How much is your wedding costing you?

Hey ladies:

Aside from the obvious reasons why we have chosen to have a DW: tropical splendour, warm ocean, white sand, etc. - I am sure that a few of us agree that lower costs are a main reason.

That being said, my FH and I have worked out a conservative budget for our DW...and even with guests paying for their own fares to the DR, our budget is still $12,000.

This may not seem high....but I have heard and read from other brides that their DW costs between $3000 - $5000, with all the trimmings. I am more than interested in how they did this!

Everything we have bought is conservatively priced...even my dress is $500. Included in this cost is our hotel stay at $1500/ pp, DJ fees, photographer, judge fees, luggage, passports, translation at the DR Consulate in our country, his suit, our shoes, my hair, veil, jewellery, favours, our STDs, invitations, postage, etc.

So I am curious if everyone's wedding is carrying a price tag like this one...in which case I will know that we are on the right track...or if we not, we will look at paring it down a bit more.

Looking forward to hearing from you all....

This is more so true for us. We definitely choose destination because it was more affordable for us. We have a budget of $10,000 and that is not counting airfare and accommodations.

I will admit that we didn't thoroughly think through the minor details but it's not costing us too much. We're working with a wedding planner which eases a lot of the work.

We've budgeted about $5000 for airfare, tuxes, rental car, and spending money. We're not paying for accommodations since we're using a vacation home for the ceremony and reception and my family is staying there as well. Since it doubles as somewhere to stay and a venue location we're (me and FI) aren't paying for this, our family is.

So I guess our total is about $15,000, about $2500 of that being spending money.

Another factor is your guest list. My estimated guest list is about 100. If it was less than that I would of easily been about to pull it off with a tighter budget.

I wouldn't pay attention to the overall number because sometimes it doesn't correlate with the same about of guests you might be having.

If we were to have a wedding like this in our area we're looking at easily paying $20,000+ not to mention a bigger guest list. Good Luck!

A tight budget was a big reason we chose to have a DW/Weddingmoon as well, however as the small details keep adding up, we're still looking at approximately $8k total, and that doesn't include our celebration reception upon returning home. The overall cost includes having a mother whose handy with a stitch, so shes making my veil, sash, and gown alterations. DIY invitations (about $100 for 50 not including postage). Minimizing the flowers to only my bouquet and silk rose petals for the aisle (opting for candles on the altar instead of floral arrangements), and making the marriage legal back home at city hall to avoid the added expenses of blood tests and translations. We're doing a burned CD for the ceremony music (in lieu of live performers) and skipping the wedding cake.

The extras we are going for include $830 in photography and $130 for a horse drawn carriage.

Our choice of resort is the largest expense ($3k for 7 nights), however it saved in other areas, including the venue, wedding coordinator, minister, food, and beverages. If we subtract the expenses that would otherwise be deemed "honeymoon," we would only be spending about $3200. Between the size of his family and mine for a semi-formal affair, we'd be looking at a minimum of $8,000 and that wouldn't include a honeymoon at a beautiful all inclusive resort.

Regardless if you have a wedding in your home state or in a far off place, you still have about the same expenses to get ready and you are actually more limited in your options for the extras. The trade off, however, is the opportunity for an amazing venue at a low cost and a smaller group of people to buy dinner and drinks for.

I didn't expect this to be so long....

Anyhow, best of luck with your planning. Remember, this is one of those major landmark events in your life. Make it everything you dream and have a wonderful time!

Hi soon to be wifes

Since Im from Holland and we work with € ( Euro ), my prices are different.

For us means a DW is very expensive. Jamaica is a long trip from home 10 hours flight, and the ticket a rather expensive. It would be so much more cheaper to get married at home, but I always dreamed of a DW. We are taking my closes friends and family with us, so we are with a total of 17.

We decided to pay for my parents, my MIL, and My brother his wife and nephew. So that alone costs us alot of money. We take them with us for 1 week, and when we are married, everybody goes home, and our two more weeks of honeymoon start. When we get home, we also planned a big party to celebrate our marriage with the rest of our closest friend and familie, approx. 150 peeps. We are so lucky that a friend of us, runs a big party restaurant where we are able to celebrate our party at lower costs, and the DJ is also a good friend, so he is giving his services for the night as a wedding gift. For the rest we dont have to much demands, what so ever concerning the decoration and all, we both think the white sandy beach, the blue sky and ocean, are the perfect decoration for our DW, and we don;t want to ruin that with ribbons, covers, saches or flowers, so no extra's there.

My dress was (to my oppinion) kind of expensive €2000.- thats like $2700..

But I got that from my parents,,lucky me..My FI got his suite from his Mom, costs €1100 ( $1500 ) So far our budget is €20.000 ( $27.000 )

I think that is alot of money,,, But all is included, our wedding package, our wedding planner, all extra's we want ( extra champagne for toasting and a special bouquet) My dad is photographer so he makes all the pictures ( saving us lots of $ ) our three weeks honeymoon, and the payment for our family, invitations, wedding reception drinks + food, dj, digital guest book, pre diner of the wedding party for 14 peeps, our night in a honeymoonsuite back home, our taxi fares, and some traveling money for our honeymoon, not so much because we stay all-inclusive and ofcourse the clothing for my 2 brides maids, and our little frodo ( ring kepper, my 2 year old nephew, and not to foget our rings, we designed them ourselves and we brought some old gold we had with sentimental value and made new rings from it. There ar not finished yet, so Im very exited. Well Im sure I'm forgetting some, but all has been arranged, so I dont think we are goint to make more costs..

( I hope ) Or else my FI will pass out

I know that we are probably on the high side of the budgets but ours is about $20,000. This is for everything; travel, 1 week in MX, ceremony, photography, videography, AHR....

BUT around 40% of it is for our photographer; wedding & TTD. I know we could have gone much cheaper but that is the one area FI and I agreed we needed to splurge.

We are hoping not to go over $20,000. This is including my dress, OOT bags, photographer, DJ everything...

So it seems we could ADD to ours...

Our budget is between 15-17000...that includes the week in mexico for the wedding(and everything associated to the actual wedding day) and the honeymoon cruise in the carribean...and that should hopefully cover everything...unless we overdo it on the cruise with booze/excursions/casino...(deadly combo)

We don't have a set budget. I know, I'm breaking rule number 1 of wedding planning. But, our 10 days in Mexico (2 different resorts) is costing almost $5000. Our photography is $1700, our package (the 2nd to cheapest one) is probably going to be about $2500 and then with OOT bag expenses (about $10 or less/bag) and spending money... We're hoping to have it all wrapped up in $10,000-$12,000. We're saving our butts off so it should be paid in full with NO credit cards involved at all, and that's the most inportant thing to us. I wish I could afford more though, there are so many things I would LOVE to do, but just can't justify.

I just added all that up, yeah, it will definitely be about $12000!!! Ha! On a good note, however, our 10 days resort costs are almost paid! :-) WOO HOO!