Weddingbee

Today we’re featuring three budgets in the $25k range. Each of the brides is taking advantage of the talents of friends to save costs on invitations, videography, etc., giving them room to splurge in other areas.

DJ and Anon are both having day-of coordinators, for example. And SA and her fiance hired a brass quintet from the nearest symphony! You can see some shots of her wedding below.

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Submitted By: DJ
City: Washington, DC
Budget: $30,000
# of guests: 100

Ceremony Site Fees: $1200
Reception Site Fees: $0. Having it at a restaurant, so there’s no site fee - just a food and beverage minimum.
Caterer/Food/Drink: $11,000 ($110/pp)
Service Charge/Gratuities: $3500. This includes all gratuities and all includes tax on the food and drink.
Bridal Gown & Alterations: $890
Bridal Accessories: $350
Groom’s Attire: $250
Stationery/Postage: $230. Our invitations and thank you notes were printed for free by a friend who is a printer, so we only paid for postage and our save the dates (and postage).
Photography: $2000
Videography: $0. I’m starting to change my mind about this, though…
Ceremony Music: $425
Reception Music: $850
Flowers: $1100. This is definitely more than I intended to spend.
Favors: $300
Cake: $540
Officiant: $500
Coordinator: $750, for a DOC
Hair/Makeup: $900, this includes MOB, FMIL, two bridesmaids and me.
Wedding Party Gifts: $900
Transportation: $650 - we haven’t booked this yet, so it may be less
Hotels: $650, two nights in the suite
Misc: $925, including calligrapher, babysitters, guest book, gifts, and decor

Nonwedding Day Expenses:

Wedding Bands: $2500
Rehearsal Dinner/Day After Brunch: $4000 (We are not paying for either of these)
Honeymoon: $6100

WEDDING DAY TOTAL: $27,910
COST PER PERSON: $254
NONWEDDING DAY TOTAL: $12,600
GRAND TOTAL: $40,510

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Submitted By: Anon.
City: Burlington, Wisconsin
Budget: $25,000 - $30,000
# of Guests: 225

Wedding Day Expenses:

Ceremony Site Fees: $0 – we’re getting married in a Catholic Church, and the priest is a good friend of my FILs. My FH and I will be making a separate charitable donation to the church after the wedding, but I’m not counting this in the budget because it’s not part of our overall wedding costs.
Reception Site Fees: $700 – includes the use of a large ballroom overlooking Lake Geneva, as well as an outdoor patio for cocktail hour.
Caterer/Food/Drink: Dinner, depending on the entrée selected, is about $64/head, and includes appetizers, a seated meal, completely open bar for one hour and beer/wine the rest of the night. Total estimated food/drink cost, including gratuity and tax: $13,442, assuming 225 guests.
Service Charge/Gratuities: 18.5% of the total bill (included above)
Bridal Gown & Alterations: $500 - $800 (estimated). My future SIL’s mom owns the salon and hasn’t told me a final price on my dress yet, and it’s coming in next week so the alterations are TBD.
Bridal Accessories: $100-$200
Groom’s Attire: $100 or less – see above about future SIL’s mom.
Stationery/Postage: $912 (invites, programs, place cards + postage). I saved on postage by using RSVP postcards rather than envelopes.
Photography: $2800 – this includes an entire set of prints, digital images on disc, a wedding album, and 9 hours of coverage with our photographer and his assistant.
Videography: $0 – we cut this one from the budget. I’m going to have a close friend videotape the ceremony, though.
Ceremony Music: $610 for a soloist, pianist, and string trio.
Reception Music: $800 (DJ)
Flowers: $1,950 – bride’s bouquet, 8 BM bouquets, 14 boutonnieres, 2 small bouquets for the moms, 3 corsages, 1 pomander ball, 2 tall church arrangements, 15 cocktail arrangements, grouped in 2’s and 3’s, and approximately 20 table centerpieces.
Favors: $196 – bunches of glass bangles tied with ribbon, as a tribute to the Pakistani side of my family.
Cake: $450
Officiant: $0
Day-Of Coordinator: $500 – we struggled on this one, but because we’re having a “destination” weekend of sorts, I didn’t want to saddle one of the moms with the job of being the point person on the big day. I also didn’t want to ask any of my girlfriends to do it, since all of them are flying or driving long distances to be with us that weekend. So far, our DOC (who is also our florist and does the day-of stuff on the side) has been worth every penny.
Hair/Makeup: $80 – includes hair and makeup, both a trial and the day-of stuff.
Wedding Party Gifts: $495
Transportation: $500 for a bus to transport the wedding party to and from the ceremony and reception.
Hotels: $400 for three nights for me and FH (we get one night free).
Misc: $1625, including Bathroom amenities, program baskets, chair covers, and other gifts.

Nonwedding Day Expenses:

Wedding bands: $2000
Rehearsal Dinner: $1,700 for 32 people, including open bar for two hours, appetizers, seated dinner served family-style, dessert, gratuity and tip. Also, we’re having a “welcome” bonfire (evening before the wedding, after the RD, for any of our guests making a weekend of it): $750 for beer, bottled water and fire pit set-up/tear-down at the resort.
Honeymoon: $4300

WEDDING DAY TOTAL: ~$26,560
COST PER PERSON: $118
NONWEDDING DAY TOTAL: $8750
GRAND TOTAL: $35,310

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Submitted By: SA
City: Chatham, MA
Budget: $25,000
# of Guests: 67

Wedding Day Expenses:

Ceremony Site Fees: n/a. The groom’s parents’ backyard, with an “altar” made up of a cheap coffee table a cousin made taller by screwing on some 2×4s. The guy who owned the lot behind theirs had had it cleared about a year ago, so we had a nice field of wildflowers behind us. The ribbon idea was stolen from someone on Weddingbee, and cheerfully executed by a team of the groom’s cousins. We’d thought it would be too windy for the planned aisle of rose petals, but decided to run with it at the last minute, so seen here are our ersatz flower girls, who required no training or supervision, mostly because the younger one is 22.

