wedding budget??

So I was calculating my budget today and it seems like it just keeps going up and up!! We originally wanted to stick between 20-30k, but now we won't even make that and we have to bump it up to 40k. I kick myself in the butt each day because in the beginning of planning I was so excited and eager to book things that I didn't think about the cost. How much are you ladies planning to spend and have you actually stuck to a budget? Why is Long Island so expensive!! I am stressed!

wedding budget?? - Long Island Weddings

we figured around 34k including the honeymoon. we were pretty close to budget, but i didnt keep track exactly based on category-- we had a spreadsheet with what was going in & out, and we ended up with less people coming so we had a couple thousand leftover (which will pay for our albums, thank yous & final video pymt!)

Re: wedding budget??

We never made a budget since we had no clue what things would cost. We made smart decisions and based our vendors around the average for that service.

wedding budget?? - Long Island Weddings

LI is super expensive....we can all commiserate. The whole wedding business is such a racket. I'm just trying to save where I can. Our budget is $30K - FIRM limit at $35K. I'm not including the cost of my dress in that, because its a gift from my mom. Anyhow...this is our budget for the 'majors' and we've been pretty good about sticking to it:
Venue: (which includes top shelf open bar, our ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception $100/head, plus tax - so about $120/head, about 125 guests...works out to about $15K
Florist: $2500 - contract signed on that
DJ: $2500 for DJ and MC - contract signed on that
Photographer for 10 hours: $2200. Just photos - no video. We got him for $2200 because we're gonna hold off on ordering nicey nice albums until our first anny - and we have replenished our savings
Guest gifts: $5/pp (so, about $600 or so)
BM/GM gifts: about 50-75 each (there is 4 of each)
Moms: we're gonna get little personalized albums for them from etsy and put their fav wedding pics in them...prob $150 or so each.
Invites: $700 - just ordered.
That leaves us with $5K or more to work with...which will go for beautification and all those unforeseen things.
I am saving wherever I can, and wherever it won't affect my happiness. Gonna borrow my friends gorgeous cathedral veil, which she just wore last year. This same friend is also loaning me her money birdcage and some other little reception needs. Another friend has a really nice easel for our big guest seating chart, so I can avoid the friggin $300 rental charge for that. Can you believe it?! $300 rental for a friggin seating chart set up??
Anyhow - don't give up your major needs/wants for the wedding - it only comes once. But, def save where you can - it totally adds up. :)
Jocelyn

Re: wedding budget??

Oh - I forgot to add officiant. She's from a United Church of Christ church in Garden City. The officiating is $600 - and another $275 for premarital counseling. So, tack on about another $1000 to that list :)

Re: wedding budget??

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Posted by sandr325

We never made a budget since we had no clue what things would cost. We made smart decisions and based our vendors around the average for that service.

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i pretty much agree with this. i am really proud so far of what we are spending on vendors; particularly florist and DJ.

Re: wedding budget??

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Posted by Jocelyn1977

LI is super expensive....we can all commiserate. The whole wedding business is such a racket. I'm just trying to save where I can. Our budget is $30K - FIRM limit at $35K. I'm not including the cost of my dress in that, because its a gift from my mom. Anyhow...this is our budget for the 'majors' and we've been pretty good about sticking to it:
Venue: (which includes top shelf open bar, our ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception $100/head, plus tax - so about $120/head, about 125 guests...works out to about $15K
Florist: $2500 - contract signed on that
DJ: $2500 for DJ and MC - contract signed on that
Photographer for 10 hours: $2200. Just photos - no video. We got him for $2200 because we're gonna hold off on ordering nicey nice albums until our first anny - and we have replenished our savings
Guest gifts: $5/pp (so, about $600 or so)
BM/GM gifts: about 50-75 each (there is 4 of each)
Moms: we're gonna get little personalized albums for them from etsy and put their fav wedding pics in them...prob $150 or so each.
Invites: $700 - just ordered.
That leaves us with $5K or more to work with...which will go for beautification and all those unforeseen things.
I am saving wherever I can, and wherever it won't affect my happiness. Gonna borrow my friends gorgeous cathedral veil, which she just wore last year. This same friend is also loaning me her money birdcage and some other little reception needs. Another friend has a really nice easel for our big guest seating chart, so I can avoid the friggin $300 rental charge for that. Can you believe it?! $300 rental for a friggin seating chart set up??
Anyhow - don't give up your major needs/wants for the wedding - it only comes once. But, def save where you can - it totally adds up. :)
Jocelyn

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Such a racket, vendors hear wedding and all they see are $$$

Don't forget: transportation, officiant, ceremony space, tips, hair, make-up and probably a million other small expenses that add up quickly.

