did you follow us for the last three months of our engagement??
SIGH. Don’t, don’t, DON’T do this, chickadees! Even if your tax refund is coming to the rescue like ours is!!
February 24, 2011 10:25 am
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Ugh, hated the pre-wedding debt accumulated this way. Such good advice!
February 24, 2011 12:04 pm
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We are definitely of the mind set that anything that needs to be paid for, either in life or for the wedding should be paid in “cash.” It’s waaaaay too easier to fall into the trap that we can put just one thing on a credit card to be paid off later, which turns into everything can go on the credit card to be paid off later. Paying each bill as its due keeps us accountable for spending only what we absolutely need and/or hold dear.
February 24, 2011 12:32 pm
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I emailed but I’ll answer those questions here.
I learned that money sucks. My parents had paid for my college tuition so they did not want to pay for a wedding. That was cool.. I was fine with it. So Walt and I had to figure out the budget on our own. Being organized was important. I made a spreadsheet of estimated costs and updated it when things were paid for. If we wanted something, we’d have to readjust the budget and remove extraneous things that didn’t make fiscal sense. Sooo many ideas were dropped because of this, but in a way, it was a good thing because we ended up with a very distilled, very-Elissa-and-very-Walt wedding, where all of the items present were important to us, and what wasn’t there wasn’t missed (too much).
We looked at how much we could each save (realistically) every month from our paychecks for the wedding, taking out rent/groceries/other bills, and put that aside. Even then, we were both kind of on the poor side so our budget was pretty tiny for an Austin, TX wedding.
I’d advise people to stay organized when it comes to the budget. (I was in charge of the spreadsheet.) I also waited at least a month on every purchase we made to make sure that we weren’t being rash about our decision to buy it. In the end, we wasted maybe $80 on decorations that we didn’t use. We didn’t go into debt and we still had a rockin’ wedding that 115 people enjoyed.
February 24, 2011 10:07 am
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Oh, and on the money front. We paid. My mom helped fund my dress (because she offered to after the fact, not before it was purchased). We never even considered asking for help from any of our parents. It worked out perfect for us because we didn’t want to really have to worry about what anyone else had to say. It was our wedding and we were going to do it our way. I always figured if you got “help” from parents, you’d have to justify how much things costed, or why you were making the choices you were and we didn’t want to go there. Maybe that makes us selfish, but I’m fine with that. :)
Various parents did give us generous amounts of money for gifts, which we used to pay off credit card debt we had before the wedding (not from the wedding) and to purchase a few things for our home. I’m happy to say that we 100% paid for the wedding and the honeymoon ourselves and paid it off without paying a dime of interest… which is an awesome way to start a marriage!
February 24, 2011 10:14 am
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We don’t really have a budget. By that I mean, we don’t have an infinite supply of money and spending money all willy nilly. But we set an approximate amount where we feel comfortable and are shooting for a ballpark. We focused on spending what we could afford on things that are important to us, cutting back or out things that don’t matter to us, and not really keeping track of the rest. As long as we don’t buy things we don’t give two peeps about and aren’t crying about our financial statements we feel comfortable and happy. So maybe it’s just a really lazy budget where we kind of know what we’re spending but don’t track the actual amount.
Our parents seem to have a hard time with our organizational methods for the wedding in general, so they just sort of jumped in and claimed certain things they wanted to cover. As far as parental participation in the budget, I just wish I had some tips or advice on how to let people spend their money the way they felt. I have SUCH a hard time spending money that I was the one trying to talk my parents out of spending anything. It was probably annoying to them, so I think it’s important to remember that you have to allow people to spend what they are comfortable spending both ways, either more or less, than what you can/want/wish, etc.
February 24, 2011 10:15 am
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Oh oh OH! I am super excited about this post! It had kind of been assumed by both of us that we would be funding our own wedding. Never for a second did we plan on asking the ‘rents to fund it, although they did offer up some assistance. So, with that said, of course we were in budget mode right off the bat. And PS-the secret to funding your own wedding with zero savings and living paycheck to paycheck?? Buy a house and wait for the big fat tax refund that comes along with it!! Not that first time homebuyers credit crap that only certain people get if they bought a certain year. The actual tax refund itself. THAT, my friends, was our budget! Coupled with my hubbys annual bonus check, which-another secret-we claimed EXEMPT on–our total came to a whopping $7000. Woot! The best thing we learned about money? How to find badass deals! Once we would find something we liked, we dug and dug til we found it a little cheaper and a little cheaper. Fake rose petals on Ebay 99 cents, HIS wedding ring on Ebay (the only one we could find anywhere with the pattern we liked in the metal he wanted) $39, Videographer on Craigslist for $500, Photographer on Craigslist for $100 an hour (who now charges minimum 5 GRAND now!), had 5 groomsmen and BM’s instead of 4 so we could get our tux for free, and it goes on. I learned how to be creative in other ways besides the DIY kind of creative. And I took huge risks, obviously, but made a point to contact past clients for advice and read reviews galore on all items. The best thing about funding our own wedding? Making our own decisions and not having to consult ANYONE! Yayaaahhh!! The worst thing about funding our own wedding? No budget for honeymoon. But itll come later. We were mentally prepared for it. We had a ball planning the wedding, made a budget, made a checklist and went to town. My advice is, as hard as it is for some people, DONT STRESS. Like this website always reminds us, its NOT about the production, its about the union. Have fun with it. Its a par-tay! And the ONE day you will have ALL (hopefully) of the most important people in your life under ONE roof. How cool is THAT?!
February 24, 2011 10:20 am
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Oh and BTW, my wedding was in Sacramento, CA on the Delta King. Awwww :))
February 24, 2011 10:21 am
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Our wedding was the first time my divorced parents were going to be in the same place at the same time since the divorce papers were finalized seven years earlier. Needless to say that brought up a lot of anxiety. Budget-wise, it meant I was having to negotiate how to get my dad to pay his fair share (he has a much larger income) and making sure my mom did not take on too much – they generously paid for the whole thing, minus the costs for our invitations, table numbers/guestbooks, etc that we DIT’d.
