How are you paying for your wedding?

I need help. We started off small... 50 guests max with a $5k budget. After looking at vendors & venues & writing out a guest list now we're at 75-100 guests (depending on who RSVPs). All in all our budget is rounding out to the tune of $10,000. There is no wiggle room. The photographer, food, alcohol, flowers, wedding & reception locations alone swallowed up $7,300. Our music, cake, invitations, decorations, favors, transportation, officiant, rings, state liscences and attire are soooo very carefully budgeted into the mix at a very frugal $2700. And we haven't even started looking at honeymoon destinations yet.

I can't help but wonder, how do people do it?

How did you (or are you) paying for your wedding?

If you saved... how much did you put away at a time? Did you just put away everything you could or did you have a monthly,weekly, etc savings plan?

We basically just put everything we make toward the wedding. We're very fortunate because both sets of parents have volunteered some money, but we're definitely footing the majority of the bill. We've put a lot of money on our credit card, which we hate doing, but it's better than having $100 in our checking account every week! Haha.

We also started buying like one thing each pay period as far as the details go, very early on. For example, we started to buy ribbon, vases (we're doing our own centerpieces), etc. whenever we see them on sale, and then we check them off our checklist when we've purchased them so as not to overbuy.

I think that's why many couples are engaged for much more than a year ... you need more time to save money now that parents aren't held responsible for footing the bill these days.

If you want a truly formal wedding, you are getting off fairly cheap. You might, however, consider silk flowers instead of real and rent them instead of buying them.

Alcohol is an expense I'd choose to do without, but then my family are not drinkers. Oh, and depending on where you live, there is probably a cheaper reception alternative.

On photography, don't do the wedding video. You won't watch it more than once or twice and it adds $$$ to your package. Unless you plan on fainting at the altar, it won't be entertaining enough for anyone to watch it.

I started my planning a year and half ahead of time and made payment arrangements with the hall which provided the catoring and cake and bar (4 hours) and the DJ was a friend of ours so his services was his gift to us, I made our flower arrangements and favors. We drove ourselves and with everything else I just paced myself.. I priced everything out and when I had x amount of money I would knock a few things off the list.

my wedding was less than $4k and this was for a Catholic wedding with about 150 guests

I started planning two years in advance and I bought a lot of things with a lot of time.
Some of the other things, I made a list with all of my costs and I added it up.
I saved and saved and paid a lot of things the same week of the wedding.

I forgot to add that we received about 1,500 dollars in gifts.
That was going to our honeymoon, however we needed things for the home.
We took our honeymoon two months later.

Good Luck and Congratulations.

i cut deals with the vendors..ask the photographer for a discount if you let him use some of the pics for his advertisements of his work...food depends on what you want to do you can do something like a clambake or something else kinda out of the norm buffett style for your food...you can get cheaper invites..noone really keeps them but your mom and grandmom. music is it a band or dj....ask for discounts and tell them you can be used as a referral about the vendor....you never know unless you ask for it

We just worked and put aside money for the wedding.

You can save a lot by DIY invitations, decorations, favors and flowers. (A friend of mine saved a ton doing this)

For your honeymoon, you can always save and go on one later. We chose a cruise because it was a lot cheaper than picking one place to stay.

From my pocket and fiance's pocket. My mom offered but I said no. She put me through college, that's enough spending for her LOL. My fiance's parents haven't offered but even if they did it would take some pretty good convincing for us to take the money. We've already decided that if we can't do it alone, we won't.

We saved for about a year and a half before the wedding. This meant having $800 directly deposited into a separate savings account (www.ingdirect.com for the best interest rate). We still ended up putting a few things on the American Express (for things I wasn't willing to compromise on), but for the most part, we were able to save up for the entire thing ourselves. (We didn't include the honeymoon in this savings account. That was for the hubby to worry about.)

Don't worry-- you can do it! :-)

Adds up fast, huh?
We paid for our own, a very traditional wedding for 200 guests. Buffet dinner, full open bar - reception was seven hours.
We both were adults, just started saving once we knew we would be married, and just budgeted well over the eight months we were engaged. Total cost was 25k. No honeymoon.

Me and my fiance are cutting a lot of corners. And doing a lot of it our selves. My invitations cost me 20 dollars. I am making the food and we are using Ipods in place of a DJ.

