How much was your wedding?

[Maastricht]

We’re going to get married in a week. The costs?

Attorney for mutual prenup and will: 800 euro’s.
Wedding licence: free (we’re doing it early monday morning)
Attending will be: witness 1 (my best friend) and witness 2 (my fiance’s dad and his SO).
I’m wearing neat clothes I already have, and so will my SO. Perhaps I’ll buy him a new shirt and tie if I want things color coordinated.
Fiance’s dad pays for chic dinner the night before and his own hotel.
We pay for a lavish breakfast at our home after the ceremony.
I hired a photographer for the duration of the ceremony, 40 mins total, for 60 euro’s. He’ll email me the pics and I’ll print the one’s I want myself.

Cheapo, no? Good thing too; we’ve lived together for two years and are getting married because of MaastrichtSons’s planned arrival in April. And I’ve just ordered a much, much needed new kitchen for 8000 euro’s.

My biggest relief is that this way, my own parents don’t attend.. I poohppooh-ed it away; " Really, it’s just signing a boring piece of paper, really don’t bother coming over for that". Mom gave me a 20 dollar wedding gift anyway, which I used to pay for take-out pizza last week. Dad was glad my plans didn’t interfere with his work schedule.

[Cicero]

Which one?

[FairyChatMom]

@Shoshana

About $2000. We served finger foods and cake, and the photography and music were gifts from friends. We did our own flower arrangements. About 80 people. Then we had a celebration on the other coast that ran a few hundred bucks. No bridesmaids, gowns, that sort of thing, though.

This sounds almost exactly like what my daughter is planning for May, although we’re looking at closer to $3K for about 75. We’ve found a lovely venue - a community building, of all things. The DJ and photographers are pros and friends of the groom who are donating their services as their gift. The menu will be munchy-type things and a cake, mainly soft drinks, and the only alcohol will be champagne for the toasts. We’ll have no caterer - we’re getting the food trays and cake from one of the better grocery stores in the area. The tableware will be paper and plastic. My daughter and her friends are doing the flowers and the centerpieces.

We’ve tried to persuade them to elope like we did, and the groom is all for it, but for some reason, my daughter has all of a sudden turned into a girly-girl. But what the heck, it’ll be a combination wedding/going away party, as the newlyweds will be moving 800 miles away immediately after the wedding. We’ll let 'em have their fun before real life descends upon them.

[Kalhoun]

Ours was prolly $2200, and that included last-minute airfare to Vegas, rings for me and a couple hunnert in gambling $$. The following summer, we had a mini-reception that cost about $300, including booze and a deli tray from Jewel.

We stayed at the Super 8, which cut our Vegas expenses considerably.

[Canadiangirl]

Our wedding was about $2100. Not including honeymoon.

We got married in September, I bought the dress at one of the local Thrift Shops, brought it home, washed it and voila, one wedding dress. You think you will keep it forever but where on earth are your going to wear it?

Same with photographer - how many pictures will you need? Get one good one, the rest, save your money.

Now, there were 26 people, it was 10 years ago and we had country style where the caterers bring the food and serve it like the way you would serve dinner at home: put the platters on the table, that’s it.

I used a combination silk/dried flowers to be able to keep one of the arrangements afterwards.

While the one day is important, don’t lose track of the important stuff.

Just an idea: why not have a close family only church thing then throw a dance to celebrate. No dinner, just munchies and music?

[Contrary]

We got married four years ago and spent about $5k.

We got married in a church ($500) and paid the pastor $100 I think. The license was negligible.

Much like you, we wanted a fantastic photographer so about half our budget went toward him (worth EVERY penny, he did completely photo-journalist style, I never even noticed him taking pictures).

My dress ran about $600; you might check Target online since they now carry wedding dresses at a very reasonable price point.

Flowers, cake, and half the appetizers came from a local grocery store. The rest of the appetizers came from Dean & Deluca.

We bought our liquor over the course of a couple of months to spread out the pain of the cost.

Our reception was in our home, basically a big party with heavy appetizers. I rented a pimp Cadillac for us to drive after the wedding–MUCH cheaper at $80 for the entire day than a limo would have been for a couple of inconvenient hours.

