No offense intended to the similarly-titled thread. My fiance and I have decided to go the semi-formal route, and I’d love to hear how your more-formal-than-casual wedding went, what you had and didn’t have, how many guests, and most importantly – how much you spent. We’ve got a budget in mind, but I don’t know how realistic we’re being. So – let’s hear it!
I was going to reply to the cheap wedding thread, but ours was not cheap. It was somewhat inexpensive. Good thread! 
gooti and I just got married on Oct 25th.
Here’s a rough breakdown of our numbers:
We had 73 guests.
•A family friend did catering and we had a buffet. $1400
•14 cases of beer and 6 cases of wine. $650
•We had a friend (actually, she’s a server at a bar where we are regulars) tend bar, along with her roommate. They worked for tips (and did quite well) and I gave them $50 at the end of the night.
•We had our service and reception in an Episcopal church (god bless their liberal views on drinking and loud music) The preacher’s fee, the cleanup fee and the space rental all totaled about $600
•gooti’s mom made her dress. $100 for materials. It was fantastic and the fact that her mom made it was special to her.
•My tux rental was free because I had 4 other guys in my party renting tuxes. Most formal places give the groom his for free with a party.
•No DJ. I brought my receiver and two fairly powerful bookshelf speakers. My portable CD player plays MP3s, so I just brought a Sinatra disc to play during dinner and then put about 150 MP3s of party music on shuffle. Good to go for 4 hours.
•No Photographer fees. I am lucky to know the people I do, one friend who has done weddings before professionally did ours in black and white film as her present to us, and another friend I work with has a mack-tastic digital camera (he’s spent about $5k on the camera and lenses and the such). So we had digital covered, we can get those color printed as large as 8x10.
•Cake from Publix, $250 delivered 3 hours before the service. As opposed to $600 or 800 from a “wedding cake” place. The cake was good!
• Through word of mouth we found a semi-professional florist who did all the center pieces and corsaige and bouteneers (I’m sure those are spelled very wrong) for $500.
Other random expenses for rings, decorating, favors, gifts for the bridal party, etc, etc, etc…
I think we wound up spending in the neighborhood of $5500. I got compliments all around and everyone had a blast.
Shoot me an email if you have any questions or want to see some pics.
Good luck!
Mid range weddings or weddings not on a Saturday can run from $3,000 - $8,000 for the hotel portion alone. That leaves the invites, dress, flowers, music and photographer still to be worked out.
You’d be hard pressed to do a mid range wedding at a hotel for under $10,000 total. VFW or non conventional wedding place, $6,000 - $8,000
Although, there’s always Antibride
Ours was somewhat formal but we made sure that in no way took away from the joy and celebration we wanted everyone to share with us. Formal doesn’t have to mean stuffy.
Also, having a more expensive wedding didn’t make it any more special that if we’d spent a thousand bucks. It’s all in the people you share it with and the happiness you exude. This was the way my wife wanted it and we had a blast.
It was at a very nice resort in Colorado Springs and we had either 325 or 375 guests… I can’t remember which. Open bar, excellent live band, nice dinner, ice sculptures, flowers everywhere, rooms for all the wedding party, etc. The price? I honestly don’t exactly know but my guess would be somewhere between 40 and 60. Someone might say “Boy, I would have spent that differently.” They’re right about just one thing… the “they” part.
It was a blast we’ll never forget.
Budget – $3000 … Saturday Wedding – 100 guests
- $700 Dress - and I looked FABulous, thankyewverymuch
- $200 Cake, mints, nuts - No grooms cake - Italian Cream Cake
- $600 Church, organizer, servers and organist
- $800 Flowers - no greenery or ferns
- $300 Fabric and patterns for bridesmaids (4)
- $400 Photographer… discounted cause my mom did his taxes
- $0 Music - DJ Friend made a loop mix and it played at the reception (still at church, so no dancing)
Food? Where’s the food, you ask? When people asked what we wanted as a gift, we asked that they bring food to the reception. Fingerfood was brought in by anyone who wanted to bring something. It was great - typical southern mingled with southwestern (Hubby’s from New Mexico). Coolest was my uncle bringing a spiral sliced ham and 300 hot biscuits. Or my sister-in-law’s tortilla pinwheels. My mom made the same punch that had been used at her wedding. No one had to overwork or worry. And everyone really liked contributing, it made them feel needed. Besides, we’ve never been the kind of people that stand on ceremony. 
I should dig out my wedding files to give you an accurate total, but I believe that we spent around $12,000 for a wedding with 85 guests (we’d planned for 100, though). We were married in downtown Seattle, so depending on where you are (Chicago?), costs will vary significantly. It also depends on what’s most important to you. We splurged on food, while our friends splurged on photography at their wedding. Different strokes, you know?
Invitiations: $500. We made our own, but even paper, ribbon and envelopes can add up quickly.
