Cailin, that sounds fantastic, I have a wonderful mental picture in my head of what that would look like.
I can't even really remember what we spent all up. I was working for a newspaper at the time doing commmercial printing so I did all the invites, thank you cards, order of service booklets etc and got them for free. I brought one bon-bonerrie box, cut it down and traced the pattern and made my own ( cost me $5 all up instead of $4 per box). Mum brought the dress, FIL paid for the booze, and we only paid for the meal, honeymoon and pics and the other odds and ends. Think maybe it would have been $4k?
One thing I don't like to see people do it go into debt to get the 'dream wedding' - who wants to spend the next five years paying off one day? If statistics are true some marriages don't even last that long.
We started out organising the big wedding day but when we did all the sums it was going to cost close to $20000 and my mum was already starting to be pushy with the guest list. So...we ditched that plan and invited our family over to Fiji and we got married there and then went and had an amazing honey moon. The ceremony cost $1500 which included celebrant, flowers, photo's etc. I had a dress made which cost $1000 and then we payed for a great dinner with all of our family (immediate) that had come. 6 months later (I was completing a postgraduate course at the time so was rather busy) we threw a party in Victoria for our friends and my family , and a party in Adelaide for friends and his family. In total it cost us $10000 which included 10 days on a fijian island. It was amazing and I would do it all again. As the day was really about us - not what everyone else wanted.
I hear what you are saying Brigit and I agree, but some people just want the big fairy tale wedding and that is their choice to make.
However - I don't think there is much point hassling your sister too much. As you can see, some will spend a fortune, some won't but we all want "our" perfect day, and if your sis wants to spend bucketloads, let her and let her enjoy herself spend her dollars any way she wishes. It's not up to you really. Don't be a wet blanket hun.
We spent under $2K for our wedding, and it was perfect! The secret for us, was getting the essence of the thing without asking particularly for it as 'wedding' things. Eg, bought a (non-wedding) ivory dress off the rack, hired a restaurant to provide a 'function', and sourced our flowers from a business who did a wonderful job with orchids and gerberas (fresh, locally grown) without all the normal hoo-haa reserved for "wedding" flowers. Friends drove us in their car, my dad did the photography (he used to do wedding photography as a money-spinner in his heyday) and really what more do you want? I'm sure my guests didn't care a hoot because they were sitting on regular (nice) chairs instead of draped in ivory-chiffon-covered-in-bows that'll be $25 extra per person! BTW ppl still tell us that was one of the nicest weddings they have been to!
We got married in 1994 as poor uni students (getting married got us more Austudy - our main reason for marrying so young LOL!) Our rings (which we made ourselves) cost $73 (yep, that's for both of em in 18 ct gold), we donated $100 to the Salvos (Salvo minister married us), and my dress cost under $50. We had a "reception" in a park and we probably spent about $200-300 on food, including our home-made mud cake. So all up under $500 - most of the money went to the Salvos.
A few years ago a GF got married with a bells and whistles wedding and DH and I were in the wedding party. I went thru a stage of regretting my "small" non-white-dress wedding, but one visit to Brides of Melbourne cured me of that - I am not a big wedding girl, never was and never will be, even though I love watching them from the sidelines. Cai your 10th anniversary bash sounds perfect - we might do something similar for our 25th (only 12 yrs away now, OMG)
I guess we did the bells and whistles thing but in one way would've liked a smaller wedding. We spent $25K which included the $5K honeymoon & rings (incl. engagement). Back then I was working in hospitality and just wanted a big party & the chance to have lots of family together and have a great time. We had a lot of relies come over from o/seas and shouted them bits and pieces as well.
Looking back on it, I would now spend a lot less and have more meaning to the ceremony which we didn't really at the time. Whole ceremony took 7 minutes. I was so disappointed at this and embarrassed when I watched it on a friend's video tape. $25K for 7 minutes - that's ridiculous!
Anyway, my sister just got married this year in NZ and when she started planning it she asked how much we spent and said with disgust that she couldn't stomach spending that much money on a wedding. Well, how the tables turn.....10mths or so down the track and the wedding has been..........she spent $33K!!!! She had a great time though and doesn't regret it. But it's funny how your state of mind changes as you are preparing and getting immersed in the whole thing.
