So here is my dilema. I am seriously considering eloping because I cannot see spending 40,000 on a wedding. I would rather pay for a house.
So here is my question.. did any of you have money saved up first or did you save as you went? How much did you save and how did you have enough to pay for the wedding? I need help beforE i JUST get married on an island... I want to make a good decision
alimac
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
I definitely had money saved before being engaged but we had a long engagement and opened a joint account. We put our tax returns in there, any cash we recieved as gifts, and we also would deposit extra money here and there. There are also times of the year when weddings are cheaper like between October and March. Friday nights are cheaper as well as holiday eves like Thanksgiving eve or New Years Eve. My friends tell me that you make it back from your guests but yes it is very stressful and if you feel that having a fancy wedding is not a priority than by all means go to the Bahamas and get married on the beach. It will be intimate and it will be about you and your FH. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed every minute of planning my wedding and I have no regrets and I can't wait to do it. If you don't think you will regret not having the typical LI wedding then don't. Thats my advice to you. Make it special to you and FH and forget about what everyone else says or thinks. Good luck with whatever you choose!
EJSD2006
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
i think i'm one of the few brides on here that has the mind set that if i had to do it all over again, i would do it on a caribbean island on the beach at sunset with just me, DH, and our immediate families! i didnt realize just how much we had spent until i was on the plane on our way to Aruba (still here and loving it! ) and we added everything up. I've seen 3 weddings on the beach this past week that I've been here and they were absolutely gorgeous!
when we got engaged, we had $0 saved. we used the money we got from our e-party as down payment $ for a few vendors and then put in $100 each every week into our joint savings account for the duration of our engagement (18 months). i also sold my car (luckily i didnt need it because i had a company car) which was an extra $8k in the bank. after all was said and done and we had paid off and tipped everyone, we have about $1k left in our savings account, sad but true. my parents present to us was paying the final balance on the hall, which was great because we wouldnt have been able to get married if not for them! it was heartbreaking to watch our account go from 5 figures down to virtually nothing in a matter of weeks!
so to sum up, if i had to do it all over again, i'd have the caribbean beach wedding and save the money for a house! DH and I feel like we have to play catch up now so that we can buy a house and start our family. if i had the beach wedding, we'd have the house already and possibly a HM baby!!!!
MissMelissa
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
Honestly, if i could do it all over again, i would definitely do the island thing with a few friebnds and thats it. we did not have any money saved up, yet we payed for the entire wedding ourselves! Somehow u just do it, but this time around, i would go for the hosue first, since it took us a year after the wedding to get one
JPC1125
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
We started saving $ the moment we got engaged.
We had 40,000 saved in the 2 years we were engaged.
After the wedding, we now have 42,000 saved for house hunting....we recouped much of what we spend in gifts so we were lucky.
lacey&mark
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
if you are strict about saving, you can definitely accumulate a lot of money. we opened a joint checking and put no less than $175/week in and all other chunks of money we got (tax returns, gifts, bonus's went in there). i think there are ways we could have saved on our wedding and we didnt bc we didnt know much better at the time, and timing was hard with school for me. but i would consider having a 'off season' wedding and def do a fri or sun. there are ways to save $ here and there, but the price per head is what adds up! cut the guest list to make it as small and intimate as can be. we are 22 and 21 and we were able to save in time, though we had about half the bill paid my fmil and ffil, but we could have done it all ourselves if we gave ourselves more time. i think it will be worth it when all is said and done. if you look back at my first few posts, i was all set to have a destination wedding or get married on a cruise ship to save the $$$, but here i am with 1 week to go, and i wouldnt have my wedding any other way but how i planned it this past year! good luck with whatever you decide!
FrogGirl0917
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
We didn't really have any money saved before the wedding, just a little bit leftover from the money FH had saved for the ring. Everything that we had received for e-gifts we put into the account, all of our taz returns, any extra money we got, it all goes in there. As well FH puts in a set amount each week, and then when we can afford to we throw in a little extra. It is amazing how quick it adds up! With 2 months left, we could pay off the ENTIRE wedding today.
citycrab705
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
Actually my FH wanted to get married on an island very badly, but i said no way i would resent him for not having my friends there ( i know my family would have gone) and i wouldn't have asked my friends to put out that kind of money although i'm sure they would have, so we compromised and are having a small wedding,
As others said, try to have it as small as you can, off-season, getting married on a Sunday, also having an early wedding and an afternoon reception, and you can save with some vendors like flowers, photographers, even djs,
I was lucky i am a teacher and was able to work after school this year, every check was banked plus a little extra from my regular check, set a savings goal and do your best to stick with it, my goal was 1,000 a month plus what FH contributed, the final payment for reception he is handling through his business ( he owns it) and we will be fine
it is possible, you just have to know which type of wedding you would feel comfortable with
Bambubabe
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
If it's really what you want you CAN do it! I was always a spender and when we got engaged it was difficult to say the very least to change my habits...The main thing I can say to you on how we are saving successfully is to pay yourself 1st. Immediately when you get paid put money away before you do anything. Figure out what the wedding will cost you and divide it by the number of months till your wedding and you'll know exactly what you'll need to save each month/week whatever. Then what we did was open CD's with the money. It locks up the money so we couldn't touch it. We did short term CD's so this way if we needed to get a little out for deposits for vendors or whatever we were able to. Our bank allows deposits on Cd's so it was great: We were able to not touch the money in there but were still able to continue to deposit to them when necessary. trust me, I know how hard it can be...I remember one weekend FH and I had a major fight (crying and all) about going to the movies...FH said we didn't have the money and I had a temper tantrum about it, lol! Anyway, you can do it; it just may take a little while to form new habits! Good luck!
