It has been a month and a half since my partner dropped to one knee and popped the question, and ever since, we have been planning our wedding with fervour (or, as much fervour as my life will allow right now, which is not much).
See, we wanted to get married in the summer, and his timing left us under a year to plan. I’m not complaining, since I probably would have wasted any time before this anyway. Procrastination.
So far, I’ve been able to write a couple of wedding posts, but none about our specific situation:
Wedding Gift Tips and Tricks
How to Save on a Wedding
Why a Courthouse Wedding is Not for Me
After some wedding venue drama from last week, I was ready to start re-considering that last one.
In any case, as I am sure the oodles of personal finance and lifestyle bloggers getting engaged and hitched over the past little while will tell you, wedding planning is fun in theory but not in action.
There are so many considerations, and so many ways to unintentionally hurt people’s feelings. I am surprised that any couple gets out of the planning stage of their lives with all of their friends and family members still (let alone all of their hair).
I’ve never wanted to spend a ton of money on my wedding. I’m just not into starting my life as a newlywed with debt. Other than our mortgage, we’ve never had debt together, so why start when we’re married?
However, there are a thousand costs to a traditional western wedding, especially if you don’t do a destination wedding. I have always been adamantly against destination weddings because they alienate so many people.
Here’s what we’ve spent so far, and what we will be spending in the coming months:
Caterer
Since our wedding is coming up fairly soon, we have put the deposit on the caterer that we chose. The deposit was only $300, which isn’t too bad for a deposit. We don’t know yet how many guests will bless us with their company, but we are trying to keep it under 100.
The caterer we booked was, unlike many of the other food vendors that we researched, very well priced and the menus provided were exactly on point with what we have wanted.
Venue
We originally set the wedding date for a week before our current date, because it just so happened that the caterer and venue were both free that week.
We had a lot of drama with our venue over the past week, because they changed management and the new manager didn’t see that we had reserved our date. As a result, she double booked us.
Luckily, our caterer had a cancellation for the weekend after, so we were able to line it up, but not without a whole bunch of undue stress.
The venue is perfect and I’ve always dreamed of being married there, so I’m glad it worked out. $400 later, and we have our wedding date set in stone. We’ll be paying the rest later on, as this particular venue charges per guest and we will have to finalize our guest list.
Photographers
Even though the wedding is months away, when we first started reaching out to photographers, we noticed that an alarming amount of them were already booked for our date.
We have been searching high and low for a photographer that takes the style of photos that we want, that is available on our date and that isn’t outrageously expensive.
We’d rather spend more on the photographer and save on things like the center pieces, but there’s no way we’re willing to spend $4,000 on a photographer.
What did you splurge on for your wedding? Is there anything you’d wished you’d spent more or less money on?
If you signed your contract with the venue first, you should not have been the one to move your date! I hope they made some sort of concession or discount…that is a pretty awful screw up in a business all about creating a couple’s most important day! We were most concerned about the food and the photography. My dream dress was only $400 (thank goodness because I had to leave it behind when we moved cross country). We wanted to keep it as small as possible. With two big families we still ended up with 100. One of THE best days of my life…the births of my girls are the other two!
I guess their deposit got there first. It was a whole big mess. They did give us 15% off though, which is great. And WOW – That’s amazing! $400 dress is great.
Congratulations for regarding your wedding the practical way and wanting to start positively, financially speaking. I also don’t see the point in spending so much on lavish wedding only to start family life in such a struggle.
It’s crazy to me. It’s just ONE DAY! But my attitude about it is less than typical.
Hi Daisy, what exciting times! We used a student from a local university as our photographer. He got some really artistic shots. Truth be told, we never look at our photographs!
I’ve heard a few people recommend using a student. Good idea. I’ll look into that. Most people don’t really look at wedding photos.
