What do you consider a reasonable budget for a wedding? ALL Inclusive?
Doesnt include a honeymoon tho ...
We agree that $30k should be enough to cover us.
What was your budget? Did you spend over or manage to come under budget?
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Wedding Budget
What do you consider a reasonable budget for a wedding? ALL Inclusive?
Doesnt include a honeymoon tho ...
We agree that $30k should be enough to cover us.
What was your budget? Did you spend over or manage to come under budget?
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Wedding Budget
Not going to be much of a help to you as we want a teeny tiny wedding...budget of ohh, I don't know, $500? Lol. Will be interested to hear from others though
Me too PZ! Gosh we can barely afford $500 ROFL
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My first planned wedding (never happened though lol) we had a $40k budget - and that was splurging.
Last year when DH and I got married we only had a small wedding, but didn't skimp on saving money either - for a wedding, reception for 20 adults total cost would have ended up about $6K.
I would think $30K to certainly be a good budget - depends on how many guests you want and what sort of theme you're after :-)
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Our wedding was around $5000.
I think it depends on what you do. We married in a church, knew the owner of the cars, had the cake made as a gift, had family cater & hired the local shire hall for the reception.
Prices I remember...
Church - $100 donation
Hall/reception venue - $250 for whole weekend. $200 deposit on top, but included all tables & chairs, full kitchen, bar & coolroom.
Cars - $0 Dad's mate owns a LJ Torana & FJ Holden, so we asked him & another friend of his to drive, than had other close friends with beautiful Harley's to lead as well.
Food - approx $500. Mum & family friends did our catering.
Alcohol - approx $1000. FIL made a deal with their regular bottle shop. We had xxxx gold available (mid strength), a bottle of wine for each table for toasts, & fruit punch. Anything else we let people know there was a pub across the road for takeaways if they preferred.
Cake - $0 family friend made ours for us as a gift.
Dress - $300 I just wore a white Formal dress, instead of a proper wedding dress. If I could thats the only thing I'd change. Just for something more special, but I was happy with it
Suits - $100 from Lowes, $25 shirts from Target & $20 ties from Lowes
Bridesmaids - $30 knee length halter dresses from Target.
Shoes - $25 us girls all wore the same. Sandles from Payless shoes.
Flower girls - $30 dress's from Target, $20 shoes from Payless shoes.
Flowers - $145. Fake ones off ebay, very happy with them though
Decorations - a few hundred $$. We used hurricane lanterns from Clints, with frangipani shaped flowers off ebay, black fish tank pebbles, on a tray from clints with frangi's on it as table decorations. Then some fairy lights, ribbon, & some frangi's on wire off ebay.
Photographer - we were really lucky here. My pop is a photographer & DH worked with one at the time. Both did it as a gift to us, which meant alot.
We also bought silver disposable camera's for each table from ebay. They were 12 for $35.http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pi...id=39285541028
We didn't have the classiest wedding....we aren't the classiest people, lol, but everyone had a great time & they all still tell me 4 years later that it was the best wedding they've ever been too!
Here's a link to some pics on FB if you want a look. Can't remember if we're friends or not!
Oh & we had about 80 - 100 people there
ETA - sorry about where the link is....BB doesn't like me much once I fill the reply box. I cen never get back to the bottom of the post for some reason!
Last edited by ~clover~; June 14th, 2010 at 08:18 PM.
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Our entire wedding cost us around $25K. We didn't skimp on anything but it wasn't an elobrate affair. We had a reception for 100 people (although 10 pulled out on the day, GGGRRR!!!), $2500 on the bar, and paid for everything for the 2 bridesmaids and groomsmen. I would definitely start pricing things before you set your budget. And don't forget to allow a bit extra for incidientals that always pop up.
Have fun planning. I loved planning ours and would do it again in a heart beat.
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I will definately start pricing before really 'setting' a budget
I dont know if we are going to get out of the reception cost with all the people that will be coming, we already know the venue and the church
I will start pricing things and am planning on going to the bridal expo this weekend. Should be interesting.
Some of the weddings sound so cool, thanks for sharing girls
It will take alot of planning tho
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Wedding Budget
Lol rhyb we probably won't even spend that. I have a dress, it's cute. I have a ring, hand me down from my nonna. Df came from a rich family and has suits. We just need a ring for df, and the $250 for the registry lol. The rest for a do' for everyone afterwards. Simple. The day itself only needs two things, df and myself. Nae, what are you planning, I'd love to know
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I spent about $3K all up including dresses, accommodation, 80 ppl for dinner, and drinks.