I had originally hoped that my dad would pay for anything with an invoice (venue, food, booze, cake, flowers) because I knew my mom would end up paying for things by default since she was an integral part of the planning process. In the end, it didn’t work that way. Dad paid for the venue (minus the membership fee which mom paid and gave us a huge discount), food and booze and mom paid for everything else.
This negotiation (and knowing that my mom would end up paying for more than I wanted her to) is what made our wedding have a strict budget. I chose based on what I knew my mom could afford just in case she ended up paying for it. I ended up enlisting the wedding planner (who was included in our venue and was AMAZING) to simply call my dad to get his credit card when we finalized the menu and to discuss booze with him exclusively. He ended up buying way more than we needed and telling everyone he paid for way more than he did, but I felt I had done as well as I could protecting my mom’s finances while still fulfilling her need to feel as though she had provided for a union she was so excited to be a part of (dress, flowers, cake, decorations, etc…she did more than her fair share!).
My only regret is that I caved in letting my dad have a first dance and give a toast, since he wouldn’t be walking me down the aisle. My mom said she didn’t want to give a toast so I think that that public role made guests who didn’t know any better think my dad had paid for the whole thing.
February 24, 2011 10:20 am
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Our wedding is this summer, so it’s not fully paid-for yet, but my manfriend and I were planning to pay for it ourselves. When we told his dad and stepmother that, they were like, are you kidding me? They insisted that they were paying for it. I’m the kind of person who feels INCREDIBLY guilty accepting help from other people, so it’s been hard for me to accept that they are throwing a bunch of money at this day. I remember sitting in the car with manfriend’s stepmother as we went over an estimate for rentals that seemed positively astronomical to me. I said something to the effect of “oh god, this is going to cost so. much. money” for about the millionth time in the planning process. She threw the estimate paperwork on the dashboard and looked me square in the eye. “I make a damn good living,” she said, “and I WANT to do this.”
It really surprised me to see that– I hadn’t considered that this was something that she felt like she really *wanted* to do, not just *was able* to do.
February 24, 2011 10:23 am
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That’s so awesome and so sweet!!! You’re a lucky bride-to-be!
February 24, 2011 11:12 am
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Ha, I feel the same way about the gift/funding from my parents (“What?? I can’t just accept this! I have to protest! Or something!”).
My fiance has been really good at keeping me grounded, and always puts it like this: If I were in a position to make a really generous financial gesture to help someone I loved, would I want them to feel guilty? Of course not!
Somehow it’s always harder to remember that when you’re on the receiving end though. It’s funny how navigating money and family are tricky enough on their own… navigating them simultaneously is seriously difficult!
February 24, 2011 11:24 am
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This. My husband’s parents are veeeerrrrry well off. Mine are comfortable, but not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve really had to learn in my marriage to be gracious and grateful when his parents give us things that I find extravagant – realizing that it’s not a power play but rather the way they are used to showing love and blessing those around them.
February 24, 2011 11:17 pm
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My husband and I paid for our wedding ourselves. But we also both paid for college ourselves, our first home ourselves, our cars ourselves….you get the point. The way we dealt with paying for our wedding was the same way we deal with paying for everything else in our life: we had the very best wedding WE could afford…on our own!
(Also: we’re 35 and 36 years old. We have good jobs. I mean, having our parents pay for it — really? We did accept gifts from our parents, which in reality amounted to less than 10% of the total bill, but it was with the understanding on all sides that it was strictly a wedding gift, not an expectation.)
Anyway…
Budget advice! Nothing earth shattering here, but:
-Before even setting a budget, do some research about what things cost. If you want a sit-down, 5-course meal with a full bar and live band, you’re going to be disappointed when that doesn’t fit into your $10K budget.
- Prioritize expenditures….what’s important to you and your spouse? (Aside: please include your spouse, it’s his/her wedding too!)
- Actually do the work to make the wedding happen. Turning your wedding planning over to someone else — whether it’s a family member or professional — ALWAYS comes with a price tag…and sometimes that price tag is an emotional one!
– Discover and then use the resources available to you. My friend is a graphic designer, my brother is a chef, and my mom is a floral designer, so I was lucky to have that kind of talent available to me. I’m sure you know people, too. Use them!
- Word of mouth! Post requests for vendor recommendations on the social media channel of your choice. It really is all about who you know. You’ll get the best prices and service if you establish a connection.
- Pay for things over time, if you can. This really helped us in being stuck with huge bills post-wedding. We worked out multiple payment plans with our larger vendors and then would do a Costco trip one month, a craft store trip the next, and so on…
- Take your honeymoon months later to avoid that added expense.
- And this was the best advice I got: People don’t remember the food or the drink or the flower arrangements, they remember how you made them FEEL. You don’t have to be ultra crafty and creative or ultra rich to have an awesome, meaningful wedding. People remember authenticity, personality and LOVE above all. That;s what you will remember about your wedding too!
February 24, 2011 10:28 am
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Kate and I will be getting hitched in May, so wedding budget is ALL we are talking about right now. Since we’re having a destination wedding, we did semi-unconventional things (like spending a gajillion dollars on our venue because it doubles as lodging for 20 of our nearest and dearest) that meant we would have the wedding of our dreams – with the folks that make all our dreams come true. I’d be happy to send along our spreadsheet if you’d like. It’d be nice to let other brides know that destination weddings don’t have to be at an all-inclusive in Mexico (although gosh, those are nice, too!) but can be at an old country house in Cape Cod, too!
