CandyGirlXO Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 (edited) I'm engaged!!!! Ahhhh! So excited, I've waited a long time and my fiancée is just absolutely amazing, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. We are paying for this wedding ourselves, both our families are unable to help us. We already made a list of around 150 people and we have about a year to plan/save. Our budget is between 8K-10K. We are having a small ceremony at a courthouse...mainly because it's cheap and we actually met there while we were both employed there. Thats only costing us $40. However we are planning a big reception. We already booked our venue and we got an awesome deal on it. That's $1793 for the venue. We are just making our own playlist and the venue has an iPod hookup to their speakers so that's cutting the cost of hiring a DJ. I'm planning on making my own centerpieces. We are having a friend do the photography so we are hoping for that to be reasonable. I guess I need ideas of where else we can cut costs but still have an amazing reception. Any advice would be appreciated, I don't want to stress myself out too much over this. I mean how important really are flowers. Our wedding is on NYE because that's our anniversary, and we have the extra bonus of starting the reception after 8PM so we will only be serving desserts and appetizers, and also want to supply the alcohol. Our venue lets us supply our own, so we are planning on just buying a ton of kegs, and liquor. Here is the plan: Venue: $1793 Alcohol: $2000 Decor: $850 Food: $3500 China: $750 Courthouse: $40 Photography: $1000 Invitations: ?????? =$9933 Everything listed here besides the venue are all just estimates. Does this seem reasonable to you? So am I missing anything? Edited December 18, 2011 by CandyGirlXO Link to post Share on other sites
daturanoir Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 You can order invitations from Etsy or Papersource for pretty cheap. One cost that was unexpectedly expensive that I didn't consider was stamps (for save the dates, shower thank yous, invitations, wedding gift thank yous). Are you giving your guests favors? Tips for waitstaff/bartenders, a dress/shoes/hair/makeup, unless you're just going to do it yourself and wear things you already have. Congratulations Link to post Share on other sites
setsenia Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 We ordered silk flowers through an ebay vendor for about $120-$150. It came with a beautiful long bridal bouquet and we customized all the colors and flowers for the hand made bouquets. This was for a wedding party of 10, including us. It came with 4 bouquets for the bridesmaids, my bouquet, and 5 boutonnieres. It beats paying $500+ for real flowers and everyone had a keepsake at the end rather than wilting flowers. We choose a venue that provided both the wedding and reception services, which reduced costs a lot. The venue had their own photographer, and had wedding packages that included photography for a very reasonable price. We had about 55 people at our wedding and reception and only paid about 7k for both the wedding and reception. Providing your own decor might also help reduce costs. Link to post Share on other sites
carhill Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Respecting advances in technology, it's feasible to do wedding invitations via e-mail now. Big cost saver right there, especially since this isn't going to be a formal gala wedding. Consider backing the alcohol back to beer and wine. In an open bar situation, that'll save money right there. A bottle of red and white wine on each table to start and some beer kegs. If you still want hard liquor, be sure the venue is licensed to allow its service. This varies from place to place. Concur on artificial flowers. Great idea. Barter for the bridal party hair and makeup. It's easy to skimp on this but if you're paying for professional photography it follows you want to have professional hair and makeup to make those pix look their best. I recall my exW doing the wedding party hair of the caterer who catered our wedding reception and provided its venue in a barter situation. Worked out great. Don't forget security unless the venue provides it. Congratulations and best wishes for a memorable wedding Link to post Share on other sites
setsenia Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Respecting advances in technology, it's feasible to do wedding invitations via e-mail now. Big cost saver right there, especially since this isn't going to be a formal gala wedding. Consider backing the alcohol back to beer and wine. In an open bar situation, that'll save money right there. A bottle of red and white wine on each table to start and some beer kegs. If you still want hard liquor, be sure the venue is licensed to allow its service. This varies from place to place. Concur on artificial flowers. Great idea. Barter for the bridal party hair and makeup. It's easy to skimp on this but if you're paying for professional photography it follows you want to have professional hair and makeup to make those pix look their best. I recall my exW doing the wedding party hair of the caterer who catered our wedding reception and provided its venue in a barter situation. Worked out great. Don't forget security unless the venue provides it. Congratulations and best wishes for a memorable wedding I agree, we almost had the open bar also, but don't recommend it for those on limited budget. It would have been an extra $1500 for the open bar, plus an hourly fee for the bartender. Wine and beer scales it back and also prevents people from getting too crazy. Link to post Share on other sites
TokyoG33kyGal Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 i skipped on flowers except for my bouquet then made the centerpieces myself too. depends on your theme. we had a summer wedding so we had a lemon and lime theme, with lime green and bright yellow tissue pomanders. bought some of the vases and candle holders in dollar stores. invitations...we decided to cut costs on that and i made a photoshopped postcard with our engagement picture on 123print. it's around less than $20 if i can remember for 50 cards. Link to post Share on other sites
TaraMaiden Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 How to cut costs? Elope. Link to post Share on other sites
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