When I worked in hospitality at a 5star hotel, it was so amazing to see what money people would spend. I remeber this one wedding where they spent $50K on the flowers alone. The food & wine bill came to well over $200K for 600 guests......never mind the dress, honeymoon etc.
I think our reception, celebrant, band etc 1400+300+c was around $6500.
The Thai Silk fabric for my dress was around $100, amd 2 of my Aunties made it for me. Bridesmaids dress about the same, she wanted to make her own so I said OK.
Rings were from Celtic Origins in Armidale - gorgeous! - about $800 all up for both
5 star Hotel for wedding night was $100 from last minute or one of those type things..
Honeymoon in Tassie, which I loved and was fabulous was around $1400
My shoes were $150 but only becuase my feet are too big (11) to get nice wedding shoes at a regular shop
Hair and makeup for me and bridesmaid inc trials $150
Cake - tins, ingedients, icing etc about $100. My Aunty made it for me (multitalented, same Aunty that made my dress) she also made a gorgeous Castle cake for her daughters Medieval Wedding.
Photography was free, I paid for films and developing only.
So all up just over $9k. Wow it was more expensive than I thought when you write it all down.
We spent more than we intended. We had a 'quickie' wedding so to speak, he proposed and we set the date for 3 months later. The venue was free and outside, we paid for a penthouse apartment to have the reception and that cost around $2000 for 3 nights. Food and alcohol I have no idea, but we catered a big bbq for 60 people and the alcohol just lasted till the end, it must have been at least $2000. Our friend is a celebrant so we got mates rates there but that was still around $500. My dress and hair etc came to around $2000 and DH hired his suit. Rings again mates rates - I've got white gold and my DH titanium, we paid cost price for those. Came to about $500 instead of a few thousand. We paid for some of our family and friends to stay in rental units in the same block as us and we paid for MIL and GMIL to fly over from NZ. (But if I remeber rightly BIL paid us half back). My MIL made my wedding cake. Photography was cheap too, again another dear dear friend whose sideline is photography. He didn't ask for any money but we gave him a gift of $500 as a thank you.
No honeymoon as we were moving to Sydney a month later and still no honeymoon nearly 3 years later! I'm OK with that and can wait.
Thanks for your replies girls re our Las Vegas nuptials! I think part of what made it such a happy day were the super-friendly people in Las Vegas - It was the best! We had a honeymoon travelling to the Grand Canyon on a tourist bus, and a week in the New Orleans French Quarter.
We spent a bit under 10k for our wedding this year. We were planning on having a bigger wedding and going to LA for our honeymoon until we found out that I was pregnant! So we brought the wedding forward and cut numbers and changed a few things to save $$ for our baby! We found the perfect venue right on the Geelong Waterfront and it was magical. Our friend is a dressmaker who made my dress as our wedding gift so we saved $$ there and ended up going on a houseboat for a week in Echuca (nice and relaxing!). We only had 40 guests but it was fantastic... they were all of our closest friends and family. It was the best day of our lives and wouldn't change it for a thing. I don't think it matters if you spend 2k, 10k, 20k, 50k or 100k on your wedding... the day is all about you and what you want. If you want to spend the money then I say go for it.... it can be a lot of money for one day but the amount of fun we had and what it meant to us to be able to bring all of our friends and family together to share this special day with us meant so much...
I think we spent about $7000 - $8000 on our wedding. The photography was the most expensive thing as that was something we were picky about so wanted a really good photographer. I did get an expensive silk dress which was a bit dumb because where the heck am I going to store it and its not really something I'll wear again in a hurry! Apart from that, we hired a hall, had the ceremony outside with a celebrant, and got a catering company to bring their food van and feed everyone. We also made all our invitations and bomboniere which saved us a bucketload. We put the bomboniere together two days before we got married, lol.