February 24, 2011 10:29 am
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My parents and his parents paid for my (first) wedding. And that was a disaster, in our case, because the parents (especially his) had a lot of influence over the decision-making process. The wedding we ended up with was completely the opposite of what I wanted. I wanted a small wedding on a small budget with just close family and friends, and a civil ceremony. We had a large wedding, a Jewish ceremony (in Hebrew, so I didn’t understand it at all), and half of NYC was invited. Oh, and it was $28,000 and in Brooklyn, NY. As far as I’m concerned, it was a complete waste of money (although it was a fun party, so that was good).
(Because that marriage did not work out,) whenever my second wedding happens, I’ve already decided that it will be financed by me and my fiance and that way we get to make all the decisions ourselves.
Oh, and I’ve been following this blog for a few months, this is my first comment, and I just want to say that Meg, this is awesome! Thank you so much for writing! And I am looking forward to the book.
February 24, 2011 10:36 am
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If at all possible, don’t plan to go right up to your maximum budget. It’s not unusual for people to go over budget for many reasons, and if you have a little bit of a cushion you can deal with things as they come. You never know what you’ll fall in love with or what you’ll want to throw money at later in the game, just for peace of mind.
Also, budgeting is not a competition. We didn’t hit our targeted (and somewhat arbitrary) budget number and I beat myself up a little bit, as if I were getting graded and had failed. I liken it to no one knowing the size that’s on the label of your dress… why squeeze into a 10 when you can breathe easier in a 12?
February 24, 2011 10:44 am
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I was surprised that some people still believe the bride’s side should cover most of the wedding cost. I kinda thought we had moved into a time when its about ability and desire to help. Well ok, I knew some people still think that, but my fiance’s parents are very liberal and open minded, so I didn’t expect it of them. But we found out we were wrong when we asked them if they would be willing to help out.
February 24, 2011 10:46 am
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The greatest gift my husband’s parents gave us was a sizable, but much smaller chunk of money than my parents contributed but to be spent however we wanted. Without strings, without whining, without guilt. Seriously, I was so so grateful to them.
February 24, 2011 12:32 pm
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It’s interesting you should bring up “bride’s side pays” tradition because my guy’s family cultural tradition is groom’s family foots the bill. It’s been a little tough balancing the different cultural norms between our families. Family money=shared money in his parents’ culture.
The socioeconomic differences between our families are another matter entirely. I know that I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but feel *shame* for having a $60k budget. I’ve cried and struggled with it a lot during the planning. I’m so grateful, but I don’t want to tell people because I feel dirty. It’s not my money, and I feel like the pride of saying, “I paid for my own wedding” has been stripped away (as someone who always took pride in being an independent, self-supporting adult).
February 24, 2011 12:52 pm
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“I know that I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but feel *shame* for having a $60k budget. I’ve cried and struggled with it a lot during the planning. I’m so grateful, but I don’t want to tell people because I feel dirty.”
Yeah, can we talk about that? Our parents are paying for the whole thing and splitting costs based on percentage of guests (which, while not $60k, is certainly not a small number). While we’re happy and willing to contribute, my father made it clear from the beginning that he does NOT want us paying for anything. He’d rather we save our money for a house and post-grad school life. I’m hugely grateful to all our parents but, as someone not paying for the wedding, I feel like I need to ashamedly cover up the fact whenever budget discussions arise online.
February 25, 2011 3:04 am
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Ok, stop with the shame!
I mean, yes, it makes sense to be sensitive around other people who have smaller budgets and not bragging about having the finest imported spun gold napkins or whatever. Your parents are uncommonly generous, and that is a *good* thing! (Assuming they can afford it and are not going into debt or tapping into retirement savings for it.)
I think it is totally helpful to have people representing what a $60k wedding looks like, because honestly, I think many people just don’t know. Because it probably doesn’t actually buy the spun gold napkins, even if it does buy, say, top shelf alcohol a three course dinner and a kickass fancy cake for 300 people along with a good photographer and photog assistant and a string quartet for the ceremony and a live band for the reception and a nice venue and pretty flowers and some nice clothes.
(Also, since you are so fortunate, you might think about earmarking some amount of your own money for a favorite charity. That way you can share your good fortune with others who need it.)
February 25, 2011 6:34 am
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I actually totally agree that it would be helpful to show a higher budget, for exactly the reasons BTS raised. Based on my planning experiences so far, in my area of the country (SF area), at least at the types of venues we researched (wineries, etc.), it might be a struggle even at $60K to cover “say, top shelf alcohol a three course dinner and a kickass fancy cake for 300 people along with…” everything else BTS lists. (That big guest list and live band are really killers!) I think that’s really valuable information, because it means that some of the weddings I’ve been to, or have seen in magazines, must easily be breaking $100K, and having that information would let me just let go of some aspects of those events. By understanding how much it really costs to put on an event that we see in a glossy magazine or a shiny blog, it would help us understand whether it’s even a bit realistic to measure our own plans against that image. (Of course, the urge to measure our own plans against that image is a whole ‘nother topic of conversation, but that’s for another day!)
February 25, 2011 1:37 pm
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Yes, definitely discuss who is paying for what with everyone involved!
My FMIL assumed she would be in charge of the rehearsal dinner since that’s the “tradition”, which will most likely be less than what my mother and FFIL are contributing to the wedding, so I think now she might want to give us more money but we don’t know yet. It gets confusing for everyone. We hoped for a “tell us what you want to give (we expect nothing) and then write us a check and we’ll keep things in budget” but some people do want to carry out the “traditions” and/or know exactly which things they are paying for.
February 24, 2011 5:08 pm
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We are having the same experience. We assumed they would give us the set $ they said (towards the reception) but then my future MIL started asking us where we wanted to have the rehearsal dinner (which we have been planning on paying for with what’s left in the wedding budget). Now we don’t know wether its on top of the $ or out of it.