First off, congrats on getting married! I just got married this summer, and after planning it all myself, I can definitely say it was no picnic. For splurges, I definitely went all out when it came to buying the right dress – it ended up being about 20% of our $4,500 budget. I don’t regret it at all though, it was the perfect dress and I’m going to sell it this winter to recoup some of the cost.
Thanks Jordann! We’re excited. I have a lot of help with planning from my mom, which is a huge relief! I haven’t even started dress shopping – I’d like to hear more about how you kept to a budget that low!
The photographer is tricky because you want the pics to be awesome, but they charge a fortune! I’d suggest checking your facebook newsfeed to look for friends or old acquaintances who’ve gotten into photography, whose work you like, and who might be able to cut you a deal.
After you mentioned that, I did just that – there are a lot of great photographers out there, hopefully we can narrow it down.
I wish we took all the money, every penny, we spent on the wedding and put it toward 10 more days of our honeymoon. The actual wedding day is nothing more than cosmetics compared to what we built afterwords. We are having too much fun to look at the photos or watch old videos. We are very different people and a very different couple than we were in 1997. Have a fun day!!!
I hear you. I have a huge, incredibly close family and it’s hard to explain just how important it is to me for everyone to get together in my family, meet (or get to know) J better, and share in the special day. If I didn’t have a big and close family, I’d be the first one to hop on a plane and save the money for travel!
We splurged on the venue, but in securing the outdoor venue we wanted we seriously cut down on other costs. The venue itself served as most of the decor, and with it being outside it felt like it was easier to get away with using flowers sparingly (we didn’t even have to use a florist, we did most of it ourselves). I do wish we had been more picky about our photographer. For what we spent, I was disappointed in the results.. and that’s one area I feel like you don’t want to mess up on! All you’ll have after the day of is your memories and your pictures – so really be careful with your photographer decision.
Our venue is outdoors too, so save for some lights for the reception, some flowers and just a few casual center pieces, I think we’ll be able to save a lot on decor. I’ve heard that advice a lot. WE are heavily screening!
So glad you have a few things ticked off your list! I know totally know how stressful it is to wedding plan so my big tip is try not to make a bunch of decor and crafts right before the wedding. I never want to see Michael’s again.
HAHA – I am not a crafter so this part will be tough for me. Hopefully we can get things done a bit in advance!
It is so crazy how much more expensive things are when you add the word “wedding” to anything! DJ’s, venues, caterers – everything!
So true – if I were hiring a DJ for a party, it would be a lot cheaper! We’re saving on a DJ and not having one.
I heard photographers can cost a fortune! I guess one way to save is to get up and coming photographers who want to build a portfolio and give them a chance. have them take some engagement photos of the two of you so you can try them out make the decision afterwards.
They surely can! Definitely a good idea, but now we’re struggling with where to find people who want to build their portfolios – haha.
First of all, congratulations. It seemed like you everything is pretty much covered. There are really a lot of things to do and expenses to be paid in a wedding. It’s not really that easy but it will all be worth it. We tend to spend a huge amount when it comes to our wedding because it is definitely one of the best moments in our life but i do believe, we really don’t have to spend a big amount of fortune. Anyway, the photographer’s fee is really something. I think it’s really expensive. You can probably find a cheaper one.
I was blown away at the prices of some photographers. I had to re-adjust my photographer budget when I saw that even the “lower priced” people were still coming in around $3k. Some out there are upwards of $6k! Like you, I have no desire to spend lots of money on a wedding. I just want fun with my friends and family.
We went with a restaurant, so venue + caterer combined. Plus that keeps the food costs down (no upsell for a wedding)
I’m with you on this planning stuff. Stressful, and all these things I didn’t think I had to consider. Don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, either.
Good luck!
Your right, photographers are really pricy now and yuo cant just settle on amateurs to capture this special event of yours, right? urg! Weddings! It can make you crazy sometimes!
When it comes to planning your wedding, you really don’t have much until you have your venue. Almost everything depends on it: The date, the size, the flowers, the budget—even the dress!