We opted out of things like unity candles, more than one person each to stand up for us, favors to hand out at the reception (does anyone ever really keep those things?); we also opted out of a DJ or any live music. Instead we created playlists of music that meant something to us–I walked down the aisle to Ella Fitzgerald singing Always.

Good luck, don’t freak out in planning because really truly a wedding is just a project (a special one no doubt) so it’s got a budget, deliverables, and you have to watch out for scope creep!

[Sublight]

Five dollars.

Train fare from our house to the local ward office: 280 yen round-trip for each of us.
Updating my wife’s family register: free.
Total cost: 560 yen, or about $5 US.

We’d been living together for about three years and both our families considered us to be a married couple, so the actual marriage was just a legal formality that made my visa status independent of job fluctuations and made citizenship issues for any future kids much less of a hassle.

[Kilvert_s_Pagan]

Our wedding with 50 guests (almost all out-of-town relatives) was around $2000, in 1994 US dollars. That included paying a judge to come perform the ceremony (an afternoon wedding on an island in the middle of a lake in the mountains), a pianist to play various pieces for 30 minutes before the ceremony as well as during and after(we were married to Mussorgsky), photographer, material for silk flower arrangements that my wife made, rental of folding chairs for the ceremony, wedding cake, restaurant (heavy hors d’oeuvres, not dinner), open bar, tux rental, and a $110 dress from JC Penney.

We then moved the party to a restaurant/microbrewery in Colorado Springs and everyone was on their own for beer, dinner, etc…

We also hosted a separate large cookout for our friends from work, etc, the next weekend, which probably cost a few more hundred $.

Many folks have told us what a nice wedding it was, even though it was un-traditional in many ways. We were both in our 30’s and paid / arranged every thing ourselves. Our parents were honored guests, but certainly had no say in the arrangements.

After all this frugality, we then saved our bucks for a year and then blew $10,000 on a three week belated honeymoon in Australia and New Zealand.

[WhyNot]

Mine was around $100. My dress cost $60, my veil $2 ($1 bin white scarf and $1 for a rhinestone necklace, which I stitched to the scarf and pinned to my hair.) I’m sure the license cost something, but I’m not sure what. We had about 60-80 people there, in the woods during a neopagan festival. 9 friends did the ceremony (4 teams of husband and wife represented the 4 elements, and 1 woman did the legal priesty stuff), the reception was a pot-luck and drum jam followed by everyone moving down to the biggest bonfire in that campground’s history, partying with 2000 other folks. I knew they were there for my wedding, even if they didn’t. All the women attending, with permission, each picked a single flower from an obliging field to make my bouquet a few moments before I walked down the aisle - okay, the path through the trees - and pictures were taken by whoever had cameras handy. We did stop later that night to have a couple of posed pics taken by a professional photographer on site.

I’m not sure why, in this day of iPods, anyone would need to hire a DJ anymore, frankly. No one likes the music DJ’s play, guests all have requests anyway - just hook and iPod or a laptop up to a sound system (rentable) and let people have at it. That way you know for damn sure that no one will be playing the Macarena at your wedding - unless you’re into that sort of thing, of course. Press a friend into service for the announcement thing if it’s important - wouldn’t you rather your first “appearance as a married couple” be announced and celebrated by a friend, instead of a DJ who kinda sorta knows your name and wants to get this over with so he can take a break and steal a smoke?

Same for the photographer. All the good shots are posed, their candids usually look like everyone else’s candids. So take your wedding party to a studio in their duds, either before or after the wedding, and have some great posed shots done in a controlled setting where no one is hooting at you that Aunt Cindy needs to say good-bye before she leaves to changer her colostomy bag and the caterer wants to know what to do with the leftover pasta. Faster and cheaper than hiring a photographer to chase people around and get them grouped for six hours. For the actual ceremony and reception, drop $100 on 25 disposable cameras and let your guests snap away. They’ll get the most relaxed shots and the shots that make sense, anyway - the photographer doesn’t know that your boss has never met Uncle George, and a picture of the two of them is just awkward and weird.

My favorite centerpieces at someone else’s wedding weren’t actually flowers at all, but a glass bowl, like a small fishbowl, with some pretty river rocks in it, water over those, and a floating candle on top.