We would be very happy if they were offering to pay for it above what they offered for the reception, but if not we would rather plan it ourselves. Its getting awkward. I have been begging my fiance for weeks to straight up ask what is going on, as I feel extremely uncomfortable every time she asks me if I have any ideas. hehe anyway, nice to know someone else is dealing with the same thing.
February 24, 2011 5:17 pm
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My wedding hasn’t happened yet, but almost everything is reserved/has a deposit. We’re looking at $7k – $8k in Austin, TX (not including e-ring and honeymoon). Having a Monday morning brunch got me my venue for about 90% off, bulk flowers online from Costco for $250, awesome friend that designed invitations so I only had to pay for Kinko’s printing, amazingly talented pastry chef friend who’s doing my wedding cupcakes…we lucked out a lot and me and my Mom love to bargain hunt. Oh, and we got all the vases for the center pieces for $1 at Goodwill!
Splurged a bit on the dress (although 70% off by buying off the rack) and photographer (15% off for getting married on a Monday).
I’m a grad student, so I don’t have the capability of saving (the equivalent is trying not to take on additional student loans) and this is my fiance’s second wedding, so I didn’t feel comfortable asking his parents. My parents are footing most of this bill and I REALLY, REALLY didn’t want to have a wedding that would cause them financial hardship.
February 24, 2011 10:49 am
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We are getting married in July in DC, and we have two budgets that we made when we first started this process. One, our low-end budget, was how much we thought each item should cost. The other, our high-end budget, was a combination of the average costs for each item in general, information we found in a wedding planning book, and an honest look at what is the MOST we could possibly pay for the wedding. Our goal is to stay between those two numbers, but much closer to the low end. We know we COULD go up to the high end if we need to for certain important things, but try not to.
So our low-end budget is around 12k and our high end is around 23k. It’s looking like we will end up around 18k. A big chunk of that is our venue, which has on-site housing for our family and friends and which we rented for a whole weekend. A big splurge, but it was important for us to create a sense of community.
I’m not sure what I’ve learned from the process yet since it’s not over, except that I am shocked at how much money we’ve been able to save in a short period of time. Part of that is paying on our student loans only minimally for the 1.5 years we are planning, which is a shame, but part of it is also just cutting out lots of unnecessary spending. I hope these habits stick w us after the wedding.
When we first got engaged, we were total dorks and started out w a wedding mission statement. A big part of the mission was to not be saddled w more debt after it was over by paying for the whole thing w cash, and it looks like we’ll achieve that mission, which is awesome.
February 24, 2011 10:54 am
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Nicole,
I am in the DC area and looking to get married in summer 2012. Just starting out in the planning process, so the first thing we are looking at are venues. Any suggestions? Where did you guys end up booking?
February 26, 2011 12:40 pm
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Our budget was in the $25,000 range, in a mid-size city (Pittsburgh) and we invited all our family. Guest list was around 275, but about 200 or so showed. The majority of our money went towards our guests – food, alcohol, and the venue itself. We had our reception at a hotel primarily because everyone was from out of town and it was pretty convenient. It may have cost more, but from a practical standpoint (planning from about 1,000 miles away), it was the right thing for us and so we threw our money at that. I used family friends who had businesses (a florist (my neighbor), the DJ (hub’s cousin), etc.) and I think that helped keep our numbers lower than they could have been.
I know I could have spent less, but for us, having family be present (all 200 of them, including kids – we only invited a handful of very close friends) was the first priority. Because of this, a smaller wedding wasn’t an option. And while I’m sure our family would have been fine with hot dogs in a very large backyard, we wanted to feed them a good meal, in a nice location that was convenient for families even with little ones. We scrimped and saved for a year or so to make it happen and got some help from his (part of the food costs) and my parents (the dress and flowers).
I wouldn’t change it now, looking back. We spent money the way we wanted and even though it cost more than we would have liked in an ideal world, for us, being able to see all of our family in one place to celebrate us starting our life together is something worth much more than what we spent.
February 24, 2011 10:55 am
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I wish we had eloped or thrown a small backyard shindig rather than cave to the pressure of having his family pay for everything and, therefore, have things at our wedding like guests who were invited because they are business associates and had nothing to do with sharing in our joy. That was a yucky feeling.
February 24, 2011 10:59 am
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I think the advice I would give would be to trust your instincts. Wedding prices can be so inflated, and most of us have never planned a wedding before, so it can be easy to think, “$100 per person for a meal? Plus $50 to rent the plate that goes under it, and we still have to wash the plate before giving it back? Well, I guess that’s just what the price is.” Your budget should fit YOUR values, not just what the WIC thinks your values are. If $150 sounds like a nice meal to you, go for it. If in your normal life you refuse to pay more than $20 at a restaurant, it’s worth it to figure out a way to stick with that value at your wedding.
For me, the most terrifying part of my budget was photography. My initial research showed me that to get a good photographer in Portland, OR, it would cost at least $5000, and for the photographers that I really loved it was more like $10,000. And EVERYONE SAID that photography was the most important thing to shell out for, and the more I looked into it, the more I realized that was a very reasonable price for the equipment and work good wedding photographers put into their art. But I had never paid $5000 for art before. I had never considered paying $5000 for art before. And ultimately my husband and I decided that what fit with our values, the values we’d been living with and not just our wedding values, was to trust our gut assessment of how much we really felt comfortable spending. We relied on our amateur photographer friends to take photos. And yes, sometimes I feel jealous of other people’s gorgeous wedding photography, the same way I sometimes feel jealous of other people’s nice cars. But I have never, ever doubted that it was the right decision.
So my advice: Take the wedding out of it–you don’t have to change your values because it’s a wedding. You know what’s important to you in every day life. And it goes both ways. Maybe like me you feel deeply uncomfortable with spending money on anything transient. Maybe you love seizing every opportunity possible to live in the lap of luxury. But don’t feel like you have to spend what feels like too much because it’s a wedding, and don’t feel like you have to have a “budget wedding” or you’ll be kicked out of some mythical club. Trust yourself.
