Budget - Am I crazy?

Hi! Im new and need lots of help.
My 'Soon to Be' and myself are paying for our wedding and I got my 1st reality check...No Credit Cards! Are they serious? How is one expected to pay in cash?
Thats not my question...Im sure everyone has a budget of some sort, my question is 'What was your budget (you dont have to disclose this if u dont want) but did you go over?'

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Posted by lredhead79

Hi! Im new and need lots of help.
My 'Soon to Be' and myself are paying for our wedding and I got my 1st reality check...No Credit Cards! Are they serious? How is one expected to pay in cash?
Thats not my question...Im sure everyone has a budget of some sort, my question is 'What was your budget (you dont have to disclose this if u dont want) but did you go over?'

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I don't think you have to pay in cash, you can do checks

yeah the whole no credit card thing stinks...but make sure you ask becuase I lnow for at least some of our vendors we were allowed to pay at least the deposits by CC and they only asked for cash/check for the final payment because it is usually paid on the day of..

Budget wise...I hate to say that we never really had one..we kind of took the 'we'll make it work' mentality but in the end we spent a good $15,000 more than I would have imagined...I hope though that if a budget is set and you're creative/disciplined ebough to stick to it, its possible

Oh, and congrats and welcome

You have to pay the big vendors in cash/check (same thing) but you can charge most everything else.

We don't want to go into debt or deplete our entire savings so we are trying to stay within budget.

We had originally given a $5k +/- and I think we'll come in within that range.

I've paid everything by credit card, I haven't had a problem with anyone not taking cc...hmmmm

first of all...welcome and congrats

now to the budget question.

the way we did it was this: find out how much you already have saved, how much you and fh put aside between now and the wedding, and ask each set of parents and find out how much they can contribute. that is your budget!

then get the FREE WEDDING PLANNER from state farm. they have a great worksheet for setting your budget on different items/categories.

btw, when a vendor tells you that they don't want a cc for a deposit, that's because there are laws that PROTECT YOU if you use a cc. it's their way to try to get around it. tell them that's all you have and you want to sign the contract. a business person knows that some money is better than no money.

hth

before we started we thought we could do it for $20,000 then after meeting with vendors we got knocked hard on our butts! there are somethings we won't do with out and our more practical budget is $30,000. our rh takes credit cards. my fh loves to use his amex.

Some vendors allow credit cards (my photographer did), everyone else tries to avoid it or RH mostly does not allow it.

Budget to as stated above what you have, what money can you put away and what money any family members would be giving you. If your not having a engagement party and sending out announcements most likely your family members will wait for the shower/wedding to shell out some money.

My parents are only paying for my wedding day outfit. Which is not a problem with me.

We have no limos and we are getting married at RH and doing it on a sunday night on a holiday and our budget with out a honeymoon for 100 people is $15,000. Now our photographer is not doing any parent albums so we cut costs big time on that.

I would really figure out what you can afford then go to halls that will work within that price. Figure what is important to you and cut the fat off areas you don't care as much. For us limos were silly and flowers are nice but we aren't going nuts with $100 cp.

Good luck!

first, welcome to the site and congrats on your engagement and upcoming wedding.

our RH will only take cash/check as well, and we have no idea how we will swing it. we are thinking of using one of the credit card checks, and will pay it off with the normal bill.

congrats!
Most vendors will take a Credit Card for the deposit but all finals must be made in cash to protect themselves which makes sense.
We went over our budget by about 1,200ish.

The big vendos you can put your deposit by credit card. But the other payments and the final payment have to be cash or check. Maybe you can put a bigger deposit down on credit card when you first sign.

We really didn't have a budget. My parents were saying about $35,000 - $40,000 but we figured it out a couple of weeks ago and just with the hall and band and photgrapher it's gonna be over $40,000 already. Were figuring about $60,000 in the end.

You can get checks from your credit card company.... or cash advances.

I know my RH only allows 1 transcation on a CC. The thing is, for each transaction, they are billed 4% by the credit card company. Say you are having a $20,000 catering bill - 4% is a lot.

(This is the same with some retailers BTW. That's why those da*n machines force you to use your pin. If you use it as a CC, they get charged.)

We decided on a budget of about 20,000. After booking the RH I suffered from sticker shock. My RH didn't allow CC but other vendors should take them. Don't pay cash ever. At least checks you can track.

Congrats on your engagement and upcoming wedding!

From my experiences the last 2 years, most vendors do not take cc and will not charge you tax if you pay cash. We put down min. cash deposits when we booked and paid the final balances in cash the day of the wedding. My RH did take cc so we paid with AmEx and earned the cash back on it. I like AmEx b/c you have to pay it in full every month.

As for a budget, we first figured $25K because that's what we could save up. Unfortunately, when we booked our RH, we realized that we would go over this budget and revised it a bit. We cut back in places that we felt we were okay with (shorter HM, DIY centerpieces) and didn't skimp on what was important to us (photos, rings, things we would have for a lifetime). Not including the HM and wedding rings, we went over our original budget by about $5K-$7K.

I found it helpful to create a list or budget sheet with EVERYTHING on it. Sometimes the little things add up so make sure you include it all. If you must go over your budget and are willing to charge things (like the dress, shoes, etc), I highly recommend opening a Chase credit card. I got no interest for 18 months on purchases with my new card. This will give you time after the wedding to pay things off without interest, if you are willing to do that.

HTH and Good luck to you!

BTW, I would avoid cash advances from credit cards if you can. They charge you large fees and the interest rates are usually much higher than your interest rate for purchases.

Sadly we did go way over our budget but hopfully in the end, our wedding will be so wonderful that it will be worth every penny.

Unfortunatlly paying by CC is not an option for final payments and payoff amoutns, but many vendors will take depotis and middle payments in the form of CC payments.

Also, some credit cards offer zero precent intrest for a certain time period, that is valid for cash advances, this may be an option if you need the extra cash in the end there, and you will have time to pay that off during the no intrest grace period.

Hope this is helpful

Yeah my RH won't take cc's either. It's good though because unless you pay off the whole balance as soon as you get it, you end up paying more than what it is with interest so be glad. You pay in installments. I basically have to give an installment every 3 months until two weeks before my wedding and pay off the rest then.

For many other things you can use cc's but I wont use it, only for small things

First welcome. Second, DH & I paid for the entire wedding ourselves as well. We never considered using CCs at all. We saved our money and paid by cash or check. By check we paid, RH, DOC, DJ, and various deposits. The day of we paid a lot of final balances in cash.

Be careful if you use CCs - the interest rates can kill you.

ETA: We did not go over budget.

We made a serious effort to save for the wedding. We started an ING savings account and put a set amount in it each month (an amount that hurt... basically as much as we possibly could).

We were NOT going to borrow and we wanted to use credit cards (without having the money) as little as possible.

In the end, we did go a bit over what we planned on but we monitored our expenses very closely over our 1.5 yr. engagement.

I would NOT rely on credit cards to finance your wedding. You will be paying this off for a long time and even though you will get $ for your wedding, it is unlikely that it will cover all of your costs associated with getting married (reception, photo, music, florist, dress, honeymoon, etc.)