Weddings on a budget?

We don’t have a huge budget it’s about 2500 , we are just trying to keep costs low as possible by using second hand stores,Costco and amazon. Right now we are over 950 dollars.

The venue is for both the ceremony and reception rented for the whole weekend ($450)
officiant ($275)
Save the dates (free) I made them on an app on my phone and emailed/texted/facebooked them out.
my dress ($169) found at second hand store
my maid of honor’s dress ($20) at a second hand store
my wedding band (free) it belonged to my mom
FH’s wedding band ($35) from amazon
Dj (free) we are just using a friend’s sound system and hooking up a laptop to Spotify

Our starting budget was $12,000 but I upped it to $15,000 for a guest list of 75 people... and then I decided to elope instead! 😂

Our Wedding expenses should now total just over $6,500.

Our starting budget was $20k, currently sitting at $26k but working on getting it down. 84 on the guest list, but will probably be closer to 75 or so, which will bring down some of the estimated costs.

Venue: $0. They're an all-in-one and waive rental fees if you hit a certain threshold in F&B because...

Food: $8k (hors d'oeuvres, 3 course custom meal. late night taco bar)

Bar: $4k (40 bottles of wine with dinner, open bar for wedding party, consumption bar of $1k followed by cash bar)

So we're spending half our budget on food and booze! We were both adamantly opposed to a buffet and are kinda insisting on local and fresh, which drives up the cost.

Stationary, invites, menus, postage: currently $600, but will come down a bit. However, $100 of that is a colour printer I bought to save on printing costs. All printing will be done at home.

Attire: current estimate is $2.6k. Bought the dress for $1,100 already. Estimated $500 for groom's suit and shoes. The rest is alterations, accessories, shapewear, lingerie and ties for the groomsmen.

Hair & makeup (including trials): $400

Decor: about $2k. Major caveat: this includes $500 for a welder & gas for my FH to make frames for signage, and another $500 on materials. I'm not convinced this is the way to go, however FH almost has me convinced he'll continue to use the welder for side hustle projects lol!

Photographer: $3785, * hrs, + engagement shoot, tons of digital photos & printing rights.

DJ: $150. A friend is doing it, and I can get a lot of the gear for free from work. This is just in the budget in case there are a few extra things to rent.

Gifts and favors: $900. Trying to cut this down. Instead of favors, we're doing a donation to the Humane Society. At $3pp, that comes to $240. Guys' gifts: hot towel shave on the day of ($50pp + tax & tip). Girls' gifts: maybe Nordik Spa ($75pp)

Transportation: $700. Still not sure if we're even going to do anything, but it's staying in the budget anyway.

Wedding night hotel: $350.

DOC: $500. Still not sure, but staying in the budget for now.

The only advice I'd give is when you're budgeting, be sure to include taxes!! On everything. Here it's 13%, which definitely adds up!

I know that our elopement is very different than most weddings here, but I thought there may be some utility for others in seeing the individual items.
We didn't start off with a budget. We just sort or committed to not breaking the bank.
What we ended up paying:

Venue (Park permit): $75
Officiant: $175
Photographer (1.5 hours, digital images): $250
Musician (classical guitarist x 1 hour): $300
Flowers (My bouquet, mini bouquet for my daughter 2 boutonierres): $320
Transportation (6 hours limo service on a weekday): $500
Dinner out (has not happened yet so guesstimate only): $300
My dress (includes alterations): $500
My hair and make-up (no trial): $100
= $2520

This doesn't include his suit (he needed one anyway) or the rings (because that is obviously quite variable). I also didn't include the $200 I spent on the kiddos' fancy clothing because I figure they can wear them again so it doesn't count (that may be rationlization).

This is the first time I did the math and I'm surprised it crept as high as it did.

Starting Budget: $20,000

End Budget: TBD (We should be at $20,000-$25,000 max.)

# of People: 250 (including us, vendors, etc.) - guest list was over 300, had 2 waves of invites, looking like we may be closer to the 230 or 240 mark.

Inside/Outside: Both. Our ceremony will be outside on the dock on the river, the reception is inside the pavilion, and then dancing inside and bonfires outside

Want: Bonfires - weather permitting though... I also really want fireworks - also weather permitting though...