Re: wedding budget??

It totally does! Fortunately, we don't need transportation because us - and all our out of town guests - will stay right next door. The Fox Hollow has a hotel, which is perfect for saving on transportation money. I added the $1000 for officant in my last post and my ceremony is in the $15K for the venue (one stop shopping ). Beauty is where the rest will likely go....oh, and a gift for my man. Think I'm gonna do the cigar rollers during cocktail or reception - I told him it was out of our budget :)

wedding budget??

Our budget is $25, 000 and we seem to be coming in under that so far.

Re: wedding budget??

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Posted by sandr325

We never made a budget since we had no clue what things would cost. We made smart decisions and based our vendors around the average for that service.

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Agreed. Just a word of caution....the closer you get the harder it is to rein things in and once the deposits are paid and the invites are out there's no going back. You can't suddenly decide you want a DJ instead of a band because it's cheaper, or buy flimsy invites for black tie event. It's very hard to go big in the beginning and then scale back later on.

wedding budget?? - Long Island Weddings

I think the problem is that we agreed to have a 150 person minimum at reception hall. Do you think I can ask to make this number smaller even though I signed a contract already? I didn't realize the best way to save money is to cut down guest list.

Re: wedding budget??

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Posted by melhunny46

I think the problem is that we agreed to have a 150 person minimum at reception hall. Do you think I can ask to make this number smaller even though I signed a contract already? I didn't realize the best way to save money is to cut down guest list.

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I think it depends on the venue. Keep in mind that the smaller the minimum, the higher the price per person. They make their money whether you have 100 guests or 300 guests.

We have a 125 person minimum, which I had to beg for. Because of this, we're paying a pretty high pp price. Now we're inviting 194. We don't have the final count yet, but as you can see, our reception is going to cost an absolute fortune. Had we known when we negotiated the contract that FH's mother would add on 50 people we've never met, we would have probably paid less pp. Long story short, if there is ANY chance you will go above that 150 minimum, I would seriously consider not changing it.

Re: wedding budget??

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Posted by sandr325

We never made a budget since we had no clue what things would cost. We made smart decisions and based our vendors around the average for that service.

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This!

wedding budget?? - Long Island Weddings

I have a 20k budget and am pretty on point in staying within it. It includes everything except our wedding bands and honeymoon. If we do go over it will only be by 1-2k and that's because of photo/video (right now we just have photos on CD and basic video package-we are thinking of adding more hours for photographer and albums).

wedding budget?? - Long Island Weddings

Ugh we have about 300 people we're inviting which has made our budget around 50k including honeymoon!!!

wedding budget?? - Long Island Weddings

Last time I checked I think we were at 46k. This included if 175 people show up, dress, alterations, tips, beauty trials, overnight accomodations, honeymoon, major vendors etc. Thankfully both my sisters were married before me so I just had to fill in how much our vendors cost but I am 97% certain that I have every little detail on that list even including stamps (which will go up a little in January lol)

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wedding budget?? - Long Island Weddings

We're on a tight budget (18k including honeymoon) and I'm glad we've stuck to it. What helped was in the beginning we took that total amount and 'divided' it up among all the costs/vendors. This way we always had a set $ to stick to when shopping around. If we had $1,800 for something, that's all we spent, we didn't even consider any quotes over that number. And if we ended up under that number (which happened a few times) that 'extra' money went towards our honey moon since that wasn't originally in the budget. Most importantly is we haven't really had to settle. We had to make smart decisions yes, and really shop around, but no sacrifices and we so far are really happy with everything. I'm finding enough to stress about lol it's a relief to at least not have to worry about budget!

Re: wedding budget??

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Posted by ReadyToBeAMrs

My budget was a max of 20k, but we're coming in well under that. I'm so glad since we don't have much money right now and I wasn't sure we'd be able to pull it off for a price we could afford.

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Please share your vendors! :)

Re: wedding budget??

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Posted by meejack1110

We're on a tight budget (18k including honeymoon) and I'm glad we've stuck to it. What helped was in the beginning we took that total amount and 'divided' it up among all the costs/vendors. This way we always had a set $ to stick to when shopping around. If we had $1,800 for something, that's all we spent, we didn't even consider any quotes over that number. And if we ended up under that number (which happened a few times) that 'extra' money went towards our honey moon since that wasn't originally in the budget. Most importantly is we haven't really had to settle. We had to make smart decisions yes, and really shop around, but no sacrifices and we so far are really happy with everything. I'm finding enough to stress about lol it's a relief to at least not have to worry about budget!

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Great idea to save for the honeymoon!