What's a reasonable amount for budgeting a wedding?

Question

I'm not talking about those extravagant weddings either.

meaning church, banquet hall, and bridesmaids and groomsmen etc.

Answer 1

I got married just last Wednesday. I put together a wedding for under $3,500. Including a venue, a buffet, and an open bar. You have to communicate with your friends and loved ones...I'm sure they'll help. I hired a few friends to be servers,bartenders, and my DJ. Go to fabric stores for the table clothes. Use tiny binder clips to hide flaws; that way you can also give your tables a little decoration too. Hit up Liquidations, dollar stores, and stay away from actual bridal shops; they'll rob you blind! Go to the mall...look at prom dresses for your wedding gown and make add ons. For favors for the guest, buy cheap knick knacks....candles, cool little lighters, chocolates, etc. Make your own flower bouquets. It'll save at least a hundred dollars. It'll be a lot of work but will be worth it. Tell your brides maids to wear the same color but can pick their own styles. That way they'll like it and you won't have to pay for it. Go to a store that you can buy food in bulk for the guests. I hope this helped.

P.S.- Find a place that you can have your wedding and reception at...it'll be cheaper and believe it or not my wedding was BEAUTIFUL!!!

Answer 2

Even not considering extravagant--the range is still an extreme spread. Area of the country, number of guests, time of day...

You have the people who have the justice of the peace for $50 adding to that average just like the platinum $200,000 weddings. Though I read somewhere when I was planning mine that the average was around $27,000--but it didnt mention if it was including engagement ring and honeymoon in that as well.

Culture also plays a big part. I believe its Indian weddings--that go on for 3 days. 3 separate events. There is no way you could feed all your family (even just the immediate family) for 3 days and have 3 dresses for less than $10,000. Just no way. The Italian culture tends to have large families. My husband has 50 first cousins. His dad is 1 of 10. If you invite one uncle, you have to invite them all. Also Italians and French drink. Thats what they do. It would be incredibly odd to not have wine at a reception. However that is a huge expense. A wedding without alcohol is a lot cheaper.

A "reasonable" amount is whatever you can afford reasonably. If you make a million a year, and plan on spending 80,000 on a wedding--thats a rather small amount. Especially if you want to have 500 guests. If you have never seen a million, and make $30,000 a year--than even $30,000 on a wedding isn't reasonable.

And I found a caterer for an amount that you couldn't even find a fast food place to cater for in NYC. It wouldn't be possible to budget the same amount--and since Y!A has people from all over everyone always thinks what someone else says in unreasonable and will post some vicious thing about you being irresponsible and you should save for a house instead, when they don't even know your background or your family/culture.

I just think you should look into a couple caterers in your area and photographers--as those were my 2 big expenses. Add those numbers together and double it to give you a good idea of how much you might need to budget.

Answer 3

There is no 'reasonable' amount I think, because it ALWAYS ends up exceeding the budget. That being said, You and your family are the ones who decide what is 'do-able'. It makes no sense for someone to go into deep debt financing a wedding. There are weddings done on a tight budget that are just as beautiful (and sometimes in better taste) than some of the 'let's through money at everyone and everything' kind of weddings. (Remember too that any item that has the word 'bridal' in front of it is going to be grossly overpriced. You can do much better if you use some leg work and creativity.)

Answer 4

My church is costing me all most $600 but I think that depends on your church. Your reception hall will depend on how many people you are having. Mine cost a little under $100 per person. You want to make sure you check with different places and find out what they are offering. Some places wanted to charge me more and give me less then the place I ended up with. You want to get the most for your money. You also want to find a place that includes the bar in the price. As far as bridesmaids. They are responsible for paying for their own dresses, shoes, etc. However, you might want to budget a little money for a gift for each of them to thank them for being a bridesmaid. Photographers are expensive but you can usually find one to suit your budget if you shop around. It all adds up very quickly.

Answer 5

My wedding is by no means extravagant, but I still budgeted $10K. So far, I'm well under budget but at least I am saving enough just in case.

Really, it should depend on what you can afford. Can you have a beautiful wedding for $5K? Sure! You just have to shop around for the best deals and make a lot of compromises.

Answer 6

My parents spent about 800 on their wedding.

The dress was her mothers
The wedding was in the church (free for members)
The Reception was in the club house of their apartment (free for residents)
Her sister made the cake
A friend took the pictures

The only real expenses was food (finger food), flowers (fake), the license, and my father's rented tux.

everything else was donated or given as a wedding present.

You really can make it as cheap as you need it to be.

nowadays, a reasonable wedding budget should run you about 5,000.

Answer 7

It really depends on what you want. Just because you don't want fancy doesn't mean it still can't cost a lot. It's all about quantity. If you have 300 guest then yea even a $1 per favor or whatever adds up quickly. Some can do it on $2,000 others on $20,000. You have to think of what you guys want then start pricing things. Think about what's important. If you want killer photos then budget more if you don't care budget less. Check out theknot.com, they have some budget tools that can help.

Answer 8

We're not having an extravagant wedding, our budget is around $8500, that includes eveything. About 200 for dinner.

Answer 9

It really depends on what areas you're willing to give up. Start with the reception, as that will be the biggest expense. Look around and find out minimum costs. I was planning on doing the "simple" thing, too, but here I am $25k later! Of course, with any luck, you only do this once in a lifetime!

Answer 10

Depends on where you live and how many people you want to attend. I think $8,000 to $10,000 is a reasonable amount for a modest wedding.

I live in LA and we started out with an $8,000 budget for 80 guests, but because everything is so expensive (and we're cutting a lot of corners and doing a lot ourselves) we had to increase our budget to $13,000.