Budget

This really depends on what type of wedding you want and how many guests. We looked at a few options - from a tent wedding at a cider farm to a botanical garden to a vintage hotel and I can tell you that the diy tent wedding was actually around the same price as the all inclusive wedding package at the vintage hotel. Think about your different options and what you actually want out of the day, and then cost everything out to see what’s attainable. Will you be getting any help from parents? That’s another thing to consider! We ended up going with a vintage hotel in NOTL with about 140 guests and are estimating the total cost to be around $35K

Hi, Kaylee! Congrats! I realize that the budget is very different from person to person. For me, it felt like it took AGES to save up the 40K that we needed to buy our house, and the idea that we could spend an equivalent amount on one event (an important one, yes, but still!) kind of makes me feel ill. We decided to cap our expenses at $2000+ a meal. Instead of going the route of a caterer, which may or may not include tablecloths, dinnerware, etc., we picked our favourite upscale restaurant, and we to talk to them about they could offer if we were to book ~40 adults for 2.5 hours. They ended up giving us a package deal, similar to what they do retirement parties and events like that. This place doesn't need decorations, it is gorgeous as is.



Other money savers, we've used Varage A LOT! Shoes, hairpieces, frames for decor, etc. I did all of our flower arrangements + bouquets and boutonnieres (artificial) for under $50 by braving the crowd at Michael's on Black Friday. Our invitations, escort cards, programs, and thank you cards have come from Optimal Print in Calgary. They're beautiful, and have cost under $120, they often have online coupons available.

Good luck to you! And remember, if it's a second hand wedding item, it has literally only been used for like 10 hours! I don't think that even counts as second hand!

We picked the 3 important aspects of a wedding for us, and then went with money-saving options for the other aspects. For example, the bridesmaids can pay for their hair and makeup. Some vendors will provide a deal, or better cost, when they are supplying more than one item - we found a caterer that will also be doing the cake, so we don't have to worry about yet another vendor. We also decided to go with a set up/take down person (we don't think it's fair to ask family/guests to help take our décor down), and she is also a day of coordinator.

Just started planning as well! But FH and I had discussed an "ideal" wedding budget prior to engagement, as we want to do some travelling and then buy a house in the next few years. So we picked $20K which we thought would be fine - however once we got down to the venue and got the full quote (F&B Minimum, Table Wine, Rental costs, Service Charge, GST etc) we hit 16K alone for our 100 guests. And then the next big ticket for us was the photographer as that is the NUMBER ONE advice any bride/groom has given me about their wedding day, don't skimp on the photographer! So between the venue and photographer we hit our budget already. But we knew the day we wanted to have and so we just re worked it and picked a few things to be cheaper with ie - the decor will be all DIY and fake flowers, only real for the bridal party/groomsmen. FH used to be a DJ in his younger years so we are going to self DJ the wedding. Skipping the cake, making edible favors (mini pumpkin pie tarts as our wedding is on Thanksgiving Sunday ). So we adjusted it to more $27,000 now. However I've been budgeting pretty high for the dress (just in case) and I am also adamant that I will pay for all of my bridal party (dress, make up, hair etc) so that increases it ALOT.

It's really what everyone has been saying! You can have a beautiful 5K wedding or a beautiful 50K wedding, all up to what is important to you. For us the venue/location/food was the MOST important to that started the budget off. Congratulations and happy planning!

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Your centerpieces sound AMAZING! I can just imagine it being such an elegant wintery wedding. Good work!

View quoted message Thank you 😊

View quoted message Hi Jana!

It’s the Canmore Miners’ Union Hall! 😊

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What venue in Canmore is this?

Hi Kaylee! 😊 Congratulations on your engagement!

As the others have mentioned, “reasonable budget” differs greatly from couple to couple and has a number of factors to take into account.

For us, we started with our guest list. We will be having a 100 person wedding. Next was venue. We knew we had our hearts set on Canmore, Alberta, but it was difficult to find a venue that would work with our budget. After lots of searching, we found an amazing venue! The price is $1,500! And we get it for 3 days, which will help with set-up/tear-down! We booked our venue October of 2017...and our wedding is September 21st, 2019. The venue has since raised their prices to $3,000 for the exact same package that we have!

The same thing happened with our photographer. We are paying $1,500 for her services, and she has since also doubled her prices, but since we booked early, our prices are locked in.

In in terms of food, my parents have graciously offered to absorb this cost for us. Between our wedding meal and our late night snack, our food budget will be roughly $5,000. By far the most expensive area of our wedding...

Our DJ is $600. Our marriage commissioner is $350. My hair and makeup is $170. My dress was $1,500 including alterations.

In terms of decor, we are doing a lot of DIY! I spent $350 at Michaels, purchasing all of our lights, frames, craft supplies, etc. Using coupons and discounts, plus the fact everything I got was on sale, I saved around 60%.