My (now ex) wife and I paid about $10K for our daughter's wedding and we (like you) were very frugal.

I think that's just about right.

We paid for it with cash that we had saved.

Honestly a honeymoon is not a requirement and can be taken at a later date.

You just need to stick with your budget and do not let your guest list grow out of control.

My parents, however we are only spending around 7,000
we payed for our rings 2 years ago, got a 18 months no finance charges so we payed those off. we used our tax returns and gov. rebate checks for our honeymoon

We are paying for ours alone. We have been doing lots of saving.

i paid myself. i save everything i could in a savings account and paid with that. mine was a total of $8,000.

We used some of our tax refunds and then my parents chipped in some....we had about 75-100 guests in Western Maryland for under $5K

very slowly... lol
we started saving, also I got a little kick back from pops! gotta luv daddy's money! lol

We are paying for it ourselves. As soon as I could put money away I did. I do it every pay period. My fiance is putting his money towards his school loans and it will be paid off this December. He will then put money aside for our Aug. 2009 wedding. We are doing our own music.
Do lots of price shopping. See if you can find things on discount. Shop around, go to different stores, check the web. Maybe make things yourself. Remember don't spend to much on favors and decorations. The simplest things can look so elegant. Most party favors end up in the trash. You will have lots left over.
Congrats and good luck!

I got married about 9 months ago and was in an incredibly similar situation. The best thing I did was pick up this random book at a bookstore. It's called Bridal Bargains and you can pick it up for less than $15. The authors guarantee that they will save you at least $500 on your wedding. We were able to save close to $2000 on our wedding thanks to the smart tips in this book. I don't even know these authors, but I love them.
Some quick ways to save: Don't get your wedding dress or bridesmaid dresses at a boutique. Check places like Nordstrom's Rack, their sales are awesome opportunities. On flowers, check out 2G roses (they sell more than just roses). They are a wholesaler in California who will ship anywhere in the country. You can teach yourself how to make a bouquet very easily on the Internet. I got an insane amount of flowers for only $500, spent $30 on the supplies and was done. Just cut little corners where you can and you'll be okay. And an open bar is a bad idea :)

Oh, and since you have to spend some money on the wedding anyway, consider putting it on a credit card that will award you points. That way you can use all those points for a nice, cheap trip later in life.

Saving. Me & my fiance are paying for it on our own, but my parents decided to pay for the dj, hall, & food, which helped a lot. We took out a loan, saved more, and any extra cash we have gets put aside for the 'wedding fund' we've been engaged for 10 months now. Our initial budget was 5000 dollars, but we kept trying to add to it, because it kept getting so low. Things add up. You will need to try to cut costs where possible, and make-your-own on the things that you have the option to, such as invitations, programs, decorations. For Deco, go to orientaltradingcompany.com. They have a lot of wedding things for great prices! Good luck!

I come from a very traditional family. When we got engaged my mother sat us down and said "You're my only daughter. It's my honor to pay for your wedding." and she gave us a budget to work with. My dad (parents are divorced) took us to dinner and unexpectedly offered to cover some of the expenses as well, which is nice. My fiance's family offered to cover the liquor and rehearsal (traditional groom's family items). We took their budgets and made our plans. Any above-and-beyond we are paying for and we are paying for the honeymoon. I must say my parents have been awesome and so have his!

If we were paying for it ourselves we would have had a budget of about $15k for everything which seems pretty decent to me. I would think most people would save during the engagement or if they have a more lucrative career or investments they could afford more. You can do a nice wedding on a small budget, it's all about what you want and how much you can squeeze out of your dollar!

We paid for it ourselves, but were in a somewhat unique situation. I just graduated college, and I had budgeted well my last year, so I had $2,000-$3,000 leftover when I started my job. Instantly, I went from making $500 a month (part time) to $2,000 a month, and my expenses stayed relatively equal. It was easy to save $500+ each month this past year. Now that extra money will go towards my student loans. My husband is a realtor, so does not have a paycheck to save with. However, he used to own his own business, and still has a lot saved up from that. It will go towards a down payment on a house, but he used maybe $5,000 of it for the wedding/honeymoon.

i just farted and there is nothing you can do about it
it smells soooo good.. its lish