Church: $700 for sanctuary, organist and coordinator
Reception at Science Center: $1,500 for the space, which adjoined and included use of the butterfly house. We still get comments on how cool that was, so don’t feel you have to be in a hotel to make your reception classy and fun.
Single-use liquor license: $80
Catering: $5,000 for McCormick & Schmick (seafood primarily). We did food stations, mainly appetizers, but also pastas, breads and fruit. Seriously, this was the biggest expense for us, but we LOVE food and wanted it to really rock at the reception. And it did.
Beer and Wine: $1,000. We supplied this ourselves, but had to pay a cork fee to the caterers so that it could be served.
Photography: $550
DJ: $300
My dress: $750
Tuxes for the men: This I don’t remember the cost of, let’s say a few hundred.
Bridesmaid’s gifts: $240
Groomsmen’s gifts: $300
Flower girl / candle-lighter gifts: $100
What we did ourselves or skipped:
Flowers were all done my a friend of my aunt. She was SO AWESOME, and did all that work as a gift to us.
We did not have a cake. Instead, my sister and mom slaved away to make 120 black-bottom cupcakes, my favorite dessert ever. We stacked them in tiers to resemble a cake. They were a hit, but unfortunately, they were out with the food so people helped themselves and there was some consternation when we did the formal “cake cutting”, which was just Pat and I feeding each other a bite of cupcake.
Centerpieces: We made our own with wreath structures, dried flowers and ribbons, and brought over the flowers from the church.
Favors: I made soaps for everyone and wrapped them in tulle. This did cost a bit of money, nut not prohibitive.
Our wedding was a blast. Three years later, I still get comments that ours was one of the most fun anyone had been to. Yay!
Our wedding was semi-formal, held at our church on a Saturday afternoon. I think our total expenditure was about 3000 dollars (paid for by my wonderful parents, God bless 'em)
[ul]
[li] my wardrobe (dress, shoes veil, garter, crenoline) - $800[/li][li] invitations, thank you notes, and printed napkins for reception - $120[/li][li] flowers - $927[/li][li] photographer - $800[/li][li] reception (finger foods for about 200) - about $350. We managed this because a) we didn’t serve alcohol and b) the catering was done as a gift by a friend of my mother’s. She used a lot of decorations that she already had, and she bought the food (mints, nuts, melon basket, pastry cups filled with chicken salad, chips and dip, chocolate dipped strawberries, and punch) at Sam’s. The reception was FABULOUS. [/li][li] wedding cake and groom’s cake - gifts from my husband’s great aunt. She loves baking cakes and did a wonderful job.[/li][li] gifts for wedding party - about 100 - 150 dollars.[/li][li] wedding programs - designed them ourselves on hubby’s computer, had them printed at Kinko’s for about 50 dollars[/li][/ul]
The officiant was a friend and did his part for free; same thing for all the musicians and singers. We were members of the church and held the reception in the fellowship hall, so THAT was free, too. It really was a beautiful wedding, and we were fortunate in the generosity of our friends and family.
I had a semi-formal wedding that was, all-told, inexpensive, but I’m posting here because one part of it was done more like you’d do it for an expensive wedding: the food. Rather than a ‘reception,’ we took our guests to one of the nicer restaurants in town. They printed a special menu for us featuring several of their nicer entrees as choices. Each guest got one. Dinner and drinks were, of course, on us.
I gotta say, I don’t regret a dime of that money. I mean, that’s what I’ve always loved to do with friends (go out to dinner and have a great meal) and I felt like it was money well-spent. I’ve never been to a truly sumptuous wedding dinner before. I mean, I’m sure they’ve been done (I just don’t run with the right crowd, heh), but it’s hard to do a large sit-down dinner well. Having only 30 people allowed us to do it this way.
Saturday wedding in a very pretty park:
Park fee, $25
Cake $125 (baked by a lady my step-mom knew–very pretty)
Various nuts and candies and stuff and punch–probably $30-40
My dress $400 (my parents split the cost)
Other parts of my wedding ensemble, $200, which I paid myself
My bridesmaid’s dress $30 for materials, her mom made it
Tuxes, dunno, couple hundred?
Music was free, my best friend (and bridesmaid) recorded music
Photography $200 for film, time, and developing to a friend
Favors I don’t remember, but it wasn’t much
Flowers $250–my sister-in-law works for the florist and I got a deal–and everything was real pink roses
Minister–free–hubby paid him and he gave it back to me What a sweet man
No rehearsal dinner, no dj, no meal
What we had was a beautiful, gorgeous outdoor-in-a-beautiful-place, perfect weather, lots of loved ones kind of wedding.
Thanks so much, everyone! I guess it’s a matter of what’s most important to us – we’re still working on figuring that out, because we have such different ideas of what we’d like this to be (he’s much more traditional than I).
Beadalin, I think we’re aiming for the $12-15,000 arena, so your breakdown was super-helpful. Science Center?! COOL! I’d love to do that, but the major museums here are pricey.
Gundy, I thought for sure you’d get married at Wrigley.
