For those who are paying for their wedding...

How is it going? I have 6 months left, and I am now starting to feel really nervous financially. I am trying not to worry, but we have a lot of big payments due soon and it is stressful.

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we are paying every last red cent ourselves and I am also VERY nervous. we have 7 months left (well under 7 now) and yes its very scary!!

i actually direct depost money into my savings account and i can not find my bank book. its in the house somewhere...anyway i JUST got back from the bank & had a fight with the lady. she told me theres a $10 fee, a 10 day wait for a new one, have to get something notarized blah blah blah. i was ****ed. i bank there since i am a teenager, they all know me there...i didn't wanna withdraw, only update the **** book.

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jenn, I am glad I am not alone. We are pretty much putting away half of each paycheck just to pay for the wedding. My big fear is that it still wont be enough. (Even though I go over the numbers and costs of things all the time!)Good luck to you!

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i literally don't sleep because of this christy. FH says not to worry, but he loves to spend and there has been NO spending towards the bankbook and he is paying for 90% of the wedding. hello?!??!??!?!
i told him we'll have a big church wedding and the recption in the church parking lot

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PS-Good Luck to you too, and as I wrote this, AGAIN, he told me 'Don't Worry' lol

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I go over the budget probably three times a week. And an extra time every time i write a check or buy something for the wedding. FH doesn't ever look at which I don't understand at all!

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I have a bit more time than you but I am still very nervous about how we are paying for everything! I keep telling FH... 'We'll manage'. 2 saving graces are thatA - I won a settlement last year for when I was hit by a car and B - I inherited some stocks from former fiance that I can luckily take $$ from. But of course I am going to try not to have to take from either if I don't have to.

Jodi

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i am in the midst of settling a lawsuit too. it has been 2 years now, hello?!?? my lawyer is a crab a$$ too. hopefully i get it soon, but we have not depended on the lawsuit $$ at all but it would help

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I constantly worry about it, but FH, like everything else is cool, calm, and collected. I think in the end it will all work out, but until then...

I can just see me on our wedding day - gray and wrinkled from all the stress! Oh what great pics I'll have!

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Jenn it took me 3 years to settle

Jodi

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We paid for 75% of the wedding ourselves and it was pretty stressful (the cost of the 75% alone was more than I ever thought my total wedding would cost). But in the end it all worked out.

One thing we did that helped alot was use a 0% finance charge credit card. For about 3 months leading up to the wedding, we put big charges on that (no annual fee, no finance charge). The 0% wasn't over until months after the wedding when we knew we could pay it off without any fees.

We wound up having about $7k on the card before the wedding. We paid it off when we got back from our honeymoon. (We NEVER carry balances on our credit cards so this took some getting used to, but I knew we'd have the money to pay it off immediatley after the wedding).

So, I'm not saying count on your guests to pay for your wedding, but the gifts do help. I knew we'd have at least enough to pay off the debt, and in the end we wound up with a lot more than that (we had 225 guests - some of whom were overly generous, and then there's the others who didn't give a gift/card at all!)

I know it helped ease the stress a bit, and also allowed us to slurge for things that I'm so glad we went for! (those things that you wonder if ts worth the extra money...believe me, guests notice the extra touches and they made our day more special)

Our tax returns also helped

Al's sister was still paying for her wedding 2 years later - I didn't want that to be us! I don't like being in debt and wanted it paid off immediately - and it was

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My FH and I are paying for our wedding ourselves too. We got a bit of money for our engagement (less than 250.00) but that started our saving account. We both have started working A LOT of overtime, we average about 25 hours each week between the both of us with all that money going into the bank. He makes a lot more than I do so it will end up that he will be paying more of the cost than I will which I feel bad about. I do worry a lot about paying for the wedding even though we are getting married in the 'off-season' the only break we have gotten so far is the reception cost. I have a ton of student loans and I don't want to have even more debt after we get married. My stomach is killing me just thinking about it. I wish LI wasn't so darn expensive!!!

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Wow this topic hits home for sure, I have difficulty sleeping too Jenn!

We have a seperate account for the wedding but will still have to dip into our savings in the end I am sure which I was hoping would combine with what we got back from the wedding to pay for a down payment.

Just looks like a house and wedding at once is impossible, where are you all living?

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Same here!!! Paying for 95% of the wedding AND looking for a home. The home seems impossible and nowadays so does this wedding

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I stress over the money constantly. It definitely keeps me up at night. Curly, I know how you feel. I've already given up the house idea, maybe in a couple of years for us. I hope it works out for you. Right now I just want to pull off this wedding without adding to all my debt. I have a ton of school loans and really don't want anything else.

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We

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I am stressed out too! All the time. Every time I write a check, and then I triple check just to make sure.
I am the third waiting on a settlement too
It has been 2 yrs and 2 months, and my f******* lawyer is trying to make me go to trial. The saga continues with this... THis money would definitely come in handy now.

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the unnamed party who i am suing, offered to settle with me. I turned down the amount after i have to pay him 1/3, i have to pay the **** private investigator i hired....i'd be left with squat.
my lawyer seemed annoyed that i didn't want to take the amount they wanted to give me. too bad!
uggh! he told me i may go to trial too!
more stress!

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well we got a very generous gift from our parents...that paid for half the cost...but b/c we knew we were getting this...we had a very expensive wedding (we paid half...but that half was the same price my sister paid TOTAL for her wedding with more people)

this is what we did...
we declare 0 dependants on our W2s...this way we get money back from taxes...our taxes (over 2 years) paid for rings (e-ring and wedding bands) and honeymoon...

then being a teacher I used my summer checks (about 15K) to pay for vendors and what nots...if you are not a teacher...direct deposit into a savings account is very similar...and then you earn interest as well

any deposits and 'Knick knacks' I tried to pay for from regular paychecks...

a friend of mine got married in the same hall as me...what she did was devised a monthly plan with them (I paid 4 payments total)...and every month she would pay the bill and any amount over that she could... that reduced the BIG payments at the end...

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Money, money money, We are also paying at least 95% ourselves. I didn't even think it would be possible to have this type of wedding, and I used to be very nervous and stressed all the time, and for some reason, one day I just stopped. I planned the wedding budget, am definitely over what I had originally budgeted. I was stressing big time, but then I said, you know, somehow I will pay for it. We make decent salaries, so we just have to live like Paupers (ha ha) for the next 7 months and we could do it.
November 1st is officially the day I'm re-doing the budget to see what we've saved, I'll have all the finalized cost of vendors by then, and a clear picture. I will then calculate how much $$$ needs to be put aside per month. We will take this money out of our pay. I think it will be hard, but we MUST do it, so where there's a will, for sure there is a way.
That's why I'm doing all my personal shopping before Nov 1st, lol

Ladies, try not to stress ( I know, WAY easier said than done) but be very organized in your budgeting, and you'll all be fine. I think Organization is the KEY. Good Luck to us all !!!!!