We have also decided on artificial flowers. My mom loves to make arrangements, so she has taken care of the cost and she will be making all of the flower arrangements.

We are still in the midst of our planning, but I hope that was helpful!

Our budget is $15000 for 80 ppl, a brunch wedding in Prince Edward county(not to far from Toronto, we are travelling there from Ottawa). We went with brunch to save a bit so we could afford our dream venue.

This has been an ongoing subject for myself too. We’re buying a house is 2019 and planning a wedding for 2020. We both agree trying to save money where we can is important but want to be able to look back on the day and not feel as though we sacrificed too much. The memories are priceless at the end of the day. So we tried to outline what was most important to us as a couple.

We originally thought we wanted something very small like 30-50 guests, and as we start our guest list we realized quickly we have more people than that we wanna share our day with, we’re now at 90-110. So budget keeps changing due to that. I started with 8000$, and I’m now at 12000.

We’re also in our 20’s and still starting out, I’m a self employed artist as well. So we’re going to be planning a Stag & doe/Wedding Social to help fundraise a bit to help us!

I would say to figure out what you guys both find most important for your wedding.

For example I love flowers but yet find it a huge waste of money for all the centerpieces, I’m going to order real flowers only for the wedding party’s bouquets and boutonnières and probably go with fake ones for the centerpieces or be creative and make something unique and use my skills as an artist. The dresses I’m looking at are under 150$ too, as I never thought it was a good investment for me, I’ll stain it and be frustrated with myself for the rest of the night if I spend too much on it.

Hope this helps you a little.

Hey Kaylee, congratulations on the engagement!

For us, our "reasonable budget" was around $30000. We're both in our early 30s, have savings, and did our research into what we could reasonably expect for what we wanted to spend.

Since you're in Richmond Hill, you've got LOTS of options at so many price points! I looked into a ton of venues in Woodbridge (where I'm from), and I found that the venue prices ranged A LOT.

Do you know what you think your budget will be? How many guests you're expecting? Let me know if you have any questions!

My mil is paying for our hall and officiant. The rest is on us beisdes the food which a potluck. Total is $1000 but I've been diy alot and it will look like a $5000 wedding.

View quoted message Tell me about it!! My advice is lock in rates as early as possible for the most expensive stuff, if you can.

i got my venue, photographer and videographer at the 2018 rate for my 2020 wedding. It’s comforting to know it’s locked in and can’t be any more expensive.

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That's a really good idea thanks!

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I also live outside of Toronto and the venues cost a lot! I think we're leaning towards the venue and photography as well to be the most expensive

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That's awesome! Thanks for sharing!

View quoted message Wow that’s amazing!! Thank you so much for the ideas! I really appreciate it

Depends on you! everyone here is different! Some are having small weddings and I personally am having a MASSIVE wedding!

I would suggest finding out the top 3 things you guys really want to splurge on! And then find ways to save costs on everything else to make up for it!

I think “reasonable” will be different for each person! For me, I live just outside of Toronto so my budget was already quite a bit larger than the ones posted here due to the fact the wedding will be in close proximity to the city and therefore higher prices. So I accommodated for this in our budget.

I will not be doing any DIY projects, somewhat due to lack of time (I work in law downtown Toronto and it’s crazy busy) but mostly due to lack of creativity 😂

Our venue has been our highest spend (but includes food and alcohol), followed by photography. These were the two most important things for us.

I am also 21! Getting married a week before my 22nd birthday and it can be overwhelming budget wise. But my fiancé and I looked at how much we could save + contributions from parents and used that as our budget. We are looking at $23,000 for ours and so far it’s looking like we’re going to come under!

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I'll be honest, it can be quite time consuming, on a project by project basis, but if you space it out over the course of the engagement, and recruit help where you can (my mom is my life saver), it's totally doable.

All my DIY projects are based on 100 guests, and 14 tables.

I made my own centrepieces. 2 vases (one larger, one smaller); the larger one has a string of twinkle lights inside, and a faux 'bouquet' on top. I glued pinecones to a silver ornament, so it looks like a bouquet of pine cones. The smaller vase has a pillar candle, and fake snow. It's finished off with a silver 4x6 frame with the table numbers. So it's fairly big centrepiece, with everything but the lights and pine cones bought at Dollar Tree for $120. The lights are from Costco and my mom and I collected the pine cones.

I made my own signs as well. I went shopping through thrift stores, looking for big/unique frames. I found quite a few, and then spray painted them all silver (one of my wedding colours). Then I ordered posters from Costco Print Centre to put inside them. For the seating chart, I will just print my tables on card stock, and clip them onto one of the large frames.

We made our own favours as well. Individual hot chocolate cones for the winter wedding. I got hot chocolate and chocolate chips from Costco, mini marshmallows & ribbon from Walmart, cellophane favour bags from Amazon.ca, and personalized stickers from Vistaprint. For 110 favours (made a few extra) it cost $160, and took about 3 hours to make them all with 3 people.