Wish: If money was no object I would have loved to hired a videographer for more than just the ceremony for the "I do's" but I will take what I can get!

Our starting target was $20K and ended up spending $18,500. Wedding/Cocktail Hour were outdoors and Reception indoors. Our costs were 5 major vendors:

Photographer

Videographer

DJ

Officiant

Baker

Rentals were also considered since the costs help cut down what could have been purchased for décor and backdrop. Most of the small shopping was done online sites of Amazon and Ebay. Buying quantity for favour also saved in pricing when shopping around.

These little things helped to know that the costs kept me under many ways. Half the items were free since sellers did refund what didn't arrive on time or not satisfied with the product.

View quoted message Awesome thank you so much for your input!!

I’m not going to throw out what I’m currently at because it’s a lot!!

To be honest, we didn’t set a budget. our venue is 50%+ of our entire current spend so we either were going to pick the venue we wanted and spend a lot, or we could pick another venue we didn’t really like that much and save.

we’ve invited 300-325 I think and so far
the only compromise has been my FH isn’t buying a suit. It’s just too much money for one time use.

Our goal was to keep all expenses wedding related under $10,000. In the end we were closer to $12,000 but got a lot more help to pay for it than we had anticipated.
We had a 150 guest fully outdoor backyard bbq wedding and it was amazing. We were very budget conscious and cut costs anywhere we could to keep it this price:
-Diy decor
-no cake (we had a bunch of Costco desserts instead)
-Used my husbands moms property so no venue fees
-no DJ (we made a Spotify playlist and it worked great. Had compliments on the music all night)
-bottled our own wine and looked for caselot sales at local wineries. Wine worked out to less than $10/bottle for 10 cases.
-bought kegs of beer and had a self-pour bar to save bartending fees. (We drank 140L by 11:00pm)
-no florals on the tables (made diy decorations)
-bought all wedding party dresses/ shirts-pants on sale for less than half price ($2000 for bride, groom, 5 bridesmaids and 4 groomsmen).
-clearance rack wedding dress ($250)

We could have dropped the price dramatically if we were willing to half the guest list. Our biggest expenses were

-catering (my mom and her husband made the food and I hired servers for dinner) $2500
-wedding party outfits ($1750)
-tent rental $1800
-photographer $1500
-tables/chairs/linens $1200? (I can’t quite remember)
-wedding rings (purchased on Etsy) $1000/both
-wedding dress with alterations $400
-flowers $400
-portapotties $400
-ceremony venue rental $400 we used a local park.
-marriage licence $??
-officiant $200
-Lighting for the tent was $200
-Decorations worked out $200-300 or so total
-sound system rental $150
-save the dates & invitations we sent through email. $80 total.

There might be be a couple things I forgot and the numbers are rounded because I don’t remember them exactly anymore, but that should give you an idea of where our money went!

I got pretty lucky since I was planning my wedding the same year (we found our venue in May and wedding in in October, around 75 people), the venue waived the ceremony fee of 300$. They already have a pretty pergola by the water and not much decoration is needed. We will simply put a draping. Our venue also provides a table and chairs for the signatures. Their ceremony chairs are beautiful, and we are putting aisle flowers at the first 3 rows on each side. I have asked my florist to design the flowers in a way we can reuse them inside the venue hall on tables and surfaces (dj booth, bar, sweet table, riser, etc). We decided to go for real flowers (family preference), you may be able to save if you are using artificial one. I will have a larger bouquet and my maid of honor a smaller one (no bridesmaids). Do not forget your ceremony music and the small accessories too ☺️

- 25$, 14m of draping bought at Fabricville liquidation section
- 225$, 6 reusable aisle flowers
- 10$, ring bearer box (Etsy)
- 20$, 2 flower girl basket (Michael’s)
- 20$, petals for the 2 baskets
- 270$, 2 bouquets
- 215$, violinist 2 hours (ceremony + cocktail)
- 5$ for sign (venue has the easel) reused at reception

Last minute purchase if it gets cold, we plan on getting some blankets so we reserved a 60$ in case! Hope this helps ☺️