That’s where she’s getting buried. (Cue the Cub fan’s lament song…)
I looked into it, lieu. It’s a no-go…but if I win the lottery you can bet your britches we’ll be there.
I should also say, there is one thing we’ve decided on: the favors are going to be baseballs wrapped in tulle.
If that’s the case, the best man better have a good toast, or I can see him getting beaned by Gundy’s best fastball.
“And at the bachelor party there was this stripper named Candy Dawn…” <BONK!>
Heh. “…so anyway, she had her leg wrapped around…” THUNK.
Gundy, I don’t have time now from work to post a more detailed reply, but wanted to recommend going to theknot.com. They have all kinds of great resources there, including a budget planner! Also, if you can be flexible with your date, discuss discounts with the venues you’d most like to have it at. Call the museums and ask them when they have the hardest time selling their wedding services and how much of a discount they’d be willing to give you for booking at an “odd” time (for instance, if you can make it a long weekend and get married on a Monday, or perhaps a Friday morning instead of Friday night). We got our venue (which included the ceremony fee and catering) for less than half price because we picked a holiday weekend that was still unbooked 6 weeks away.
I’ll come back and post more later…
(P.S. Congratulations and Best Wishes on your engagement!!)
Hey, Gundy,
I’m also planning a wedding - ours is budgeting around $17-18K, and you CAN have a wedding for less - but in my family, weddings are family reunions and I’m having a blow-out for my family - I want them to have a wonderful time. If it weren’t for that, we would have done a $2K trip to Vegas and a small wedding.
If you’re okay with placing orders over the internet and they carry the dress you like, try Bridesave.com for your dress. I didn’t get my dress there because they didn’t carry it, but I know several women who have and they’ve had a great experience and saved several hundred dollars.
Also, shop around. The catering is what’s kicking my budget straight to hell, but only because we’re required to go with them due to our location (but I know the food will be good because they also catered my brother’s wedding in June). So I’m trying to save elsewhere. I’ve found a local independent florist who specializes in weddings who I THOUGHT would be ridiculously expensive because she has beautiful work, but her proposal is actually coming in $300-400 less than other, more well-known florists - and her work is my favorite. So someone you think MIGHT be too expensive might NOT be. As far as museums, ask. I was in love with the idea of getting married at a children’s history museum here and assumed it would be a ridiculously expensive venture - but it’s actually not a bad price at all. So we’re having the wedding there.
I’ve been told not to skimp on photography, but that’s one place I AM saving money because I have a friend who is a beautiful photographer - and she’s just getting started doing weddings. She’s already done one and may do another before mine, but the photos she took at the first one are amazing (and I’ve seen enough of her other work to know how good she is, too). So I’m saving $2-3K on photography and putting part of that towards a videographer (although I’m still saving a lot on both). As far as the cake goes, I’m looking at local bakeries, but my brother also has a friend who’s a pastry chef and is trying to get into the wedding cake business, so I’m going to talk to her. She may be able to make our ‘designer’ cake that we can’t afford with a regular bakery for way under our budgeted cost. Never underestimate the possibility of friends.
Seriously - I recommended this in the thread, but Bridal Bargains is an excellent book. I can’t remember the author, but it’s on Amazon.
Good luck! I’m having a lot of fun planning our wedding, but it’s a lot more stress than I ever expected, too.
Ava
I’m so glad it was helpful! I should have mentioned that we hired the photographer for the church only, so she was there to take pictures of the getting-ready, posed with family, and there ceremony itself, but not the reception. That cut down the cost quite a bit, and we put out disposable cameras on the reception tables and got some really great shots (kids take the coolest pictures, I swear).
As for reception sites, I feel really grateful that I got a neat, unusual one for that price. It helps that the Science Center has 5 main buildings plus a couple others. Three of them were booked, but the one I got led to a neat butterfly theme for the wedding.
When I was looking for reception sites, I also checked into historic mansions, chartered boats, the aquarium (booked-- it was my first choice, though!), landmark-type buildings (The Space Needle was HUGELY expensive, but some other ones were in the running), and small but classy theaters (as in plays, not movies). If you’re open to serendipity, there are some really cool possibilities that will emerge.
I know you’ll have fun. Good luck!
Our wedding was pretty casual–Bill and I did wear formal wedding attire, and asked the guests to dress up for the ceremony, but they could change into something more comfy for the reception, which was on a boat. We spent just over $5K, so your budget is probably pretty realistic for a more formal do. It was an early afternoon wedding, so we served finger foods rather than a meal. We saved money by getting deli trays from Publix–though we got the Boar’s Head ones, so the food was damn good, and got many compliments–and the cake and flowers from Albertson’s–both of which were gorgeous and likewise got compliments.
You’ve got the right idea that you should decide what’s really important and do away with stuff that isn’t. I doubt you’re the type to get intimidated by the bridal magazines’ “You HAVE to have this and this and this!” But do get one of the magazines, just so you can laugh at it.