[Hello_Again]

It looks like its going to run about $15,000 for ~75 people. I live in a VERY expensive area weddingwise. Unfortunately so do you.

That’s with some significant cut backs – I bought my dress from TargetBridal for $159.My brother is doing invitation design and we’re printing through Vistaprint.com. I’m not interested in flowers. It could be done for (somewhat) less with a lot of DIY but I’m in law school and can’t be dealing with all that crap.

For a lot of helpful tips/support check out indiebride.com

[NinetyWt]

Lets see -
First wedding, 1984: At a sister-in-law’s house, home made cake, about 20 - 30 guests, and married by the Justice of the Peace. Total cost less than $100.

Second wedding, 1994 (or so): At a church, reception at the church parish hall, about 100 guests. The dress was made by my future MIL, reception food was provided by various friends, we bought a crap ton of alcohol. Total cost around $3500.

Third wedding, 2003: At a Judge’s house, no special wedding attire, no one else there but the three of us. This one only cost the fee for the License.

One tip I had: if you, your friends or your parents’ friends have houseplants: for that second wedding, we collected a large number of potted plants for use in decorating the reception area. We also used the same poinsettias in the church which were left over from their Xmas decorating. That way our flower budget was cut in half.

Now it occurs to me that I always get married in the winter. And at approximately 10-year intervals. Hmm.

[Spice_Weasel]

It cost about $3k in 2006. The biggest expense was food… we had just 75 guests. The second expense was the dress, which I paid $700 for myself because I wanted to splurge (and I’m glad I did… I freakin’ LOVE that dress.) Our venue was free, the outdoor property of a friend of my mother-in-law’s. My grandparents helped out a bit at the end with decorations and last-minute expenses. We married under a large tree in the front yard on a gorgeous day in June. It was a beautiful wedding. And we didn’t go into debt for it. As soon as you step through those doors and start sauntering down the aisle, you realize the centerpieces mean absolutely nothing. It was the best day of our lives.

[NajaNivea]

@Penchan

We wanted to get an idea of how much our Dopers paid for their weddings and receptions so we can throw out some numbers and ideas to appease the MoH. We were thinking $10,000 total, but seeing as though we have 110 people on the guest list due to large familyage, it’s kinda hard to cut down on things since it’s the food that will cost the most.

These are things that are important to us:

• good photographer

• good food

• good cake

• good DJ

Of course, these are the most expensive things in a wedding.

Well, YMWillCertainlyV on this one, but our wedding cost under a thousand dollars, including a custom, hand-made gown, renting a local historic movie theater, a fabulous tres leches cake, and a photographer. “Catering” consisted of an open popcorn/sodas/candy snack bar while we showed The Princess Bride. Around 80 people showed up, and an awesome time was had by all!

[NajaNivea]

One thing I want to add–buy everything you can in ways not labeled for weddings. Examples? My gown was a gorgeous, handmade thing in blue cherry-blossom satin brocade with floor-length oversleeves and a laced-up front. I called around to some dry-cleaning shops right before the wedding to see about having it steamed or pressed. I asked for a price for having a wedding dress steamed and was quoted $120. I thought this sounded monumentally stupid, so I hung up and called back, asking how much to have a formal gown steamed and was quoted $10.

I designed my own invitations using photos of my original artwork. When I showed them my design and asked for a price to print “wedding invitations” I was quoted several dollars apiece. A quote later for “four-to-a-sheet invitation cards” of identical design was a few cents each.

A “wedding bouquet” with lilies, roses, and irises from the florist is $50-150. “Bouquets” of lilies, roses, and irises bought from a huge and tremendously helpful flower wholesaler cost me under $20.

Like the pet industry, the wedding industry charges enormous premiums because they figure people spending money on this event are out to… spend money. A minor bit of shopping around saved me huge amounts of cash.

[nashiitashii]

@NajaNivea

One thing I want to add–buy everything you can in ways not labeled for weddings.
<snip>
Like the pet industry, the wedding industry charges enormous premiums because they figure people spending money on this event are out to… spend money. A minor bit of shopping around saved me huge amounts of cash.

This is absolutely true; any time you’re dealing with weddings, the prices get jacked up to crazy amounts and it’s best to try to avoid the word “wedding” when dealing with things like DIY invites, dry cleaning, floral arrangements and (if at all possible) catering.

