This thread is only reinforcing why I loathe the institution of marriage.
I’m in San Diego and was married a little over a year ago. We spent just shy of 15k for 140 people. Some advice:
*The best thing you can find is a place that lets you do it yourself. We were very lucky in that regard. We rented a space on the bay and brought in all our own vendors and even had a full open bar all night. It saved a bundle and looked expensive.
*Avoid Wedding Planners. If you stay very organized you can do it yourself easily. Use the help of your family members and friends to help you.
*Stick to your budget. You will kick yourself big time if you dont.
*Use Ebay like crazy (and local wedding websites) to buy stuff for your wedding. People often sell their candle holders and other wedding decor at a huge discount after only using it the one time.
*If you arent religious, dont hire an officiant. Have a friend perform the ceremony (if your state allows). This saves money and makes it much more special.
*Also, get married on a Friday or a Sunday, or even a weekday… it usually save a chunk of change.
I think we spent around $18,000 for our wedding. The thing that really made the expenses go up was the guest count. I think we had around 75 guests. We both have large extended families, and we are both very close to many of our aunts, uncles, cousins, etc., So we just couldn’t see not inviting them.
I already owned a house, so it’s not like I needed the money for a down payment on one, as is often suggested. Not that I couldn’t have found other uses for the money, of course.
Actually, we got away a little lightly. We could have had the wedding in my wife’s home town, 2000 miles away. My father-in-law, who lives there, gently suggested we NOT do that, because then he’d have to invite all his contacts in the local Chinese community, and that would mean an additional hundred or so people.
The thing about Korean weddings is that the guests don’t give presents; they give cash. The amount of cash depends on how close you are with the couple, but you’re supposed to give at least enough to cover the cost of your meal. Most people try to give a bit more. Obviously the more guests you have, the more cash you end up with. There is also an element of showing off, as raspberry hunter suggested. Not so much “look I have cash” (although there is that with some families) but “look I have managed to marry off my daughter/son to someone respectable.”
It’s just weird. A destination wedding would solve some of the problems, but it would also make it harder for the people I actually do want to share the occasion with.
Oh well. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Fiancee’s parents were in the middle of a divorce, we guilted them out of $10,000 to pay for the wedding, were forced to un-invite them (one wouldn’t drop a restraining order for the day), then spent about $4000 on the wedding. Used the remaining $6k as a down payment on a house.
Also etsy.com for anything you don’t want to buy used, or if you want something more artsy/personal that the mass-produced stuff you can buy in stores. Many vendors there are happy to make things to your custom specs, plus you are cutting out the middleman.
This works better if most of your guests are local (or if you are trying to cut down the number of out-of-towners who actually show up). If your wedding is on a Friday or Sunday evening, most out-of-towners will have to take time off from work (and kids will have to miss school) just to get there. This is even more true on a weekday.
We solved this by getting married the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend 
Mine was less than $5000, wedding and reception, which was a sit-down buffet (turkey or ham), free booze and dancing the night away, but I come from a big family, and this was 1989. I bought all the food, my cousins and aunts cooked it, they got a local baker to cook the four turkeys and six hams for free in his huge ovens. I also bought all the booze, but was able to take back anything that was unopened. Even giving it away, it only cost around $900 at the most. I paid for my groomsmen’s tux rentals, and my then-wife made her own wedding dress as well as the dresses of her bridesmaids – and the dresses were ones that they could wear again anywhere.
We had 435 people at our wedding, which is fairly typical for Orthodox Jewish weddings. We had more family and fewer friends than most of my peers (my mother is one of thirteen siblings, and I have 74 first cousins who at the time had about 80 kids). We invited some of my parents’ first cousins, but very few second cousins on my side; my husband’s family is much smaller, and got invited out to second cousins, because he has a relationship with them that I do not have with mine. There’s an expectation that the parents will invite their friends and coworkers (if they work in a Jewish-owned company, as my father does), plus family friends, community members and friends of the bride and groom. I personally added 30 people to the list (20 friends, with 10 spouses - there’s no ‘and guest’ concept for invitees who aren’t engaged or married,) although that’s a fairly short friends list. My sister probably invited more like sixty friends to her wedding, out of a total of about 375 guests.