Reception Site Fees: $4200 for tent and rentals.

Caterer/Food/Drink: $6,800 for food and servers, with passed and stationary appetizers for an hour, and a buffet including a prime rib carving station and (awesome) stuffed chicken; $700 for wine, beer, soda, and now legendary rum punch. We didn’t hire a bartender, and no one went thirsty.

Service Charge/Gratuities: (included in caterer fee)

Bridal Gown & Alterations: $533. I found it at an Alfred Angelo factory store, then bought it for half that price from an eBay store. Why is it so hard to find a dress with sleeves, I ask you?

(We’ve been taking Lindy Hop lessons for three years, so we used the wedding as an excuse to get some really good shoes. It shouldn’t make such a difference in our dancing skillz, but man, it sure does. And yes, the groom’s mother was mortified by the black toes barely visible under the dress.)

Bridal Accessories: $187 including custom-made dance shoes. Jewelry included old earrings, a borrowed bracelet from the matron of honor who couldn’t attend, and a custom pendant presented by the groom (probably could get a price for that, but why spoil it?). Veil, alternate headband, and fun post-party jacket from Target.

Groom’s Attire: $219 including custom-made dance shoes.

Stationery/Postage: $560. The save-the-dates were from Vistaprint; the invitations were a combination of MyGatsby, Kinko’s, and a local litho company, designed by the bride and assembled by the groom; all other paper goods (programs, table numbers, etc) were Kinko’s or printed at home. Thank you’s are from the local printer and Envelope Mall; we got a zillion and plan to use them indefinitely.

Photography: $1700, a pittance on the Cape, and we loved her to bits. This is in fact a great place to mention: All included photos by Elizabeth Horne. She was everywhere, she was invisible, and at least two people pointed out “she didn’t try to run the wedding.” Along with 9 hours of shooting (and a 3-hour drive each way), that miniscule price also includes all the files, which many Cape photographers will only grudgingly sell you for $750 because they are apparently living in the past.

Ceremony Music: $2000. This was our big splurge. We hired a brass quintet from the nearest symphony, and had to pay for two rehearsals in order to have them play our supplied music instead of their normal book. When it gets right down to it, it was $100 per person for rehearsals, and $200 per person for the gig, which included a 2+ hour commute for most of them.

Reception Music: $1800 (DJ for five hours.)

Flowers: $900-ish. Haven’t seen the bill yet. Didn’t include centerpieces (cheap candles, mirrors, and craft stuff I had in the basement). We were very hands-off with the florist, and she did absolutely perfectly with no meddling from us. The boutonnieres in particular were better than anything I’d torn out of MS Weddings. We just said “not too girly…maybe berries?” and got nicely masculine berries with tiny black ribbon.

Rather than kissing when people clinked their glasses, we demanded haikus. It very quickly dissolved into trash-talking haikus between table 4 (our coworkers) and table 9 (his cousins), before table 1 (his parents, etc.) busted out with one that ended, “parents dominate.”

Favors: $435 total for custom-printed playing cards, very apt for both families and our friends; custom-printed pencils to go with all the crossword puzzles appearing during the weekend; kid packets with snacks and toys. Pictured are the playing cards, which were wrapped months ago in honest-to-God copier paper stamped with green paints and silver ink. Computer-printed vellum strips were attached on the back with a sticker indicating the table number (see guest’s snapshot; their table number is from the groom’s old license plate).

Cake: $225, by the woman who does all the event cakes for the groom’s family. After trying for months to convince the chocolate haters in the family that white chocolate isn’t chocolate, while asserting to the chocolate lovers that it is, we gave up, got a totally plain white cake, and made a homemade dark chocolate ganache that was served in Asian spoons alongside the cake. And you may say, “why does this sound familiar?” and I would say “it’s from the end of ’When Harry Met Sally.’” $90 for monogram.

Officiant: no fee, paid for his transportation and housing instead.

Coordinator: n/a
Hair/Makeup: n/a

Wedding Party Gifts: $120 for 3 sets of cufflinks (all different) and $75 in beads/findings for three sets of earrings and necklaces.

Transportation: about $1600 for flights and rental cars for attendants and officiant and their families; $500 for our car rental

Hotels: $2000 for attendants and officiant and their families; $600 for our hotel (night before and night of only; five additional nights we stayed with family)

Misc: about $175 of ribbon intended for various projects, the vast majority of which went untouched. Not proud of that.

Nonwedding Day Expenses:

Wedding bands: $92 for the groom’s; mine are heirlooms. Didn’t even have to have them sized.
Honeymoon: $8000

WEDDING DAY TOTAL: $25,419
COST PER PERSON: $379
NONWEDDING DAY TOTAL: $8092
GRAND TOTAL: $33,511

In general, there were things we were willing to put time and money into, and things we weren’t. My priority was music and his was food, and when you look at the numbers, that’s where the money went. We also made the decision to pay for our attendants’ travel expenses, since some probably could not have otherwise afforded a weekend on Cape Cod.

While in the airport en route to the honeymoon cruise, the groom pointed out that every little thing we really put time into trying to personalize, at least one person singled out as being something that they found particularly special. On the other hand, the things we chose not to obsess about went just fine, too. All in all, a good day.

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Thanks to everyone who submitted their budgets! If you’d like to see your budget featured on Weddingbee, see here for details.