My girl and I are getting married next year and i'm trying to get an idea of how much it will cost, i there are tons of factors but i'm trying to stay within a certain budget.How much did your wedding cost?
Wedding Strut
- Thread starter analog_tape
- Start date
This is a really hard question to answer in any general way.
My wedding, for example, cost maybe...$300-400, tops? But I had it in the backyard of a friend's place, did it as a potluck so the food costs were low, and I think we had, at most, 50-60 people. And we loved it and people had a great time...partially, I think, because it wasn't like a conventional wedding but more like an afternoon, backyard party with a short wedding ceremony thrown in the midst.
In contrast, when my high school friend got married, the guest list was 900 and they had to rent out the ballroom at the Universal City Hilton (or Sheraton or whatever) and the whole thing was catered by the hotel, plus a DJ, etc. etc. If that thing didn't cost at least $30,000, I'd be amazed.
So...somewhere between $300 and $30,000? I doubt that's a useful set of numbers for you.
Start with the basics: how many people do you plan on inviting? Will you have food? If so, who will cater? What kind of location do you want (i.e. will it require that you rent space)? Are you going to hire a DJ? Or a wedding planner for that matter?
Oliver - a 900 person guest list undoubtedly cost much more than 30k! The food and drink alone would've been more than 10k. Generally, catering for a wedding runs between $80-150 per head, with the low end being buffet style or very simple, basic single-item menu. That's just food, usually liquor is a separate buy. Flowers, place settings, invitations, etc all cost a LOT of money. Photographer, videographer, clothing for the wedding party... all big money. The bride and groom's gown and suit can run thousands, throw in the rings? Sky's the limit. I DJ weddings from time to time and I won't even leave the house for less than $1500. $30k for a 900-person wedding would be an absolute steal.
My wife and I spent over 20k and it was an unconventional wedding with major hook-ups on stuff like flower arrangements and invitations and our own PeacefulRotations DJing the event. The space rental alone was over 10k with food included and open bar all night.
Conversely, a cousin of mine married into a rich family and the cocktail hour alone probably topped 20k. There was a jazz band, two open bars, three food stations with shit like frenched racks of lamb, lobster, and so on. The reception featured a 10-piece band, another open bar, filet mignon, the guest list was 300+... all held at a country club in south Jersey. I guarantee you they dropped close to 100k.
My wife and I spent over 20k and it was an unconventional wedding with major hook-ups on stuff like flower arrangements and invitations and our own PeacefulRotations DJing the event. The space rental alone was over 10k with food included and open bar all night.
Conversely, a cousin of mine married into a rich family and the cocktail hour alone probably topped 20k. There was a jazz band, two open bars, three food stations with shit like frenched racks of lamb, lobster, and so on. The reception featured a 10-piece band, another open bar, filet mignon, the guest list was 300+... all held at a country club in south Jersey. I guarantee you they dropped close to 100k.
Our budget, despite the seemingly-large number, was fairly shoestring by New York City prices and the amount of people we *had* to invite. If you have specific questions, feel free to shoot... we shopped around a lot. We were very lucky to be able to get out of a venue contract early on because we realized we would spend our entire budget just between the venue and the catering, with no money for anything else. And that "anything else" is going to cost a lot more money, and (most importantly) be a lot more important to your wife, than you might imagine.
Ha, for some reason, I figured dinner started at $30/head vs. $100! Clearly, I'm disconnected from both the streets AND wedding planning.
Analog: If you're going the conventional route, I would recommend a donut maker. My wife's cousin's wedding had one of those set up outside the reception hall and I give it a hearty cosign
One thing we did that was really awesome, and not a huge amount of money, was a photobooth. EVERYONE got in there, and we have some great memories of our friends and family on film that the actual photographer wouldn't have caught as they were just focusing on us.
Yeah we are trying to stay in the $20K range, we have about 200-225 people and were gonna do a cocktail style wedding. I don't wanna go to nuts because we just bought a brand new house and car the last year. I'm hoping that our parents will step up and throw down on at least half the cost.
This is a great idea!!! My wife & I are getting remarried next yr on our 10th anniversary and I am totally gonna ask for permission
I tried this one out a few years ago:
http://usnaps.com/
It takes fairly impressive pictures for a booth.