My sister spent, (my guess anyway) enough to pay off my mortgage, and I live in Blackburn...
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Ours was under $5000, not sure how much though, but still under. The honeymoon was about $2500.
Would love to renew our vows, and do it all even cheaper!
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i agree withthe other girls here. it is possible not to spend a zillion and still have a lovely wedding.
All up we spend about $12000 on our wedding of 60 guests in tasmania.
I bought a dress off the rack (okay, i had a fancy one ordered but they monumentally stuffed it up and i only saw the disaster 2 mnths out from the wedding, so not enough time for a remake) that cost $160 (and still love it).
bridesmaids dresses off the rack from myer - ****tail, $140 each and goregous.
guys hired suits
we didn't do the car thing and just used my parent's hire car with a bit of ribbon as we aren't car people. we only had 2 cars and everyone piled in whereever but our reception was 500m from our ceremony.
married on the family farm, in the garden. also had pics there.
honeymooned locally.
made table runners, used my sister's centre pieces. kept flowers simple. had 2 large arrangements at ceremony which then went inot reception place. didnt' throw a bouquet - there was really only 2 or 3 single girls anyway and not my thing.
the biggest expense was the reception. we got a place that did $35 a head and my parents paid for that. kept it to beer/wine only. also it was such a nice restaurant that we didn'rt have to spend heaps to do it up. just used their bridal table draping etc.
you could also have a friend do your hair/makeup but it is nice to get pampered.
if you just keep to the basics its fun and easy. also the favours - keep it local ie we did chococlate from the local choc factory and it was a hit. Place cards we made ourselves. Invites we made ourselves all really easy it just takes time.
i really believe that if you are able to put in a little bit of time, do a bit of research you don't need to spend heaps and there's lots of things you can make yourself.
also our guest book was one of those photo and quote books called "love". it has great pics of couples in different loving situations ie cuddling, talking, kissing, holding hands and quotes. we asked guests to pick a page and write a message for us... we love it, worked so well.
also you will pay a bomb for prof photographers. consider calling your local newspaper and see if one of the snappers moonlights on the side. they will often do cash in hand and give you the whole lot of pics - you print what you want/need etc.
hope you find a happy medium.
i think 30K is definitely enough but it depends on how many guests and how many 'extras' you want/need.
have you thought about doing a ****tail reception rather than a full sit down meal?
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oh gosh
My ring approx 7K DP's not too sure yet (he will be getting a 'mangagement ring'. Wedding bands around the $500 each
200 Guests (Possibly more) reception will be around 15K might have to cut a few ppl off?
So far have 3 bridesmaids planned so by the time we pay for dresses, shoes, hair & make up there will be approx another $3k gone. Then there is the best man & the 2 other groomsmen?
I want to go in a chrysler (love those cars) - havent priced those yet. A few hundred?? Not sure what DP wants yet?
my dress - I've allowed up to $5k, might come under budget there, all depends
What was that you say?? Over budget? lol, i initially wanted a $50k budget, but DP said it was too much
BTW - Its a Greek wedding ......
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We would have spent about 25k including honeymoon.
Reception for 87 guests
dress
DH suit
rings
flowers
cake
horse and carriage
wedding night accom
make up
hair
favours
gifts for bridal party
bridal party paid for there own dress/suits/makeup and hair
Ohh i love weddings
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oh crap!
This is gonna do my head in!
The best man has his own duties too - which relieves us a little financially too
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I found a notebook with a list that i kept adding to was easiest!
This is gonna do my head in!
The best man has his own duties too - which relieves us a little financially too
Forgot celebrant on my list
our wedding was in chapel attached to reception venue with no extra cost for having wedding there unlike others we looked at.
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Ooooh fun!
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We spent around $10K and that did us really well for everything we wanted. We had 50 guests for buffet lunch and all you can drink, white dress, string quartet at ceremony, band at reception. We had a photographer friend do photos and we didn't have a wedding cake or cars.
I can't imagine spending any more than $20K- anything more than that seems really extravagant for a wedding to me.
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We had 60people and including a week honeymoon we did it all for $10K
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