How much was your wedding?

In My Humble Opinion
41

We spent about $10k 10 years ago in the Midwest. We had the ceremony and a dinner reception for about 100 guests in a midrange hotel. We saved some money by having the wedding on a Sunday evening, but some things cost more than they could have because we were wedding planning in a very short period of time (5 weeks). We not only had custom invitations, but we had the store address and mail them. We talked to exactly one florist. This is not the way to save money! Still, it was worth it at the time to save the stress - there was enough of that as it was.

As it was, I think we spent about half the budget on the reception. My dress was pricier than I’d care to admit, and we spent a fair amount on invitations, photography, flowers, cake, and musicians. We didn’t have time to do many of the extras, like favors or goody bags for the out of town guests. Heck, we planned the rehearsal dinner the day of!

Congrats on your engagement and good luck negotiating the wedding planning!

42

Those are some good ideas about where to get married! We’re not religious and we’re determined not to give in to his relatives’ desire for us to get married in a church. For now we’re thinking of having the wedding in either the Rose Garden or in a nice park in San Francisco. I hear the permits to get married in a park or the Garden are just a few hundred or so. I would love to have our wedding in a bed and breakfast but our friends got married in a few of them and just for the rental of the area, it was $10,000. No thank you!

We’re trying to keep our wedding somewhat traditional to appease our traditional sides but we also want to keep it fun. No worries, we’ll help each other keep our heads on straight. We’re too poor and practical to do otherwise!

Haha thank you for the links. I think our life is dramatic enough without adding a board full of bridezillas to it. Then again, if he starts in that I’m too high maintenance, then I can show him those boards and tell him to stuff it. :stuck_out_tongue:

Congratulations on your impending nuptuals as well Siege! Please also post a thread about your wedding. I’d love to hear about how wonderful your special day was.

Aww thank you olivesmarch4th! I’m not sure if that’s the dress but I’m about 80% about it. I’ll pick out the veil and possible tiara when I buy the dress. :slight_smile: Like you, I want a dress where I can look at pictures of myself and be sure that I made the right choice of my dress. Plus I’ve been a tomboy for all of my life so for one day, I want to feel beautiful, especially to my guy.

43

That dress is STUNNING! I don’t usually go ga-ga over mainstream wedding dresses, but that one has me drooling.

44

Oooo that’s a great idea! I’ll see if I can work something out with the seamstress who’s going to alter my dress. I’m getting tickled just thinking about it!

I’m glad that Dopers love my possible dress. It could be a sign that this is the one! I’m going with my MoH and my mother to look at the dress again this Saturday. We’ll see if it’s the one!

45

I understand seeing a dress and falling “in love” with it. So far, I’ve proven to have expensive taste.

example #1: $1600
Example #2: $3500+
There are also a number of other dresses which I like a heck of a lot and have no way to really afford or recreate on my own. It’s entirely too bad that I am in lust with pleated silk and taffeta, which are a big pain in the ass to sew. :smack: I’ve more or less decided that finding a formal dress from Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus or even a nice white/ivory bridesmaid’s dress is going to be my solution to the whole issue, as I’m not exactly looking for a black tie ballgown.

Also, although my family is supportive, nobody’s really excited about the fact that I’m getting married because it’s so far away. My mom does think that some of my ideas that I’ve shared are cool (such as doing a beach wedding where everyone can just hang out for a few days), but there’s not a lot of money available, even if my parents wanted to go all out with this. My fiancé’s mom thinks it’s traditional for the groom’s parents to just show up and not contribute to the festivities financially, and was rather quick to mention it to her son when the topic of money came up between them. :rolleyes: (His dad is more likely to make a monetary offer if necessary, and I have a feeling that it’ll happen once we’re further into the planning.) I just don’t know what to think with that, and it does make me worry that a culture clash between families is going to happen with all this wedding planning.

46

$3000, including five days in Vegas with accomodations and plane tickets, meals, entertainment, wedding dress, tuxedo, limousine rental, gambling losses, side trips, shows and a cab to and from the airport.

I wouldn’t do it any other way.

Every couple I have ever known that had a really huge, lavish, expensive wedding regretted it. Without exception, within a few years they expressed dismay and amazement that they had spent money on frivolous shit like silk-ribbon-wrapped menu cards.

Couples that kept the expense to reasonable levels (not necessarily as cheap as ours, of course) always seemed to have just as good a time.

47

I live in a high-rent area for weddings…almost everyone here has sit-down dinners with an open bar, and I wanted to have that kind of a party. It wasn’t super fancy by local standards…the room was at a park district facility, not a banquet hall or hotel…but it still cost I think around $12,000 for 120 guests. That includes the dinner & open bar, the DJ, the photographer, our clothes, etc. I scrimped on everything other than the dinner, so we could afford to do it…was lucky to find a really nice dress off the rack at a discount bridal store, I didn’t get an engagement ring, and took a really inexpensive honeymoon to a national park. But the party was really nice! :slight_smile:

48

When I was shopping around for a wedding dress, I had some great luck trying out weddingdress stores in the “ethnic” part of town. In the Netherlands that meant the Little Turkey part of Amsterdam; in New York it might mean Chinatown of the Indian Quarter.
I found dresses over there to be much more reasonably priced, and they are also much more unapologetically fairy-tale-ish. I went to a regular chic Dutch wedding dress store first, and found it hugely disappointing. In their desire to stock “modern and stylish” dresses, their collection was downright bland. About half of the dresses showed the fashion of that moment, in that they were made from crumpled silk. The variation was that they came in a host of ugly colors. To top it off, the cheapest dresses were three to four times as expensive as my favourite dress in the ethnic store.