I’ve been engaged over a year and we’re looking at an October 2009 wedding. The budget looks like it’s going to be between $5k and $10K, and where it hits is totally dependent upon how many people show up* and how expensive my dress, the photography and invitations are going to be. I’m hoping we can find a good photojournalist to take digital photos because I’m really interested in the DIY “coffee table book” style albums that one can create with the help of the internet. I’m also finding a lot of wedding dresses that I like but can’t justify paying that much for. I think I may end up looking at Nordstrom’s or Neiman Marcus or other high-end stores for their white/ivory formal wear when I get closer to the date and I get closer to the size I am aiming at. I’m also contemplating doing all the floral stuff myself, as I’m very DIY-oriented, am not all that interested in oodles of flowers (it’s the beach, ferchrissake!), and making 10-11 centerpieces, less than 10 boutonnières/corsages and 5 bouquets can’t be that stressful; plus, I’ve already found a website that can send me bulk boxes of flowers that I am dead set on having.

I do have sympathy for your plight, and feel really lucky that my parents don’t have heavy expectations for us to throw a giant party for all the people we’ve ever met. Neither of us have huge families, so we’re not looking at a giant guest list, and it’s not really a tradition to have giant blow-out parties when people get married in my family to start with. I’m also pretty lucky that both my parents want to help us out, so we can definitely afford what we’re looking at. I will admit, however, that most of the areas of Florida that we’d considered are expensive; the average minimum for a wedding in Central and South Florida (according to caterers) seems to be in the $15,000+ range, as they’re all charging over $100/plate for their lowest level of food.

[sub]*Our family is from all over the place, and thus anywhere we have the wedding will be a “destination” wedding for 90% of our guests. We’re hoping for somewhere between 50 and 75 people, but the likelihood is that 1/3 of our guest list (or more) will not be able to make it or will not be interested in spending money to fly to Florida to see me and my fiancé get married. Without drinks, we’re looking at between $2k and $3k just for food, and it gets higher when you add in rental expenses and things like cake and fancy appetizer displays and such. I’m not too worried, but food will be the bulk of our budget.[/sub]

[Penchan]

@Kayeby

You might be getting married but don’t think you’re too old to be spanked! brandishes slipper menacingly

I swear, my mom would use that threat on me if I told her that we don’t agree with her ideas. Except my mom would use a hairbrush.

We went to both sets of parents to make sure they knew we didn’t want a big wedding - the initial plan was to get married at the registry office and go to a cheap but decent restaurant. I was a little apprehensive that my parents would try to inflate the guest list because you know how Chinese families are - everyone’s a freaking auntie or uncle. But they were actually pretty thrilled that we were being sensible about the wedding and putting our financial security above a one-day party. His parents were supportive but kindly offered to pay for a nicer restaurant than we had planned (which is where the 8k figure came from - our original budget was much lower).

His parents are fine with however many family members we invite. We want to invite a good deal of his relatives because they have been positive influences in his life and he’d like them there to see us get married.

My family is rather small due to the bulk of my relatives being all over Asia, but they are still formidable with their displeasure! They want steak and lobster and all the fixins and actually asked us why we have to invite so many of TonyF’s family since we can’t pay for a really nice wedding with so many guests! What do you say to that that won’t get you in trouble with family?? All I could say to my parents was that they’re his family and we want them there, so there won’t be steak and lobster, oh well. They weren’t happy with that.

If your relatives aren’t Westernised I think it’s pretty safe to assume that they’ll give hong baos (with the standard disclaimer that a gift is a gift, not an obligation. But come on, I’m Chinese. Everything is an obligation.) More assimilated friends/rellies will probably still have the cultural knowledge that cash is an appropriate and desirable wedding gift.

Have you set a date yet? We picked the very Chinese date of 8/8/8. Neither my fiance nor I are superstitious, but the date was available and as good as any other!

I’m sure we’ll get some type of cash from my relatives because they know it’s expected of them. As for my parents, as I said before, they paid for college so there might not be any financial help coming from them. We can’t really do much about that. But his family? I’m not sure how Puerto Ricans give gifts at weddings.