Yeah I mean definitely look into places that will provide food & drink included with the rental. That is a good way to keep costs down... because otherwise you're going to spend a certain amount minimum just on the space and then have to get the food/drink catered. A lot of venues have a real limited (and expensive!) list of vendors they work with so be careful with that.
we have a hookup for the room 200$
150 list
it'll come up to 3000$
my parents pay the food, the bride the booze
photographer friend
with people's $$$ gifts we can repay the costs and get a trip to senegal out of it
honewmoon!
do what you need to do don'T keep up with the joneses
of course i am 24 year old grad student
150 list
it'll come up to 3000$
my parents pay the food, the bride the booze
photographer friend
with people's $$$ gifts we can repay the costs and get a trip to senegal out of it
honewmoon!
do what you need to do don'T keep up with the joneses
of course i am 24 year old grad student
This is a great idea!!! My wife & I are getting remarried next yr on our 10th anniversary and I am totally gonna ask for permission
we put a couple of disposable cameras on each table at our wedding for a similar result, was great to see some of the stuff we missed out on.
This is a great idea!!! My wife & I are getting remarried next yr on our 10th anniversary and I am totally gonna ask for permission
we put a couple of disposable cameras on each table at our wedding for a similar result, was great to see some of the stuff we missed out on. we had disposable cameras, damn people took them home with them
My wife and I got married last September and I think our wedding was close to 30k. This pretty much included every conceivable cost, including the dress which was 3k alone. We had about 160 guests, and the catering and drank was by far the most expensive thing. We cut corners in a lot of other places, like doing the invitations ourselves, no planner, having a friend for the photographer, stepdad and his homies playing jazz during the reception, peacefulrotation on the wheels, friends doing wife's hair and makeup, etc.
It was a fucking beautiful wedding. Wouldn't have changed a thing. Fact is you're going to be in the 20-30k range for a half decent wedding. I really think it's impossible to get under 20k unless you do some things straight budget style or you have some major luck. Expect things to add up fast and just learn to deal with it. It took us a long time to get over how expensive everything was, but it's your day and all you can do is enjoy it.
It was a fucking beautiful wedding. Wouldn't have changed a thing. Fact is you're going to be in the 20-30k range for a half decent wedding. I really think it's impossible to get under 20k unless you do some things straight budget style or you have some major luck. Expect things to add up fast and just learn to deal with it. It took us a long time to get over how expensive everything was, but it's your day and all you can do is enjoy it.
Paycheck, we are on the same wavelength in terms of weddings. We both proposed on the same day (with duel SoulStrut announcements) and we both had photobooths at our wedding.
The photobooth was $1000 for the night and all the prints (unlimited). It was the best purchase. Everyone loved it and, as Jonny mentioned, you get pictures of smiling people that are casual and better than a photographer would get. You get something totally different than regular pictures. We even had older relatives popping in there not knowing where to look and all 4 of them staring at the wrong spot, not changing up their poses for four shots straight. Four shots, looking in the wrong spot, no motion. So funny.
Our friends recently did a backyard style wedding that was awesome. Very simple yet really comfortable and enjoyable and still kind of classy in a way. They had pies instead of a wedding cake.
Wedding cakes are a huge rip off. Quadruple the price for something that only gets looked at and then is taken away and hacked to pieces. 50% of the people wont even eat it or stay long enough to get it. If you ask the cake place for a sheet cake of the same exact cake it will be like $150 and then you make it round and call it a wedding cake and it's $800. We actually bought a cheap stand-in cake as a display and the got sheet cakes of the one we liked the taste of. Saved a lot of money.
The photobooth was $1000 for the night and all the prints (unlimited). It was the best purchase. Everyone loved it and, as Jonny mentioned, you get pictures of smiling people that are casual and better than a photographer would get. You get something totally different than regular pictures. We even had older relatives popping in there not knowing where to look and all 4 of them staring at the wrong spot, not changing up their poses for four shots straight. Four shots, looking in the wrong spot, no motion. So funny.
Our friends recently did a backyard style wedding that was awesome. Very simple yet really comfortable and enjoyable and still kind of classy in a way. They had pies instead of a wedding cake.
Wedding cakes are a huge rip off. Quadruple the price for something that only gets looked at and then is taken away and hacked to pieces. 50% of the people wont even eat it or stay long enough to get it. If you ask the cake place for a sheet cake of the same exact cake it will be like $150 and then you make it round and call it a wedding cake and it's $800. We actually bought a cheap stand-in cake as a display and the got sheet cakes of the one we liked the taste of. Saved a lot of money.
