Advice-how to pay for wedding?

[bumbles]

When I was little, just daydreaming with friends about our spectacular weddings one thought that certainly did not come to mind was "who's paying?" lol

[beachbride08]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oscar_Ernie To all of you out there who are paying for your wedding by yourselves... WHERE DID YOU COME UP WITH THE MONEY?! Have you been saving for awhile? Picked up extra jobs? Somehow cut back in other areas of your life? Going into and/or adding to debt? When we first started talking about a DW (which, will definitely be cheaper then if we stayed home, well, the way we're going to do it anyway) we figured we could swing it for next summer. But now that we've looked into it more seriously, it's still going to cost some money that we don't have. I think we're going to have to wait an extra year in order to save the money Anyone have any advice or tips? How are all of you swinging it? Money doesn't grow on trees *sigh*

We are paying for 100% of our wedding on our own. I moved in with my FI a year before we got engaged since we were both renting, and I was always staying at his place anyway since it was closer to where I was working. I sacrificed living in a bigger place to save on rent. I was able to take care of my debt that first year and actually start saving money for once! I was able to save about $1K/mo after we got engaged. We stopped going out as much , and any shopping I did or do are mostly for wedding related purchases. I started clipping coupons for groceries and only buying what we need (I used to over buy and then throw most of the food away). Throughout the whole planning process I bargain shopped for everything! I picked out my dress, but didn't buy it until Thanksgiving weekend when they had a sale, I also ended up getting my headpiece for free. I found the BM dresses on clearance on Ann Taylor ( i was buying the dresses for them and had budgeted $150 per dress) for $30! I ended up going the DIY route for STD, invitations and am now working on programs. I bought some OOT bag items and veil from BDW girls, and also sold some of my extra DIY items on here. I bookmarked sites that had sand ceremony sets, raffia fans, and other wedding related items that I wanted. I just stalked the sites until they went on sale and then purchased them. It is really easy to get caught up in buying something as soon as you see it, but if you wait (and have the time to wait) eventually you can get a deal on everything or free shipping. Every little bit helps.

We did go over budget with booking an outside photographer so we might not have enough cash to cover the entire wedding. We will probably need to put some of it on a credit card, but we will be able to pay it off pretty quickly when we get home since what I was saving can just go to the cc bill. We also hope to get some money from the wedding (FI's parents said they are giving us money for a wedding gift), but we are not counting on it.

FI and I both considered getting second jobs just in case we needed extra money, but I'm glad that we didn't. We both work a lot of hours as it is, and if I had to work on the weekends our house would always be a mess and I wouldn't have had time to do all the DIY projects and get to spend time as much time with my friends and family as I have this year. We will be moving out of state in a few months so that quality time was really important to me.

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My fiance and I had the same thought that it would cost less to have a DW wedding - so wrong! He had budgeted for a $10K wedding, but of course I went over the budget. I lost count already, but I think we've spent about $25-30K give or take a few hundred (still a couple of weeks to finalize). We started planning this since last November and I find it very helpful and stressfree to have a wedding coordinator. They basically handle the big stuff like location, reception, flowers, music, food, cake, drinks, lighting - basically everything you need for a wedding. The cost is broken up into payments which we paid with a credit card that accummulate points. We've exchanged our points for four round trip plane tickets which would of cost us at least $1500. Other costs that we needed to handle was our attire, make-up and hair for the bride, and attire for your bridesmaid(bm), groomsmen(gm), flower girls, ring bearer, and whatever you can think of or want. Cost does add up, but I find that the cost mainly came from the number of guests which was about $300/person. We basically choosed our guest wisely like who has really been instrumental in our lives....mainly our parents, kids, and brother, sisters, and a couple close friends.

 

So, the question is where do we get the money? We basically budgeted a monthly payment of $3000/month and when we have extra, we just send more to the wedding coordinator. We went over budget, but that's because I wanted certain things like flying a photographer over there instead of hiring one that's recommended by the coordinator. If you're really on a tight budget, I suggest sticking with the basics (no need to BM and GM) and keep the guest list small.

[BarbaraBusybee]

nice

[LauraM]

SLOWLY! Paying for things as they come up - 2k here, couple hundred there, etc. Trying to space things out and pay as we go.

[mysticjade]

When I was little, just daydreaming with friends about our spectacular weddings one thought that certainly did not come to mind was "who's paying?" lol

 

Funny story, the moment I started working full time at 24, my mother told me to start saving for 1) a house and 2) my wedding. Which I did! I'm 32 now and while a lot of my savings did go towards buying a house last year, I still have a good $21K saved up because I am an aggressive saver.

 

Which is also coming in handy because I've suddenly had a lot of expensive car problems/health problems in addition to the wedding costs... I'm totally thanking my past-self for creating this great buffer of savings!

 

My FH and I are paying for the wedding ourselves, even though my parents and his offered to help us out. But the wedding is still almost a year away, so we'll have to wait and see how the finances play themselves out.

Edited July 4, 2014 by mysticjade

[Tatimrivera]

We have completed lots of research throughout the years (approx. 4 in total) and chose the best bang for our buck that we truly would enjoy. We then made a realistic budget on what everything would cost and of course have had to cut things out of the wedding (but nothing we found necessary). All together including our daughters stay our budget is $14,000.00. But so far we are well below this lol

[candle23]

We originally thought that a budget of about $10,000 would be good, FI's parents decided to pay for our trip so that helps out so so much! We were pretty shocked about it in the beginning! But looking at it now, we will have at least 80 people attending so that alone at least doubles the cost of the reception. We still know that the DW will be much more reasonable than having a wedding at home tough! In the end, I think we will be closer to $15,000 with all costs in.

[TinkerSofi]

we are really struggling to stay under $15000. I guess I want a really pretty wedding but I still want to keep it under budget, so something's gotta give haha. My parents are helping out a lot, they paid for my dress and they're paying for the photographer. I'm still trying to keep it at $15000 total no matter what, even if we don't pay for everything. 

 

We're basically setting aside money each month for the big ticket items like the trips, the wedding itself and videographer. Everything else that I'm bringing from here I try to buy month to month so that it doesn't seem like so much. I'm always looking out for the next coupon and doing as much DIY as I can. I also try to borrow supplies that I'll only use once from friends who already have them, like an embossing machine, etc. I check e-bay and kijiji once in a while to find deals here and there. It's still all adding up pretty quickly though. 

[red400]

we saved and cutback and refunds help a lot.