We’re thinking about December 6, 2008. This doesn’t give us much time to dilly dally hence the asking for advice on things! Good luck with your wedding and be sure to tell us how it goes!

[Penchan]

beanpod, elopement isn’t really an option for us. We want to celebrate our union with friends and family. The drama that’s coming with the wedding isn’t great, but we would like a day to be happy with all the people we love. Besides, my brother made it known that if he ever found a girl he wanted to marry, he’d elope because he doesn’t want to deal with the wedding stuff. That hit my parents hard and I think this is why they want such a pomp with my wedding. It’s a battle of what we want vs. what my parents believe we should have and should purchase on our own. That is life I suppose and part of being a grown up.

Contrary, that’s exactly what we want. A photographer who can shoot photojournalistically would be a perfect way of looking back on our wedding. When I was young, my parent’s house burned down and all of my baby and kid pictures were burned. Because of that, I want to have lots of pictures to catalogue huge events in my life. Besides, we waited this long, I want to make sure that I can have a photo album full of our wedding so I can be sure it finally happened!

When my friend kidnapped me to try on wedding dresses, I found this absolutely breathtaking dress at David’s Bridal. It’s on sale for another 10% off within the next week with further accoutrements being offered at a discount price as well. Oh and all alterations were quoted at $200 which is pretty good with all the rebeading they’ll have to do at the hem and halter because they have to cut off a good chunk of the dress off because I’m so short!

WhyNot, you make an excellent point about just needing an iPod and speakers. We might just do that! The SO also realized that you were right in that we should have a person who’s close to us to announce us. Thank you for your input!

Hello Again, thank you for the link! We’ll be sure to check it to get ideas.

NajaNivea, the theater idea is brilliant! I asked TonyF about that idea and he said we’ll look into it. The thing is, we would like lunch or dinner there, so how would our guests eat? I suggested those paper holders for nachos and candy they give out at the concession stand. He wasn’t too thrilled with that idea. We’ll be sure to look into that! Thank you!

You are also very right in that we shouldn’t mention it’s a wedding to our vendors. It’s outrageous how something can be marked up so much more just because it’s a wedding!

nashiitashii, I’m glad that your family is being so supportive. Hopefully my parents will either give us a nice wedding gift coughcashcough or will be willing to loan us the money. We’ll see! Good luck on the floral arrangements! I’m trying to put together the centerpieces myself and it’s proving to be tricky!

[Siege]

Penchan, the gentleman and I are getting married in April, and we’re also keeping it small and intimate, as in about 50 guests. I’d say we’re looking at between $5,000 and $7,000 USD. The reception looks like it will be the major expense. Believe it or not, those silly bridal magazines do have ads for reception sites which may be useful. Think outside the box! I’ve got ads from the zoo, and a couple of museums, although they were all on the expensive side. Are you getting married in church? If so, check to see if you can have the reception there. Hotels and bed and breakfasts are nice because they give the guests and you somewhere to stay after the reception.

As far as flowers go, it seems to me Michaels and Jo Anne Fabrics have 40% of coupons every week. You could start picking up silk flowers on sale and make your own bouquets and centerpieces.

Your local library should have some books on planning weddings. If nothing else, reading about the silly stuff other people have gotten themselves worked up over should be good for amusement value. There’s also, of course, Etiquette Hell The Knot and Wedding Solutions have been helpful to me in setting this whole silly thing up, and The Knot throws in a free website.

Good luck to you and TonyF! There’s some good advice out there, but you don’t have to buy into the bridal industry nonsense. Laughing at some of the hideous bridal gowns has been fun, though. Weddings can make the sanest people crazy at times, but I know you’ll keep your head on straight.

Congratulations!

[Spice_Weasel]

Penchan, that dress is GORGEOUS!

Mine was white with red accents, too. If you can splurge for a matching tiara and veil I’d recommend it… the accents will set it off like woah. It’s been almost two years and I still look at wedding pics and think, ‘‘What a dress!’’

[Canadiangirl]

Penchan: If you can, get them to save the part of the dress they cut off…if you know anyone who sews, they can make you a drawstring type carry bag for your flowers or make a duplicate of your dress for a doll and give it to your mom for a gift on your wedding day. Or, you can get someone to sew lace on it to make a headpiece for you to wear.

By the way, what a beautiful dress!