49

500 bucks, 50-60 people. Roses, cake, food and dress. My dress looked almost exactly like the one on the left. (So sue me, it was 1974)

50

I believe our wedding five years ago, with 25 people, was $4000. And that was done on the very, very cheap. Your figure of $10,000 for a wedding with 110 people sounds extremely optimistic to me, I’m afraid, Penchan. There are ways to give a party for 110 people without breaking yourselves financially, but you will have to make serious compromises (cold buffet versus hot, served dinner, etc.) At this stage of the planning, I think you need to decide what is absolutely important to you and what can be dropped or drastically altered.

My last piece of advice for you for now is to remember that it’s just a day, and it goes by in a blur. In my opinion, it’s much more important to wake up the day after your wedding and not be $50,000 in debt.

51

I’m a horrible spoiled brat, please don’t hate me.
My parents paid for everything except the band, DJ and tux hire for the groom, ushers and best men, which were paid by my in-laws, and the rings, invitations and honeymoon which were paid for by irishfella and I. We got married 2 years ago when I was in my final year of medical school. It was a big, traditional wedding.

I didn’t think I could deal with the guilt if I knew the exact figure our parents spent, so I only know a ballpark figure. I think was somewhere around £12-15,000 total and we had 110 guests to a sit-down dinner, with 50 more to the evening party (they got “nibbles”). We had a cash bar, 1 bottle of wine per person provided by us.

That figure includes band, DJ, dresses, shoes and accessories for me and my two sisters who were my bridesmaids, tux hire for 6 men, car hire of 2 vintage cars, photographer, food and drink, favours, music (organist, harpist, jazz band and DJ), flowers, venue hire and rooms at a hotel for the bridal party on the night of the wedding.

We saved money by:
Choosing a semi-professional photographer (it worked out well but it was a risk and therefore not for everyone)
Not having an open bar (we’re Irish, the party went on til 6am and my dad would have been bankrupted)
Having church ladies do the church flowers and a florist do the flowers at the reception venue
Using cars from a little old man who keeps vintage cars as a hobby and does weddings as a sideline, rather than using a “wedding car” company
Having the wedding gown, MOB outfit and bridesmaid dresses designed and made by a one of my dad’s clients (who gave us a discount)
Making our own invitations (fiddly, time-consuming and a PITA, but worth it)
My mother made our wedding cake (traditional fruitcake, three tiers, beautiful and delicious!)
Having my mum’s veil as my something Old and Borrowed.

I told my folks to let me know if the budget was getting out of hand and we decided early on what was important to us (ceremony, flowers, food and drink, music, the dress) and what wasn’t (photos, cars, invitations, favours).

We met precisely one photographer, florist and car guy.
I tried on wedding dresses in 2 stores before deciding I wanted my dress made.
We only looked at one venue as we chose a date, and it happened to be open at this place; we saw, we liked, we booked. The hotel we stayed at was just the nearest nice one to the venue.
The music was the hardest to choose.
The invitations was just me mocking up some stuff with MS Publisher, picking the idea I thought looked best, buying the paper, printing it and then spending what felt like years assembling and addressing the invitations.

I’ve promised my parents and in-laws that they’ll be well looked after in their old-age because they really did give us a beautiful day to remember. It wasn’t “perfect”, because nothing in life ever is, but it was a lovely day and a great party and so far the happiest day of my life.

OK…you can hate me now.

52

Congratulations!

We spent around $15,000 for the whole thing in 1993 - I wanted to elope but my husband’s family were traditional Italian so we did the big reception. Our parents split the cost of the food down the middle (around $8,000 for 130 people, open bar) and we paid the rest.

I designed my dress myself and had it made by a seamstress who worked for local wedding dress designers - she took in other work as well. I saved a bundle of money and had exactly the dress I wanted. She also made the bridesmaid’s dresses (we paid for all the outfits for our attendants).

We chose a photographer with a fun style who was willing to do casual shots as well as more posed shots, and paid for full meals for him and his assistant. We didn’t have a video.
We put the “background” music together ourselves, and we had a band, who were great, with an experienced MC. This made things much easier, as he was also bilingual and made all the announcements in English and Italian.

A couple of words of advice -

I would invest in some good spreadsheet software - it’s invaluable to keep track of gifts, addresses, RSVP’s and makes organising the whole lot much easier.
Check out Etiquette Hell (as previously mentioned) - there is a huge amount of good advice available there.

Good luck!

53

As high as some of those figures seem to me, I’m sure the ‘how much was your divorce?’ thread would put this one to shame.

54

See, now that’s the kind of dress that usually makes me gasp! Gorgeous dress, no matter what the decade!

