What busted your wedding budget?

Oh yeah, it's the venue that put us over but completely worth it!

Well, we hadn't done any research and started with 20,000, but then we started researching and said 25-30. We're hovering just above the 30 mark but we're reallllly happy with the value of what we're getting so it's well worth it!

I went over budget to get the right photographer but we cut it in other areas to make up for it. At the end of the day we ended up being under budget but we worked to keep it that way.

Our venue definitely. The cost of the venue itself was more than double what we wanted to spend- and we are required to use their bartending service and they charge A LOT.

View quoted message That's pretty much us! :/

The food was the biggest... also getting a coordinator! We didnt budget for one originally but decided a month of coordinator is a good idea for us!

Basically everything...! A couple hundred here and there, it all adds up. We’re about $10,000 more than what we had initially planned it to be 😳🤭

For us it’s guest list. We started with thinking we may not get to 100 people, then we had 110, and then 120, and now there’s about 135.

We didn’t have a set budget really (we live near Toronto so it’s pricier and we knew that going in) but venue and photography were more than I thought we would spend.

We are ok with it though. We don’t want to have any regrets on our big day so we are finding ways to save in other areas!

View quoted message I feel you girl. I had 120 in my list but my mom is pushing to invite 10 people that I barely know. Really had a talk with her coz I am not spending when down the road they cant make it . So now what I'm left paying for their plate

So far it's not any one thing, but it seems like everything is just slightly over budget. Photog, about $300, dinner and drinks about $1k, honeymoon about $700. I'm having to juggle a lot, but there's still 14 months to go, so lots of time to find savings.

The dress was about 2x what I wanted to pay but was still under $1000 so not too far over budget I guess

Hmmm the thought of going over budget scares me, so I will do my best to stay with in it. I have two little girls and mortgage payments so if I can't afford it for the wedding, then I guess we're not having it !!

Photography was a major wallop to the budget but I'm friends with our photographer's assistant and not willing to sacrifice what I know will be outstanding (and plentiful) photos. But pretty much everything is way more than I ever anticipated. Like over $1000 for music?!?!

The guest list, the guest list, the guest list.

Our venue holds 140, we were aiming to invite 120. But with parents pushing us to invite more relatives, its looking like we'll be at max.

Which makes me want to cry. I was budgeting my expenses based on 120.

I'm legit stressed about this dumb guest list.

Our venue set us over our original budget so we had to up it by about $15k. We knew we wanted to get married in or around Toronto...and every quote we got was way over what we thought based on the number of people we were inviting (plus wanting an open bar) We went in optimistic we could stick to budget, but after a few days we realised we would need to up it (we did find some good deals, like with my dress...and the band was a few hundred less then we thought)

I think we are about 2k over the upped budget :/ but like others have said...YOLO haha

So far, we're okay in our budget! Trying very hard to stay under but we've added a couple of things that might make us go over a bit! As long as we stay under the $20,000 mark I'll be a happy camper haha. But so far, we've been able to get some really great deals on stuff by booking ahead and buying on days where there are discounts (our venue is newer and their prices were really good, got my dress 10% off, bought all of our decor on black Friday - $700 worth of decor for $200, booyah!). But I have a feeling we'll go over somewhere

I feel like all of our main things have gone slightly over budget - hopefully I can make up for it in the small details later! Dress, band, photographer; but those are the main things that we didn't necessarily want to compromise TOO much to make sure we get what we want, within reason. But we've also managed to get incredible bonuses/deals in other areas (dress comes with a honeymoon discount, donated gold from family members means custom wedding bands will be basically free, etc). Hoping it will all balance out as more details come together.

We ended up extending the guest list from 25 to 32 to fill the venue... that was a price jump lol. Oh well. It was definitely worth it to do so and have everyone we want there.

View quoted message Haha, exactly! What a terrible idea, hey?!? Lol. We just kind of ordered everything we needed and called it a day. I do NOT recommend doing what we did! Lol.

The dress was the first thing - it was about double what I had budgeted for. Even though my mom ended up buying it for me, I still feel bad for going so far over the limit I had set for myself.

View quoted message Cant go over budget if you didnt make one 😄 ha

I have definitely re-worked it more in the beginning after booking big things. Photography was the first thing that made me re-work it though lol.

We have doubled our budget. Mainly because we werent aware of how expensive things actually were!! #YOLO LOL

Nothing yet!! we have worked hard to stay within our budget and have compromised on things but it will be a beautiful celebration. As long as I get married to my man that's all that matters for me

So far we're on budget but I anticipate the entertainment will set us back: DJ and video games.

Our venue has a second room that has four tvs set up so we're going to take advantage of them and offer Mario Kart and Smash Brothers.

The dress would have put us over if not for two things: it being a pop up sale and my mom winning the battle to pay for it. I didn't know I had expensive tastes until I went wedding dress shopping, lol.

We didn’t make a budget. We just went with the flow of things. I kind of wish we would have picked a cheaper venue. Not only is it $120 per person for dinner and 2 drink tickets, but it’s also an expensive hotel to stay at. I wish the venue was cheaper so we could do an open bar. We will be handing out more drink tickets throughout the night as well.

As of right now we are on track to stay under our budget. The only thing that would make us go over would be if we added any more people to our guest list.

What blew our budget was the fact that we originally planned a ****$ wedding, and wanted to keep it at under 100 guests. When we sat down to actually look at a guest list, we realized we had over 450 people on it (I didn't think we even knew 450 people!).

We cut it down to 200 for dinner, with 50-60 wedding crashers for afterwards, and increased our budget to ****$. We've stayed within that, thank god!

So far we are set to be on budget - but I'm assuming we will go over just a bit

If not, then I would be apart of the 26%!

The venue. Our venue just has a "cost per person" price and then you go from there (versus paying for a room rental, then a bar, and so on), so it was realized very early on that this would take up 60% of our budget (depending on the guestlist).

The first thing that busted the budget was my dress...I was just naive to the process and availability.

But I love my dress and don’t regret getting it. I just wish I’d had a more realistic sense of the process ahead of time.