Wedding Budget

[MissM]

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?

[PumpkinZulu]

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

[rhyb]

Me too PZ! Gosh we can barely afford $500 ROFL

[ladybird11]

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 :-)

[PumpkinZulu]

Me too PZ! Gosh we can barely afford $500 ROFL

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

[Amity]

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...

[MissM]

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 ......

[feeb]

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

[MissM]

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

i forgot cake and flowers oh crap!

This is gonna do my head in!

The best man has his own duties too - which relieves us a little financially too

[~clover~]

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 $45 veil from ebay.
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!

[LaDolceVita]

I think it totally depends on how many guests, location, theme etc - Ours was just over $30k not including our Honeymoon in Fiji... We had about 60 guests, a STUNNING location on the water in Brisbane, absolutely amazing food from one of Brisbane's best restaurants, our bridal party stayed in 2 gorgeous Brand New Beachside Penthouses for 2 nights and I didn't scrimp on much, had the 13 seater limo, designer dresses, big bouquets, award makeup artists and cake maker etc but I did manage to get good deals! We didn't have a budget but I know we could have spent much more than $30k, it just worked out well that everything I chose wasn't completely over the top price wise! We had an absolutely AMAZING Day! But I do think that we would have had just as an amazing day if it was just us 2 on a little island somewhere because really, even with all the glitz and glam, all that mattered to us was each other... Awww getting all soppy now haha

I do totally think it depends on alot of things though... How long is a piece of string?

[feeb]

i forgot cake and flowers oh crap!

This is gonna do my head in!

The best man has his own duties too - which relieves us a little financially too

I found a notebook with a list that i kept adding to was easiest!

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.

[Babyluv]

We spent about $15000, ****tail was def a way to cut the reception costs and we got our two tier plain white cake from ferguson plairre and had it dressed with fresh roses cost around $170 for the cake $20 for flowers!

[Phteven]

30k!! OMG!!
I bought an off the rack dress for about $100 and another one for the reception for about the same amount. DH wore his work suit.
I think the ILs paid about $300 for food (maybe less because Afghans show up with huge plates of food).
We paid $150 for a room for the night so no-one could find us.

So all up...
We paid about $350.
That doesn't include our rings. Can't remember how much they cost.


If I had 30k to spend on a wedding I'd elope to Las Vegas for a drive through wedding then spend the rest traveling. Feel free to ignore me because I've never got the whole white dress fantasy.

[mrsmac]

My brother is a wedding photographer and he says that his weddings are usually at or above 30K (that's not what he charges, just the total usually)
My 1st wedding cost about 7K but that was gulp- 20 years ago LOL

[PumpkinZulu]

BTW - Its a Greek wedding ......

Ooooh fun!

[meow]

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.

[BrightSparkles]

We had 60people and including a week honeymoon we did it all for $10K