February 24, 2011 11:07 am
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wow, i love the analogy to the cars! totally clicks. I often look at people with nicer cars and start daydreaming, but quickly realize that I don’t want to be car-poor for something that gets me from here to there. Similarly, not having every fancy wedding-related item wont mean I can’t get where I’m going!
February 24, 2011 12:42 pm
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The hardest thing for me was the fact that my in-laws did not offer to do a thing for the wedding. They don’t have a lot of money, so I had figured that if they offered to host a rehearsal dinner I would suggest something like home bbq’d hamburgers or pizza – something cheap and easy (and tasty!). We were having a small wedding, so the rehearsal dinner would have been 10 people, max, including my parents. But…they didn’t offer anything. Zip. Not time, not money, nothing. When another of my husband’s family members had a very specific dietary need, we got lots of “how are you going to handle this” type emails and phone calls with no suggestions and no offers of help. It was just really, really frustrating.
It was really hard for me to let go of that. I don’t expect extravagant gifts from people, and I’m not spoiled. We paid for 75% of the wedding ourselves, my parents chipping in the other 25%. So it wasn’t a money issue, necessarily, it’s just that I felt that their complete lack of interest in the wedding meant a lack of interest in me as a daughter-in-law and us as a couple. I know that sounds petty and stupid, but there you go. And, like I say, it wasn’t just a money issue. If my in laws had said “let me know if you need help with anytihing” or shown any interest in our wedding plans (besides laughing about where we were getting married), it would have made a HUGE difference. So, I guess it’s really not about money. Anyway, I took it pretty personally for a while. But, everything turned out ok – we turned what is usually the rehearsal dinner into a thank you dinner for the people who did help us, and that was awesome (and we paid for it ourselves :) )
February 24, 2011 11:09 am
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One of the biggest things I learned was – if the parents put money towards the wedding, they get some stake in it too. Let them choose what they want to pay for, and give them guidance for what you’d like, but you’ve just given up some freedom by accepting that money from them. If you want complete control, pay for it 100%. Or quit your bitching. The second biggest thing was knowing that there were some things that were worth paying for (Wisconsin microbrewery beer! tiny Michigan winery wine! my dress!) and some that are not (real flowers! centerpieces! jewelry!). Now, those worth it / not worth it lists are different for everyone, but you should lay out what’s important / worth splurging on when doing your budgeting.
Oh, and also – I found that having a set-in-stone budget was just too stressful for me. We both had good jobs and generous parents, so we just spent wisely. Yes, we went over our original budget, but we were less stressed and generally happier about the entire experience for it. And that was worth the few extra thousand we threw at various vendors.
February 24, 2011 11:19 am
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And I’m not going to lie – I have no real idea of how much the wedding cost us. I realize that’s a luxury most people can’t afford, but in order to not get into fits about it, I just said – do we have the money for this? Yes? Okay, then we’re still safe. I know we spent more than our original $10,000 budget (hell, the alcohol was half that!), but beyond that? For my sanity, I don’t even want to know.
February 24, 2011 11:32 am
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O man. Money. It makes my gentleman of choice and myself very anxious in our own special ways, so talking about it is FUN. We walked into a wedding with the following situation: I am broke while my partner brings home the bacon (we aren’t combining moneys till the Big Day) and my folks are struggling while his folks have plenty of funds.
We have divided costs by what is fair. I am so grateful that my parents wanted to help pay, but it was not fair for my parents to scrimp and save and not take a vacation to pay for my wedding when neither his parents nor us would have to do the same. It was not fair for me to shoulder crippling expenses when the same things would be meaningless costs to my fiance.
In the end, his parents are paying for much of the reception – the food, venue, and booze, while my parents are hosting a home cooked rehearsal dinner and helping out by being on the ground (planning a destination wedding on Cape Cod!). While my fella is paying the bulk of the other costs, I am picking up most of the decorating expenses (and DIYing the heck out of it) so I feel more empowered in making those decisions. Those of us without cash to spend are more than making up for it in our own hard work, which, let us not forget has value too.
We are getting married in June, so we’ll see how the budget will come out, but we are spending just under $20k right now, including everything and everyone’s contributions. I am actually hoping to come in under budget. Seriously.
The wedding has become a great way for us to begin the larger conversation about finances for our marriage. We have created and kept a budget together. We have learned to be more comfortable talking to each other about money, even if we had to make mistakes first. We are getting used to thinking about *our money* rather than *his and my money*. This stuff is hard, but I think that the wedding has forced us to look at it, talk about it and find ways to deal with our anxieties over it.
And Google Docs. O god yes, Google Docs.
February 24, 2011 11:29 am
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I really like the idea of dividing up the responsibilities like that (reception, rehearsal dinner, decorations, etc.). That way, everybody can own their piece a little more and focus on making it the best it can be.
It sounds so much less stressful than say, just putting everybody’s contributions in one big pot… but then feeling like everybody has to be consulted on every decision, and then does a bigger contribution mean your opinion carries more weight and just AGH.
Good luck on the combining finances journey too… we’ve been on that journey for a while now, and I don’t know if things are going to change at all after the wedding. We’ll see.
February 24, 2011 2:53 pm
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I’d love to see in your book a breakdown of what to include when calculating wedding costs, so we’re comparing apples to apples. Does it include the rehearsal dinner? Brunch the next day? Immediate family dinner on Thursday? Honeymoon? Hotel? Dress? Rings? Hair and makeup? Sales tax?
For example: my dress. I paid $850 for a designer dress that I got on uber-sale as a sample at a small boutique. The dress itself was less than half of what I budgeted, but I need to get it cleaned and altered. So did I pay $850 for the dress? Or will I pay an estimated $850 + $400(cleaning) + $400(alterations) + $120(tax) = $1,770 for my dress?