One of these days my fiance and I will probably get married. If we do, it will be in our house and yard and will cost under $500 (I refuse to spend more than that on a party). I have no intention of ever wearing a wedding dress. I might wear a skirt but that is highly doubtful. The only things I will spend money on are food, the JP, and disposable cameras. I detest weddings and am lucky that he does too. Basically, we’re going to have a BBQ with about 2 minutes set aside for do you, yes, do you, yes, thank god that’s over lets go eat.
I hear you there. My SO’s family live about forty-five minutes east of the city, and we usually go out there every third Sunday or so for a barbecue or whatever with her parents. Most of the time both of her sisters and their families drop by also.
I, on the other hand, no longer have any relatives from my immediate family (parents both dead, along with one brother), unless you count my SOB youngest brother who I no longer am on speaking terms with, so I’m basically an orphan.
She has a friend who was a former classmate who is a Provincial Marriage Commissioner (kind of like a JP), and we figured that one Sunday when we know everyone is going to be there, we would get him to drop by, marry us, and maybe have some barbecue before buggering off.
Of course, there is always the other side of the coin: get married while on holiday somewhere and come back as man and wife, but I feel like that would gyp her parents out of witnessing the event, not that they couldn’t throw us some kind of reception anyway…
We tried that, too, but some places don’t discount rental fees for Sundays of holiday weekends. Ours didn’t, and wereally wanted that particular place because it’s one of the few in the area that allows using any outside caterer and bringing in your own booze. We did do Labor Day weekend, though, partly because it was my grandparents’ aniversary, and partly because it made travel easier for people out of town, but still within driving distance. (We did Saturday night, though.)
We ran into that problem: none of the local country clubs offered Sunday rates for holiday weekend Sundays.
We had fewer than 25 guests, and spent less than a grand, easily. And even THAT pissed me off. Neither of us have any tolerance for the wedding sham. No offense if that’s your thing.
Joe
Disclaimer: For any engaged to be engaged guys out there, percentages of doper women satisfied with spending <5K on a wedding may not accurately reflect percentages in the outside world.
You have been warned. 
God, whatever you do, don’t have a freakin’ partial bar or cash bar. The enjoyment of weddings is directly proportional to how much booze is offered. When my best friend from college was married (he still had to go through his senior year of school), sure, it was cute that we all brought flasks and got hammered that way. But when you get older (as in, even one year older) you really can’t do that anymore.
That said, I have 0 problem with doing a JP under 1k wedding. It’s what my parents did, it’s what I may do. It’s just when people try to cut cost corners in crappy ways that pisses me off. Yes yes, I know it’s your wedding, but learn how to throw a party for god’s sake. I don’t need salmon, but I do need an open bar. As do most Americans to have a good time and dance, party, etc.
While I adore open bars, I don’t mind cash bars at all. Back when such things were a concern, it was easier to pick up chicks that way.
Just don’t have a dry wedding.
Spent around $1500 in '87. We had 50 guests, but sent out 250 invites most going to family members living on the other coast, and friends of my father($30). We hade a catered buffet($65), a cake($75), and all you can drink beer and wine, in other words we had a couple of kegs and a case of wine and champagne($200). Designer dresses, ok so I made them for 3 bridesmaids and my own gown($300) . Tux rentals for my spouse, father, uncle and groomsmen($200). Wedding rings($150), a county judge($60), and flowers($75), and also all the party supplies($150). We were wed in a city park (free) and had the reception at my mom’s house in her back yard(also free), my sister played my music for the wedding and my aunt took videos and I had several people taking photos, free, free, free. We’ve been married 23 years.
There are people who have dry weddings? Actually, thinking about it, that’s an excellent idea - it would make my family almost controllable! Too late now - we’re getting married in just over a month.
We’re having about 50 people (more keep springing out of the woodwork and saying “Could I bring my girlfriend/kids/small alien that lives in the attic? They don’t eat much!”) and it’s costing us about 2500 Euros for the reception at a restaurant (including wine and champagne with lunch and the French version of a wedding cake, which seems to be some sort of profiterole-type-thing)/ The wedding itself is done free at our local mairie - and all weddings in France have to be done at the town hall, it’s a legal requirement. Ours is a 13th century castle, which is a bonus. My dress and shoes cost about £200, and his suit and shoes and all the rest cost about the same, and our rings were £450 total.
So I suppose we’re managing to get the whole thing done for about £3000 ish - slightly more than we were hoping to pay, but not bad, looking at some of the numbers in this thread. It’s very, very tempting to cancel the reception and spend the money on a honeymoon though…