Realistically Speaking...

Ladies,

I'm very early in my planning stages...4/2/11 seems far but really isn't. I'm just wondering...how you ladies made out...$$-wise. Especially the women with a high guest count. We're expecting possibly 200 -- we're both Jamaican, so most of our family is already down there. My concern is the price for our wedding. I've been reading thru the forum for the last couple days jotting down different quote you guys have received and now I'm saying to myself...how the heck can we pull this off and stay close to our 5K budget? Sorry...just venting here...how much did everything cost you? How many guests did you have?

Thanks in advance!

There are many great threads about budget Chalklit--in the search function, just type in "budget" and you should have a whole host of them to check out!

It all depends on where you have the wedding, if your budget is 5k, I would say an AI is out of the question, unless your guests will all be staying there. Are they already in JA, or traveling down there? There are a lot of factors to consider. I have a lot of family in JA, so I did a ton of research on venues for the same reason. Are you hoping for a full dinner or just apps? I don't mean to be a downer, but I honestly don't see a dinner wedding for 200 happening for 5k. And you know Jamaicans will expect a full dinner, not just apps. Unless maybe you have a morning wedding.

Where in JA are you hoping to have the wedding? If you give some more details, I may be able to help. I personally have a 5k budget, but I am only having 40 or so people.

A lot of guests can make that tricky. My Fiance is Jamaican. I am hoping to get married at Riu Ocho Rios in July 2011. They have a rule, that 80% of your guests must be staying there. I think most of the guests will be my family. I am hoping to put his mom and best man in rooms for the night, so I hope I make my 80%!! Day passes can get expensive!

Here is a thread of other people's budgets: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/f9/budget-933/

The problem with the thread, though, is that it is very hard to tell what the dollar figure that they are quoting includes and what it does not. For example, does your $5K budget include EVERYTHING including your rings, attire, marriage legalities, travel, etc? If it does, I would say you will be VERY hard pressed to host 200 people. I tried to work with a $5K budget to host 60 - 100 people when I started and found that I just couldn't get the price low enough...and I was trying to low ball EVERYTHING. If $5K excludes your travel, attire, rings, and legal fees, then you may have a chance, even at an AI.

The few folks that will be flying in, mostly will be my bridal party and a few friends....possibly 30-40...everyone else will already be in ja.

I'm just getting discouraged with our budget in relation to our guest list...

..thanks for reading

I haven't tried that but I will. Thanks for the tip!!