To me, I’m paying $1,770 for my dress, which still brings it in under my $2,000 allotted amount. It sounds like a no-brainer but many people don’t include everything — that shell game with yourself. As a result our $25,000 budget seems like a lot to some people. But in talking to friends we realized we’re spending less on the actual dress, ceremony, flowers than many do. Our big expense? We are paying for more events for guests over the weekend. Many guests are coming from far away, will spend a few days here and we want to spend more time with them. We are including that in our overall cost. Not everyone does.
Also — we are paying for everything with cash. No debt.
February 24, 2011 11:29 am
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I totally agree with this. In our official wedding budget we included all the travel and beauty expenses for my MOH (my sister) and my mom – they travelled out of state for parties and since my sister was still being supported by our parents, they paid for her dress and other wedding-related expenses. Since they also paid for the lion’s share of our wedding I insisted that we included their personal expenses in the budget. I didn’t want them dropping thousands on The Wedding and then paying another $4K “off the books” for dad’s tux, mom and sis’s dresses, hair, etc and plane tix for everyone.
We did not, however, include all the honeymoon costs. Husband and I paid for the honeymoon ourselves and it was too confusing to include the stuff we were paying for in the same budget as joint expenses.
February 24, 2011 12:24 pm
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As far as I’m concerned their is no “what to include.” I realized when I was planning the wedding that you can end up with a lot of internal pressure about “what your wedding budget is.” Until I realized, OH YEAH, I’m not publishing my wedding budget anywhere so who cares! I can include and not include whatever I want. Freedom!!
I will give budget breakdowns in the book though, and they won’t count honeymoons (as far as I’m concerned that’s a totally different set of decisions.)
February 24, 2011 2:27 pm
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I just want to quickly reinforce this bit — SALES TAX. Easily forgotten at the beginning of budgeting. In Chicago proper, it’s 10.25%.
February 25, 2011 11:24 pm
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My wedding isn’t for about 6 more weeks, but our budget is $25,000 (Canadian) for our wedding in Toronto. If you can wait 6 weeks for our final numbers I’d love to send them! My parents are paying for pretty much the whole thing. They gave us the total budget and it was up to us how to spend it. It worked really well for me because I almost feel more guilty spending other people’s money so I’ve been pretty good about keeping costs inline! We’ve kept them involved in all the choices and its worked really well.
The biggest thing I’ve learned is that I place a high value on stress and time. For me, once we found a vendor or option we liked and that was in the budget, that was that. The time and effort to keep looking for a better deal wasn’t worth the possible savings.
February 24, 2011 11:38 am
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Our wedding was held in San Diego in the Fall and was a relatively small wedding (65 people). We did choose to splash out on some fancy stuff we just had to have (photographer, DJ, fancy food & booze / nice venue / 5* honeymoon).
That said, when I think of what we spent (and I don’t often like to sit and mull it over), I’m equal parts nauseated and strangely relieved. While it’s numbing what the final amount was, we didn’t have money stress, didn’t have a strict budget and were very fortunate to have the kind of wedding we both wanted. AND we paid for the entire thing ourselves, had no debt afterward, and still managed to buy a house a year later. I’m high-fiving myself right after I type this…
But I don’t want to ever look at those spreadsheets again. I just might barf. ;-)
February 24, 2011 11:47 am
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My parents paid for nearly everything, and it meant I gave in on a lot of things. My mom thinks that weddings are competitive bloodsport for the grown-ups. I obviously think this is bunkum. But I think there was a certain kind of pleasure in giving in to my mom and letting her do what she wanted. If she wanted “blush and bashful” to be the colors of all the flowers, I wasn’t going to fight it. And that made her so haaappy, so it made me so happy.
I did make a point of creating some boundaries for her mostly when her whims butted up against people I really care about, like my bridesmaids. I would not let her dictate what they wore. I would not let her insist they get their hair done. You get the idea.
February 24, 2011 11:50 am
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Thank you so much for making a “blush and bashful” reference. That made my whole day.
I agree with that though – there were certain things at my wedding that my mom thought were totally important and I thought were totally stupid. You have to pick your battles. As long as her thing wasn’t cutting into my budget for the stuff I cared about, I tried to let her have it, or at least have as much as we could afford. But if it was her thing, it was HER THING – she was totally in charge of it.
Welcome baskets were the perfect example. She really wanted them, but over 60% of our 250 guest wedding was from out of town. I told her she could do them just for people invited to the rehearsal lunch – only 20 people. And then I never thought about it again. She made the decisions, bought the stuff, assembled the bags and distributed them. Weeks later one of my new brother’s-in-law brought up how much he loved the locally brewed beer in the welcome gifts. I was able to pass the compliment to mom, but I never stressed about those things *at all*.
February 24, 2011 12:35 pm
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This isn’t really “budget” advice as much as money mindset advice, but…
Think about what you’re getting for the money you’re spending. It sounds so obvious but it’s so easy to forget to do this in our pursuit of a good deal and staying within the budget. When I first saw the catering estimates I almost had a heart attack, until I realized that I was buying a delicious dinner for 120 people, so of course it wasn’t going to be cheap. Even if I took them to McDonalds it would have cost $1,000. Meanwhile, a limo didn’t seem too expensive until I realized that I’d spend a total of about 5 minutes in it and suddenly it became really easy money to cut.
February 24, 2011 11:53 am
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Well, I can’t give any insight from the other side, but we are well on our way to pulling off a wedding in the ‘burbs of NYC for ~$12,000 cash this coming September. We are paying for this 100% on our own and only started saving in August of last year. We also make around $70k combined — working/living in and near NYC.
What I’ve learned so far:
1) A goal is a magical thing.