55

We’re getting married on Saturday for about 5000. My dress came from Lane Bryant, on sale. We made the centerpieces and will make the flowers on Friday. We opted for a winter wedding, which saves a ton, and as my mother put it, as much as it might snow in January, there could be a hurricane in July.

We’re paying for it ourselves, but I think it will all be good.

56

We got married this past September and spent about $12,000 for ~80 people.

It was a somewhat atypical wedding planning though. My mother is a sales rep for an event linen rental company so we got the chair covers and special table linen for free. One of her closest clients (a golf/country club) gave us the employee rate on the facility and lowered the “guaranteed revenue” for us. We also did it on a Sunday.

Our floral was done through the local community college’s floral design program. We paid wholesale on the plants plus a $200 “donation” and the class did the work under the supervision of the instructor. They came out beautiful.

The DJ was a normal expense. As was the photographer, dress, tuxes, etc.

Oh, and we spent good time registering for gifts and no one gave us anything but cash. She got stuff off the registery for her shower but the wedding was nothing but cards.

57

I have nothing to add of any real substance since I am not married, but I can tell you in my years I’ve received dozens of invitations to dozens of weddings and have forgotten every single one of them, with the exception of 1… A buddy of mine got married and his invitation said (paraphrased) “We consider ourselves very blessed and not in need of any gifts. However, if you are feeling generous, here are a few charities we believe in. A donation in our name would be the most gracious gift you could offer.”

I was very touched, and that line alone TOTALLY changed my opinion of weddings and “the day”. Those 2 were getting married for each other, not for show or for anyone else. It was a simple wedding performed after a standard church ceremony, and lunch afterwards was provided by the bride and groom at a local restaurant. It was small and cozy and a fantastic memory for me, and I assume, for them. Every other wedding I’ve been to (including the weddings I’ve stood up in) have blended together into a big wedding blur, but that one stands as the most memorable and happy.

You don’t have to spend money to make an impression on people.

58

The first wedding was about $31,000 for everything. About 120 people; white glove service, great food and open bar. One of the biggest financial blunders of my life.

The second wedding was about $1500, but we eloped and that was the cost of the weekend stay following the ceremony.

59

Hey, thank you WhyNot!

My relations are still rolling their eyes that I married in red.

60

Well, there’s a (short but sweet) story that lead us to being married there–the very first words I ever said to NajaHusband, the first time we met, were a quote from The Princess Bride. When, seven years later, we finally got around to getting married, I looked into parks, the local rose garden, a historic orchard, and so on, but kept thinking about that first conversation, and one day called up The Bijou, which is a small art cinema here that started life as a Spanish Mission-style chapel almost a hundred years ago. Anyway, turns out we could rent it for a few hours in the afternoon before the matinée for about $100, and they even threw in the open snack bar for another $50! We showed the movie that started it all, and even brought our dog (wearing a very tasteful black bow-tie).

As far as serving a meal, I don’t really have any ideas about that. We had a really, really great cake made at a little, family-owned Mexican restaurant–people said it was the best cake they’d ever eaten–which we just served on little paper plates from a table set up in the lobby. Everything else was normal movie snacks.
We didn’t want a big (expensive) reception and endless party that we’d have to extricate ourselves from, so we didn’t do a meal. I suppose we’d have had to rent a different space for that if we’d wanted to seat people at tables to eat.

We actually had two separate ceremonies, the next one a week later. The handfasting ceremony at The Bijou was totally planned and paid for by us, up here where we live for all our local friends and co-workers, and was exactly what we wanted, in every single way.
My parents wanted a traditional wedding, which I (and the NajaHub) absolutely had no interest in. They also wanted it held in California, where all my family lives. We split the difference, and instead of a Catholic wedding in a church (we being atheists and all), we had it on the grounds of the local Indian casino in a lovely little secluded spot under a willow tree by a stream. We were married by a superior court judge who is an old friend of the family, and we had a nice Italian meal. My mom owns an antique store, so she brought over all the wooden chairs from her shop to seat people for the ceremony, which sounds bizarre, but looked unbelievably beautiful.
That ceremony was done for around $4000, which my parents paid for, since it’s what they wanted. The two big expenses were renting a banquet/convention room on the grounds near the willow grove, and the meal (pasta, salads, prime rib) at $12/person for just over a hundred people. My mom did all the decorating.
Instead of a “wedding cake” she had a local lady who makes cakes like sculpture pieces make five or six normal-sized cakes in all different flavors that looked like antique pottery–I didn’t know that’s what she had planned, and I didn’t recognize them as cakes until a friend pointed it out to me! Though it was much more a traditional wedding and done entirely for the benefit of my family, it was simple and beautiful, and I’m not sorry we did it. In the end, we had the best of both worlds with the two shindigs.
On the other hand, though the California ceremony is mostly a blur with a few clear snapshots in my mind, I remember just about every detail of the Bijou ceremony. We were delighted with every minute of it.

ETA: Oh, also, count me in–your prospective dress is stunning, and I’m not sure I’ve ever said that about a wedding dress and actually meant it. :wink: