What type of wedding are you having or did have and how much is it costing you?

Question

Just for fun- I have been asking a lot of wedding questions and I get the weridest answers sometimes. I mention that my receiption is costing $70 a head and people wrote crazy stuff that thats was soo much and so extremely high which I thought was funny cause unless I got married in my back yard- we couldn't do it any cheaper with a cater. Might be because I live in NJ and it's more expensive the per say the midwest? What is your wedding going to be like or was... and how much is it costing you?
The cater, hall and dj is costing us little over $9,000 but if I included the whole budget (dress, gifts, shoes pictures, hotel room, hooneymoon) i's about $20,000. (we are paying for the whole thing) and it's for 150 people.

Answer 1

I live in Colorado, and am doing my wedding fairly cheap...the only way we could have done it cheaper was to do the backyard thing... But it is still costing $20k!!! We looked at many different places and we chose the cheapest one we could find. There are just a lot of other costs that come with a wedding that you don't think about before hand!

Answer 2

Our Chicagoland wedding was for 150 people, but I think only 120 came. Our photographers were $600; we had them for the whole day and go all of the proofs. We opted not to have a videographer, but a guy at our church was trying to get into wedding videos, so he did ours for free as a test run.

My dress cost $650. I needed minimal alterations. I got a lovely veil and tiara from eBay and my shoes were from Payless.

I have no favorite flowers, so I went to the florist and said I needed flowers for the cake decorations, me, the groom, 12 bridesmaids/groomsmen, a flower girl, ringbearer, 4 parents, and 4 grandparents and that I could pay her $500. I got roses, astrolomeria, and mini carnations.

We paid $250 to use the church, which came with a sound person (we had a wedding CD instead of a organist). I convinced the limo driver to charge me only 1/3 of his usual prices. I made my own invitations, programs, favors, and centerpieces; I spent maybe $150 on all of that.

Our reception site was a banquet hall that used to be a speakeasy. It was a little funky but still very nice. We served appetizers, chicken kiev, wild rice, and green beans almondine and had the full open bar package for about $30 a person. We found a baker that recently sold her storefront to try and work out of her home, and she charged $1.25 per person. The cake was three tiered, each a different flavor.

The DJ was $500 with a coupon I got from a bridal expo. I stayed at my parent's house the night before the wedding, so we didn't have to worry about paying for a hotel room. After the reception, we went to our apartment for a little while before heading out to the airport for our week-long Mexican honeymoon that cost $2,500. We didn't want to get a hotel room that night because we'd only be there for two hours before leaving for the airport.

All in all, we spent about $12,000 on everything, including the honeymoon and rehearsal dinner. There are ways I could have doubled, even tripled that, but I was really saavy about keeping the budget managable.

Answer 3

Indiana wedding !!

I'm getting married in a cathedral and then having a formal black tie reception at an old ballroom...it was built in the early 1920's and is AMAZING!! huge chandeliers...amazing architecture, beautiful balcony seating!! I got a formal ballgown on sale from a designer sample sale and a cathedral veil online!! I'm having a 3 course seated dinner for around 180 guests, and have a 5 tier cake. We have all the normal things too like the DJ, photographer, centerpieces, favors and also are being escorted from the cathedral to the reception and from the reception to our hotel by a white horse and carriage!!

For our honeymoon we are going to bora bora and it loks amazing too!!

breakdown
Dress $1000
reception room rental $1300
church fee $200
3 course dinner with host bar $3000
random accesories $800
Honeymoon to Bora Bora $3200
Horse carriage $125
DJ 5 hours $500
Photographer $300
( all day coverage by photographer friend)

We came up with a lot of interesting ways to cut costs by doing things ourselves and are having our wedding for around $7000...our honeymoon is going to be another $3000...so for the formality of our wedding, along with the location and decor I'd say we did a dang good job!!!

Answer 4

I had a "nautical" wedding, though it wasn't the theme, it just had to do with the location. We got married on the old sailing ship The Star Of India located in San Diego Harbor. We then had our reception on the ferryboat Berkeley located next door. If you want to count food and cost of the rental for the guests, we ran about $50 a guest for the Berkeley reception area and their food. Our total wedding (gifts for the wedding party, reception, wedding location, flowers, etc) was about $6000. I think the problem you have is that you are chosing places that are more expensive, and you are having A TON of people coming. Do you really need 150 people to be there? No. We wanted more friends, but we did just family and a few special friends with 50 people.

Answer 5

I just got married in IL 2 weeks ago, and we had 200 guests, 14 members of the wedding party, and spent about $6,000 including everything and the honeymoon. We had the ceremony at our church and the reception in the Family Life Center (brand new gynamasium at the church)! We had a full buffet style meal with bbq pork, chicken breasts, potatoes, baked beans, green beans, italian salad, tomato salad, rolls, drinks; for cake we had two three tier cakes connected by bridges with red velvet, white and chocolate cake; we also had a chocolate fountain with all the goodies, punch; and also dancing.
One way to save a little on the meal is to have someone in the family help with little parts of the meal. My grandma volunteered to make all the punch and the salads; that alone would save a lot. Then we had a friend of ours that offered to bake the rolls for us. Just those little things would save a ton of money!! That is something that you should consider. We had 2 different favors to give to everyone; one was personalized bookmarks and the others were a favor of mints that we made ourselves. One of my close friends is wanting to go into wedding coordinating so she was a big help with the decorations. We got a lot of our supplies at Garden Ridge and Michaels.
www.gardenridge.com, www.michaels.com; i'm not sure if either one of these stores are in your area, but they are great wedding supply stores. Good luck.

Answer 6

I didn't want to spend an amount that would be equivalent to a car or a down payment on a house because it's for one night, but if you have the money go for it - one thing I regret was I actually took some peoples' input to heart and started to re-think my decisions - all that does is stress you out so ignore them. This is your day - and if you want to spend a gazillion dollars on your wedding you have every right to do so. My wedding was about 8K but I found a ballroom that allowed outside catering and my family and friends took care of the buffet, my sister does cakes for a living so she did my cake, my fathers friend did the music so I just hired people to decorate, and provide linen,china etc. Ultimately you're in charge but I would suggest though if there is a Wyndham hotel in your area check them out - my niece is having her wedding there and she chose a catering package that will run about 7K for 150 people - 8500 after ordering from the bar, and it includes the wedding cake, champagne toast, linen/china and service, coffee and dessert service, complimentary bridal suite, breakfast in bed for two, shuttle to the airport, and a discount for out of towners - here in cali it's 69/night, otherwise congratulations and enjoy your special day!!

Answer 7

If you can afford it and it's not costing you or your parents a refinance loan to accomplish it, then I think go for it. I think a catered wedding is very beautiful but then again I would not want to start out a marriage in debt because I spent a fortune on my wedding. I spent a total of 2K on my wedding and it was beautiful =) Everything is included in that price but then again we did not have a catered reception, only a buffet style. We had the same amount of people though, and it was beautiful =)

Answer 8

My husband and I had a destination wedding in Puerto Vallarta Mexico. It was beautiful. When we got back we had a huge reception with all our family and friends. All together it cost my parents about 20K. That includes the wedding, reception, and the honeymoon. The wedding didn't cost that much. We splurged on pictures at the recpt and wedding. Food wasn't too much at the reception, we roasted a pig (it was tropical themed). Anyway, its a lot of money, but it went a long way.

Answer 9

I found a site that I could have both the ceremony and the reception - and they'd take care of the tables/tableclothes/silverware,etc. as well as the catering. Total budget, including all that, my dress, photos, flowers, cake, DJ, and the traveling party (but no honeymoon *yet*)- $8,000 for 125.

It was beautiful, and a neat mix of traditional and non-traditional. If you were earlier in your planning, I'd definitely suggest picking up the Bridal Bargains book. Side note: I'm in Knoxville, TN.

Best of luck! :)

Answer 10

I live in KY here is my costs so far for my wedding in june

My dress- 1,000
BM dresses- 130
DJ- 525 (for 5 hours)
Church- 800
Reception hall- 900
photography-1200-including engagement pics

I still need a florist, and we wont be needing any limos since the church and the reception hall are right next to each other.

Our cateror is a friend of the family so that wont be very much
our cake is also being made by another friend of the family and she is doing it for free as our wedding gift.

Decorations will be simple lots of tule and candles.

it wont cost us any more than about 6,000 (hopefully)