I know it sounds hippy-dippy, but just writing down and verbalizing and being honest about what you need can achieve crazy things in terms of the universe bringing it to you. The husband-to-be and I hammered out the budget last fall because I insisted that if we knew what we needed we’d be able to find the money, however if we were just saving “as much as we can” we wouldn’t get very far. We had done this previously with some “large” (like $600 haha) purchases and it worked crazily well. Well, as soon as we put numbers on paper, both our freelance businesses picked up insanely and we literally had half the wedding saved for by December. Which brings me to #2:
2) Like Verhext said, sometimes you learn that you need to make more money. If you can’t afford to pay for what you want in a wedding (or in life), the best thing you can do for yourself is find a way to make more. While staying sane and happy. Or *temporarily* insane and crazed. Both the boy and I know we want more in life than our right-now jobs (which in “times like these” are safe and comfortable), and the wedding has been a great kick in the pants to get us moving towards loftier goals in our professional lives.
3) Being ruthlessly unconventional can help slash costs. Our venue is a non-profit historical home that has just begun hosting weddings: similar places in our area charge 4-5x a much, and we’re even working out a barter with them, so the rental fee could go down even more. Food will be an awesome vintage pizza truck including gelato (inspired by wedding grad Selina: http://apracticalwedding.com/2008/12/selina-jeremys-fall-santa-cruz-par-tay/), a couple of kegs of beer and cases of wine. We’re also doing DIY flowers and an ipod dj, and we’re not having an “official” bridal party or cake.
4) You won’t know unless you ask–tactfully. It never hurts to ask if there’s a way to barter, or pay cash, or do something else to reduce the price a bit. But on the other hand, sometimes you should be groveling at the feet of vendors whose standard rate is a flipping steal and who should, and will, be charging 3x as much next year–like in the case of our photographer!
For those who are trying to keep a tight grip on the purse strings, I also second the above advice of Heidi’s to have a “budget” and a “max budget” and Stephanie’s to include everything. Our budget was $10k, but I knew this would go up once we had saved enough to feel comfortable bumping it up, as it has. But I also know that this includes rings, and lodging, and other extras above and beyond the “party.”
February 24, 2011 12:01 pm
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One thing I’ve learned is there are two types of budgeting/saving/paying for the wedding. One is to save all the money up before hand, so you have a lump sum to work with — which requires a tighter tracking method to how much you are spending.
The other is more of a cash flow way about things. You plan how much you’ll need at which points. For instance, we are saving up for our big expenses that need to be paid during the month of the wedding, but other expenses that come along as we go are based on what we can afford at that time. If we only have x amount of dollars available, our invites have to be x amount of dollars. We’ve paid less attention to the details of the budget, and more on what we can afford as we go along. Not everything gets recorded. We don’t have a set budget for each line item. If we can’t afford something, it gets bumped either off the list or to a later point when we’ll have money. It seems a bit haphazard, but it’s working really well for us. It also helps us prioritize exactly what we need and what we don’t need.
February 24, 2011 12:05 pm
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I agree with the importance of considering cash flow, assuming you’re planning on paying cash and not using the credit cards.
We kept our money totally separate until we got engaged. At that point we opened up a joint checking account to use as the Wedding Account until we got married, and then it became our Life Account once we wed. We chose to contribute equal percentages of our income (not necessarily equal amounts) to the Wedding Account. Direct deposit is a beautiful thing. When either of us had a bit of a surplus, we’d deposit it into the Wedding Account. There were times (due to deposits, multiple vendors needing payment at the same time, etc.) that the balance on the Wedding Account got low, so we would have to move some cash from our personal accounts to the Wedding Account. Those weeks we simply had less to spend on life and we made do. Or, like you said, Ms. Bunny, sometimes we decided not to make a particular purchase because there just wasn’t enough in the bank.
The best thing about having a totally separate Wedding Account is that it was so easy to track spending and keep a record of what payments had been made at any given point. There was just one place to look, which was a necessary element of simplicity during a time in my life when it felt like everything else was swirling and way too complicated.
February 24, 2011 6:06 pm
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Meg, just curious, is $25k your upper limit budget? I ask because while I’d rather not get into it in the comments (I saw what happened to the higher budget brides the last time), I’d be happy to share our budget for our Saturday night NYC wedding. While higher than $25k, it definitely wasn’t outrageous for our area, the venue we used, or the very traditional Saturday night sit down affair we had.
February 24, 2011 12:15 pm
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Of course, send it along. I’m still figuring out what is going to make the most sense to use.
February 28, 2011 12:52 pm
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I got married in San Francisco in September and spent around $28,000 all told, and that number still freaks me out. I never thought I would have so much to spend (because I’m severely indebted graduate student who has never made real money in my life), but I was lucky enough to have parents and in-laws who eager and able to contribute. However, having multiple contributors really is a double-edged sword (as many of you have already pointed out). From my experience, I learned that if you want it your way, you will have to pay in dollar terms and in relationship terms. When my husband and I told our families that we wanted a 50-person wedding, and that we would pay for it all, they just about all fainted. They wanted to contribute, and they wanted to throw a huge party for us, and to say no would have really hurt their feelings and added a lot of strife to our planning process (and how do you say no to your mom’s dream of throwing a big grand wedding celebration for her only child??). In my case, I was more willing to give up control over my vision in order to keep the peace, but every situation is different.
I also learned that I am especially uncomfortable spending money on myself…which I really didn’t expect! It was much easier for me to shell out money for an open bar, a fantastic meal, and a great DJ to make sure that my guests had a blast than it was for me to spend money on my hair (did it myself), my make up (did it myself), my nails (who needs a manicurist?), my bouquet (did all of the flowers myself), my wedding photos (hired a family friend/photography student for basically free). It’s like saying it was “for my guests” made it justifiable in my eyes. Now looking back, I think the DJ was way overrated, and I think that I could have saved myself a lot of stress if I had reallocated some of the budget to taking care of things that really were important to me, but that I refused to recognize as valuable at the time.