Speaking of Vistaprint, once you have your details set, watch for their semi-annual 50% off sale. I did 70 invites, 70 details cards, 140 envelopes, 68 return address labels, taxes, and shipping, for $80. You can't beat it.

We are getting our bouquets and boutonnieres from Costco (Valley Flowers). 1 Bridal bouquet, 3 bridesmaid bouquets, 2 corsages, and 11 boutonnieres, taxes in, for $425. If you go online to look, you'll see that some of their flowers come in different colours (pinks, yellows, peach, white, etc)... Just because they show it one way, you should know that they can do it in any of the available colours. I picked the "Garden Wedding" collection, which shows in peach & apricot, but I'm getting it all in white to match the winter feel.

We also needed drapes for the ceremony space, but to buy the fabric new/straight from the fabric store can get pricey. My mom and I found a pair of large sheer curtains from a thrift store for $8. She sewed them to fit our space exactly, and saved a ton of money. But it took her about 10 hours total to complete that project.

That's a SUPER long explanation, haha, but I managed to do thousands of dollars of decor things for just hundreds of dollars. Just space out your projects and it won't feel as overwhelming to complete!

View quoted message Thank you so much! I’ll definitely check out wish!

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View quoted message Awesome thank you!

View quoted message I love diy things and I’m willing to do lots of projects to save money! What are some diy things that you did and how long (approx) did they take you?

View quoted message Thank you for sharing your budget with me! And for the advice!

View quoted message Awesome thank you so much for the advice!

Congrats on your engagement!

Your starting your budget and wondering what is essential to get and what should not be looked at.

My view is to go very low budget online shopping since you can buy bulk. The venue is going to cost you the highest of all due to your guest count. The whole outlook of the hall being beautiful will save you on The basic of linen and glassware is provided.

Renting out centerpieces is cost efficient since you can return them the next day and not have to store them at home. Same with the backdrop if you choose to go simple of a sweetheart table and simple décor.

I did a lot of online shopping saving less than $500 over 1 year of planning. The cost otherwise going out retail shopping would have cost double the amount.

Talk to vendors based on the package you like and lower the price if there are any of the options that can be taken off.

Congrats! As others have said, it's your must-haves vs things you are willing to give up. Our initial budget was 10k, then 16k, and now we are thinking we might go up to 20k. It's a lot but... it's the biggest party of our lives and I'd rather spend a little more on an amazing magical day than regret paying less for certain things. We are spending a lot on very good food, a gorgeous venue, and a great photographer. You can totally do a wedding for under 10k, even under 5k, but it depends on what you want and what you're willing to give up. My parents and my partner's parents are helping a little, but we are paying for most of it. You want to feel good about it. We are spending the most on the full-service catering, which includes hors d'oevres, set up, a bartender, full meal, servers, late night meal, tear down, etc. It will cost about half our budget. Also, because we are doing our wedding far in a barn in the countryside, most folks will charge a little more for the travel. it's just a lot to keep n mind. What's the most important thing you want? What can you give up?

First off, Congratulations!

Second, it's 100% dependent on your guest list and 'must haves'. The average cost of a wedding in Canada is $30,000. I am having a 100 person wedding, at an 'all in one venue' (meaning they provide their own food and alcohol, as well as basic table set up), and a mix of host and cash bar. Our budget is $19,000.

We are providing 2 bottles of wine on each table, a champagne toast, and 2 drink tickets per guests. After that it is cash bar. We picked the top buffet option (reasonable prices at our venue, as it's on a university campus), at $48 per person. I did almost ALL DIY decor (centrepieces, signs, favours, etc), and no florals aside from bouquets/boutonnieres. We nixed the unnecessary extras, and focused on the important stuff. I searched for weeks for the best quality/cost photographer and DJ, and am using a civil ceremony officiant, that is only $75 when booked through the provincial gov't website.

If you can keep your guest list lower, and take on some DIY projects, and pick a venue that is reasonable, you could accomplish a wedding for about $****... But you will need to be very budget conscious, and cut out those 'extras'. You could go even lower with a family member's backyard, and a potluck dinner, but make sure you really consider what you want. Pick the top 3 most important things to you and your fiance, and go from there.

Good luck!!!

Congrats!

For budgets, it's really personal. I've been to weddings that were 500$ (they rented a hall, guests brought pies, and they had a friend play music), to much bigger, expensive weddings. It really just depends on you! The venue, the number of guests, the time of year/day (breakfast/brunch vs dinner), if you're paying or if your parents are paying - these things all affect your budget.

My fiancé and I are spending about 25000$, but we think we'll get about 10,000$ of that back from re-selling décor, and the 2$ bar. We have about 200 guests for dinner, and another 75 or so 'crashing' the wedding for the dance part.