I agree that the type of wedding you want reflects the type of people you want. We wnted a very small classic wedding that looked elegant. We had sold our first home so we had quite a nice profit so spending wasn't really an issue however we as a couple aren't into spending unnecessarily. We had a beautiful breakfast reception with 40 close friends and family, we had one wedding car that picked up the bridesmaids from a nearby park where we had pre-wedding photos then came back to pick up me, we had my sister take photos (regret this as the photos weren't what we really wanted) All up this cost $7000, reception, dresses, suit, flowers, car
We then spent about $4000 on our honeymoon (on whch we took our 6mth old DS) which we still talk fondly of, the best holiday ever!
Depending on what you include, we spent less than $1000, even though it was a "church wedding". My dress was $100 (not a typical "wedding dress"), we had one attendant each & told them to wear whatever they wanted. We gave the celebrant $100 and had the reception at my parents' house--about 50 people came for sandwiches & cake. I organized 2 friends of my teenage sister to set up the food whilst we were at the ceremony. They loved it and felt important. The mother of my brother's gf made the cakes (we had 5 normal-sized ones, all the same, and PLAIN no icing!!). She knew I loved her cake and when I said 'I wish I could have it for a wedding cake' she offered to make 5 as a present for us. The one expensive item was the photographer. I think we spent about $400 on photos. I thought they were quite average to be honest. My brother advertised for a photography student to do his wedding, & had fab photos for cheap, PLUS got to keep the negatives.
We hand-wrote all our invitations on beautiful cards from an art museum.
We walked to and from the church (from my parents' house) and people in the area still remember seeing the 'wedding procession', and all the guests said how much they enjoyed walking back to the reception. It was not far, about 1 km.
We got married on Saturday of a long weekend and went to a B&B for 2 nights, then back to work on Tuesday!! I too have had pangs sometimes, wondering if we should have done it 'bigger and better', but I was very happy with it, and everyone said how elegant and simple it was.
Last edited by castle; July 19th, 2007 at 02:19 PM.
: to tell about the wedding walk!
we had a wedding that was exactly right for us - we'd been to hell and back with family issues in the six months before the big day (to the point that no one from DH's family was invited, and even then, they tried to sabotage - but that's another story!) - and our wedding was the day we put all that BS behind us and move forward - having a kick @ss party with it!
i had the princess dress - not because it's what i'd always dreamed of, but because i fell in love with it in the shop. we got married in DH's best mates (and best man's) back yard where we met. we had our reception catered at a footy club, and kicked on all night. the food was delish, we ended up putting less than $800 for drinks for 130 people - and all up, it cost us about $7500
i did all the invitations myself (was a great distraction from all the issues going on) - got mates rates on photos, decorated the hall ourselves the night before - and our thankyou gift to everyone who helped was a cleanskin bottle of wine with a thankyou message that we'd created on it.
wouldn't change our day for anything - we get comments regularly about how relaxed it was, how perfect for who we were - and when are we getting hitched again so we can have another night like that?!
i never dreamed or planned on getting married. my DH is a romantic and wanted to get married but he respected my view and was very happy that we would forever be life partners.
then one day i changed my mind. my friends reminded me that i hadn't given them an opportunity to celebrate in our love and then DH went away on a holiday and i unexpectedly blurted out on his return "i missed you so much i could marry you" and he jumped on the idea!
i wouldn't change a thing about the actual day except i had lost my voice which i would have liked to have had so people could hear my vows and i could talk to them . it ended up being about $15K but we had the most sustainable wedding we could. had it in a public garden, locally made dress that i wear now as a ball gown, home grown produce for the food (including all the meat), local wines at a locally owned country hotel, hired buses to and from venue for guests, local flowers. local band, made our own invitations etc. we have even offset the carbon emissions of our guests that flew from overseas and interstate.
i could have done it a lot cheaper but we were unexpectedly given some money and we really wanted to give everyone a party to remember that was also very ''us".
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. it ended up being about $15K but we had the most sustainable wedding we could. had it in a public garden, locally made dress that i wear now as a ball gown, home grown produce for the food (including all the meat), local wines at a locally owned country hotel, hired buses to and from venue for guests, local flowers. local band, made our own invitations etc. we have even offset the carbon emissions of our guests that flew from overseas and interstate.
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