February 24, 2011 12:23 pm
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I have never found it easy to talk about or spend money without feeling guilty. I work in the international development sector and spending my working hours thinking about poverty and sickness makes me want to sell everything I have and give away the money. But of course, living in Europe is not a cheap existence and things cost money, even more when it is related to a wedding.
The hardest thing I had to learn was that some things were more important than not blowing my (small) budget. The only fight-with-tears I had with my mum (she is awesome) was over hiring serving staff for our afternoon tea party reception. I did not want to because all I could see was the figure I was going to have to add to the budget.
I had to learn to lift my eyes from our budget spreadsheet and recognise that not spending this money would make the wedding reception stressful and hard work for my wonderful family, which was not what I wanted or they deserved.
February 24, 2011 12:24 pm
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The other thing that I think is important to note, is that if you can afford it, budgeting for assistance can be so so worth it. Not everyone needs servers/coordinators/etc., but sometimes spending those extra few hundred dollars to make sure that someone else is setting up your venue/carting out trash/telling vendors where to go/etc. is so worth it
February 24, 2011 12:45 pm
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Are you just seeking US budgets? I have the google spreadsheet of my (awesome) $10k wedding 2 weeks ago in Wellington, New Zealand. I would be happy to send it through for comparison!
February 24, 2011 12:32 pm
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Ours was 20,000 euros, which is kind of 25,000 dollars, but not sure if that really helps with all the funny conversions. Honeymoon & rings all in.
We paid for half, and our parents contributed to make up the other half. Besides asking that a couple people were invited (most of whom didn’t come since it was an international wedding), our parents stayed out of the decision making completely. It was no strings attached, and we are really lucky for that. But they didn’t pay for specific things – they just gave us the money and we managed it. This way I didn’t feel like we were using someone else’s funds really – it just felt like we were managing the pool of money we collected, and were concious it was a group effort.
The worst part for me was going from a thrifty mindset (I was unemployed when we starting planning) to throwing around what was, to us, huge amounts of money. And now, it’s kind of hard to stop!
February 24, 2011 12:38 pm
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The “pooled money” versus paying by item might be a good thing to talk about in the book.
For our wedding we dumped all the cash into one account (one of my parents’ savings accounts) and my mom wrote all the checks. Husband and I made all the final spending decisions, albeit with a lot of guidance from our parents, but all the cash came from the same place and that worked really well for us. Especially because if my book-keeping slipped it was easy to check the balance.
I’ve MOH-ed for a wedding that did the opposite. The bride’s mom paid for the food, her dad paid for the venue, the couple paid for the church and wardrobe, the groom’s parents paid for the booze and flowers, etc. etc. For that couple, dealing with divorced and remarried parents and their own semi-combined finances this worked well. They made a huge list of everything they might spend money and each contributer offered to pay for something. They worked out their own budgets and the couple made choices on each thing accordingly, then sent the bill to the paying party. Worked well for them, probably a more realistic option for couples with antagonistically divorced parents.
February 24, 2011 12:56 pm
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I don’t have time to read through all the comments at the moment (but I promise to come back later and read them all, because I’m sure they’re full of amazing wisdom!) so I apologize if I repeat what somebody else has already said, BUT here I go anyway.
I’m not yet married, and formally, not yet engaged. I know on APW the general concensus is that if you and your partner have decided you’re getting married, you’re engaged, even if there hasn’t been a proposal, or a ring, or all that jazz, and I do agree, but we still won’t call ourselves engaged until we reach a certain milestone – and that milestone is having enough money in our savings account to pay for the wedding in full, in cash. This means that when we DO get formally engaged, and create a budget and set a date, we are making these plans with the full knowledge that the money is definitely there. There’s no speculation, no guesswork, no praying for a big tax refund, and no falling into the ‘a couple hundred more dollars on the credit card isn’t THAT bad’ trap. While you can totally save during your engagement and planning, and for most people this will go fine, there’s always that small chance that something could go wrong when working with money that technically doesn’t exist yet – someone could lose their job, a major unexpected expense could crop up (needing to replace an essential vehicle, crucial home repairs, an illness, etc) that drains your extra income that would normally go into savings, etc, etc, etc. By ensuring that we have all the money we’re going to need BEFORE we start planning, we can instead put any extra money we earn during wedding planning towards our future together, rather than towards the wedding.
That being said, this is obviously not the right approach for everyone :) My partner and I are uber-savers, and relying on speculative money would be a huge unnecessary stressor for us, so this is the right approach for us. However for those who prefer save-as-they-go, that’s another totally legit approach!
February 24, 2011 12:49 pm
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It sounds like you’ve done some of the planning, though, to know how much the wedding is going to cost, right? I don’t mean to nitpick, and correct me if I’m wrong, but for my own experience, I wasn’t able to put together a budget until most of the details (who, where, what are they eating, etc) were planned…
February 24, 2011 8:02 pm
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We definitely have an idea of the sort of feel we want, but the most important factor for us was having an understanding of how much we’re willing to spend on the wedding, and aiming to save that number. If we end up spending less than that, awesome! Extra money for our savings account, but spending more is non-negotiable – we know that the amount we’re saving is enough to cover an awesome meal, great music, and a beautiful outdoor location (with rain backups!) in our rurual area for the number of guests we want to have. So we don’t have a formal budget set up or any formal planning done yet, but we have decided on the max we can afford comfortably, and that amount is non-negotiable.
Again, this is definitely not the approach for everyone, some people are more flexible on their bottom line, which I think is totally fine! (as long as you’re not going into debt – don’t do it!) But in our case, we have a number of other financial priorities for the next few years, such as saving for a downpayment on a house, and taking a wicked epic trip through South America, and those other financial priorities have helped us figure out how much we’re willing to spend on the wedding, and we’re not willing to go over that number, as it would be at the expense of our other financial priorities.
I don’t know if that rambling response made sense, but I hope it did :)
February 25, 2011 4:15 am
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