chrissyandvin
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
We opened up an ING which has a high interest rate.. and saving that way.. i am just a little lucky cause my FH has the money saved for a house and wedding.. so if we don't save enough on our own (which we are really trying hard to do..put a some away each month) then FH will just take whatever we need out and we'll put it back into his after the wedding. We are trying not to have to do that though. We have also been engaged for about 8 months and we still have a little more then a year to go. I have been negotiating like CRAZY with everything.. saving where I can. U may need to go see a LOT of vendors to find the lowest price but great quality before u book! That's why I wanted so much time before the wedding! We always think that we should've done a destination wedding.. its beautiful and we could save sooo much money.. but my family would kill me.. and my Fh's mother does not like to fly or cruise... so thats out! You can always do a destination wedding and have like a backyard party when u return
kittythestray
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
I worked so much overtime it's insane. I worked AT LEAST 80 hours a week until I reached my goal. You don't have to spend $40K to have a nice wedding, you can have a NICE wedding for $15K - some brides did it for even less. My FH was married before and the did it on a beach. I wanted a more traditional wedding and the reality is some people who are close to you wouldn't be able to go if you did a destination wedding. My sister was considering it and I would not have been able to attend...
waterspout4
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
We had no money when we got engaged. SInce I'm from upstate I immediately said how can we afford a LI wedding? And we began looking in my hometown. We also started looking at places around here. We opened up a joint savings account and discussed what we could afford.
We both started taking overtime at work and I picked up a second job. Every check from my second job went directly into our joint account. Every bonus, overtime check, and gift we received went into the joint account. We were engaged for 18 months and did it!!
You also realize what is important to you when you start planning. To me, an expensive wedding gown just wasn't for me. I found my $1000 gown for $25! It was brand new! (And my friend just went there and found her gown for $65) I borrowed my tiara and veil from a friend. My centerpieces cost $25 each because I've never even noticed centerpieces at any other wedding. And, IMO, who cares about them?
I made our card box out of cardboard boxes and fabric leftover from making my ring bearer pillows. My flower girl basket came from walmart, when it went on 50% sale after valentines day. Our save-the-dates cost $3.81when we copied them on wedding color paper at Staples. We got our favors and attendant gifts when they went on sale within the year before the wedding.
You want more tips, you can FM me.
jes81276
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
We are paying for half of the wedding. We have been putting all of FH's paycheck in the bank and living off mine alone. We have cut back on things like shopping, going out to dinner, etc.
greenfreak
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
Between saving, tax returns, etc, we had about 15k saved. But my parents gave us 10k and in-laws paid for the limos.
Including the honeymoon, we spent about 25K on our wedding. But we only had about 85 guests total. It's totally doable for less than 100 people.
Never, at any point, did I regret not spending more money on any aspect of the wedding. It all depends on your expectations, figuring out what your priorities are, and choosing a wedding date that will allow you enough time to scrounge up the money. Remember, there are deposits required but a lot of money doesn't have to be spent until the month of the wedding. So figure in future money like tax returns.
There are also a lot of 'little' things that you may not know about that you may or may not need to spend money on. It helps to know it all before you start, I'm sure we can all help with that too.
roxyvelas
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
Posted by HAPPYTOBREATHE
So here is my dilema. I am seriously considering eloping because I cannot see spending 40,000 on a wedding. I would rather pay for a house.
So here is my question.. did any of you have money saved up first or did you save as you went? How much did you save and how did you have enough to pay for the wedding? I need help beforE i JUST get married on an island... I want to make a good decision
You dont have to spend 40000 on your wedding. We are spending under 20,000. You just cant take the first vendors you find. There are ALWAYS cheaper ones.
cherilicious16
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
You dont have to spend 40000 on your wedding. We are spending under 20,000. You just cant take the first vendors you find. There are ALWAYS cheaper ones.
* This is so true. The # of guests is also a huge factor. I'm pretty much paying for the wedding myself and cant spend more than 15,000 so I had to really cut back the guest list. Also I have been using INGDIRECT.COM to automatically save $$ from my paycheck. It's the best! Good luck! You can def do it!
TheFutureMrsM
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Re: Honestly..how do I afford this wedding...
honestly 40,000 isnt going to buy you a house. its barely a 10% downpayment on a 400k house wich is hard to find one for that price in nassau. You would still have a mortgage of over 3000 with taxes. Be glad your having the dream wedding, cause it only happens once.
You are considering two really drastic things here. You can have a terrific wedding for way under 40 and still manage to afford it and save. Take some money saving things into consideration, the day of the week, time of day, keep your head count to under 100 or even 75...I considered having a very small intimate wedding, like 30 people but then I thought I would feel too bad not including all of my friends and my entire family.
Also, you can always get married in a remote location and then have a big ceremony and party a year later or something. Don't panic, I did for the first two months we got engaged, but you just have to start tucking money away and making good decisions!
FH and I had a little money saved before we got engaged, but after we both got really serious and strict with our money.
