Wedding Blog
I feel like an equally fitting name for this post would be “Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems”. See, there’s a reason I haven’t talked much (at all?) about finances or budget before this post. We had a budget, to be sure, but no matter what number we set, it kept changing, morphing, and growing as we planned our wedding.
My rationalization, of course, was that this is was once-in-a-lifetime event, and even if we ended up spending more than we thought we would, we’d be OK. I felt like rather than trying to scrimp and save to make every penny fit within the confines of a single number, that being realistic meant understanding that our budget was an estimation, and we would probably overshoot it.
I think you can see where I am going with this. Things add up fast. We definitely haven’t dug ourselves into a hole, but we spent way more than we intended.
{O hai, I can haz budgets?}
About three months into our two-year engagement, when we first started planning our wedding, I envisioned a gorgeous, country-chic affair that would cost us no more than $12K.
Once we decided to work with a professional planner that cost a significant part of that, and started to figure out catering, floral, and other expenses, we decided that $20K was a more realistic estimation. We began to track costs with the mindset of meeting that budget.
Then, we talked to our families about money. They had all expressed interest in helping us out financially, but we had no idea to what extent they would contribute. Broaching that subject was the most awkward part of planning, particularly because it seemed that they wanted us to tell them how much money we needed. (I imagine this is because it was our families’ first time planning a wedding for their children.) Of course, I wish we could have just had the whole thing taken care of, but that wasn’t in the cards, nor was it realistic. We also felt that contributing a significant portion of costs ourselves was an important part of planning our wedding.
It was decided that each family unit (my family, Mr. CP’s mom & step dad, and Mr. CP’s dad) would contribute $5,000, and we would contribute the remaining $5,000 between the two of us. We were well on our way to planning a sweet wedding that was affordable to both our families and us… or so we thought.
Once our plans began to be more firmly set in stone and we had a better grip on what kind of event we were planning, where we were having it, and what sort of attendance we expected, we again increased our budget slightly, to $24,000. And that was, we posited, a good number to estimate hitting.
Well, we did, sort of.
The truth is that we spent a lot of money on a number of things that we didn’t really consider part of our budget to begin with. For example, we budgeted a bit of money for Mr. CP to purchase a suit or rent a tux. When he decided to purchase a custom-tailored suit for considerably more money, that cost became a “personal” expense for him. In other words, he paid for it out of pocket, rather than with our budgeted money.
There were several other items which weren’t included in our concrete wedding budget: Our wedding bands, most of my accessories, his accessories, attendant gifts, and probably a few other things I’m forgetting. But because money spent is money spent, I’ve included these “personal/unbudgeted” expenses in our tally anyway, except they are marked with an asterisk.
I kept track of our budgeted expenses in a spreadsheet and used the budget tool on The Knot to make sure that things weren’t out of control, but I didn’t allow myself to stress over extra things here and there. I knew we were spending more than we planned. But regardless, it all added up above and beyond what we expected, and that meant we overspent by a number of dollars.
To be honest, drafting this post was the first time I allowed myself to really go back, receipt by receipt, and estimate the full amount of what we spent. Before now, I didn’t want the sticker shock to dampen my perception of our wedding. But I’ve gone and done it… the sticker shock has punched me in the gut… and I’m already on my way to getting over it again.
Behold!
The Cherry Pies’ Budget Breakdown
[For 100 guests on Sept 6, 2008]
Dressing her:
Dressing Him:
Vendors
Other expenses:
TOTAL: $36,380 (Planned: $24,000)
Um, yeahhhhhh. Our grand total was $12,000 over our “loosely planned” goal of $24,000.
You can see where I marked some items that cost more than we expected, or more than we budgeted. You can also see those items that I mentioned above we considered to not really be a part of the formal budget.
If I subtract those “non-budgeted” items from the tally above, our total spent was $28,830, which is definitely a lot closer to what we planned.
In the end, when we factor in the $15K of family contributions, the $1K of wine gifted by Mr. CP’s mom, and lodging paid for by his granddad, the total we spent out of pocket (including “non budget” items) was $19,480. Ouch.
I feel sort of dirty looking at that number, like we could have just thrown a fabulous wedding with the $15K we were given alone and then bought ourselves a car or a world tour or started a down payment with the rest.
There certainly are some things we could have done without. If I had my druthers, I’d go back in time and tell myself that I’d have been fine with working with our planner in an exclusively phone-consulting and day-of-coordination capacity, rather than purchasing her full-service package.
I enjoyed working with Katalin, and we definitely spent a lot of time getting to know each other over the one-and-a-half years I was her client. But in the end, I felt that I didn’t use her talents to their fullest potential because I took control of so many things myself. Scaling back on her crew’s involvement to phone consultation and DOC-only would definitely have saved us money… but it might also have cost us some of the depth and detail that she provided because she knew us so well.
I also certainly didn’t need to spend that god awful much on my husband’s wedding band. We were originally eyeballing tungsten bands that cost $300. But of course, Mr. CP fell love with a design that far exceeded what we planned to spend, and I got it for him even though he insisted that it wasn’t necessary. He’ll be wearing it every day - I wanted to get him the one he loved!
Similar statements could be made for most of the starred items in the list above.
In truth, after a honeymoon and the holidays, we are still paying down our credit cards, but it’s nothing we can’t manage just fine.
What’s most important is that we had a wonderful, memorable, intimate wedding in a special place with the people we love. That was our goal all along… and hell yes, it was worth every penny.
Please feel free to share your budget challenges, coping mechanisms, and solutions below!
Thank you again for taking part in our wedding from conception to execution. I’ve enjoyed having you all along for the ride! With this post, my recap is completed. Next, I’ll share our Zihuatanejo honeymoon and after that, who knows!
[Credits: Image courtesy of Piknik Studios.]
Previously:
Married in Montana: The Rehearsal
Married in Montana: The Girls Get Ready
Married in Montana: The Guys Get Ready
Married in Montana: The Bus Ride to Polebridge
Married in Montana: Pre-Ceremony Preparations
Married in Montana: Staging the Ceremony
Married in Montana: Our Wedding Ceremony (Part 1 of 2)
Married in Montana: Our Wedding Ceremony (Part 2 of 2)
Married in Montana: Receiving Line & Refreshments
Married in Montana: Cocktail Hour
Married in Montana: Bride & Groom Portraits
Married in Montana: Family Photos
Married in Montana: Wedding Party Portraits
Married in Montana: Our Rustic Reception
Married in Montana: Toasting
Married in Montana: Just Desserts
Married in Montana: Making it Official
Married in Montana: Glamour Shots!
Married in Montana: Portraits of Our Guests
Married in Montana: First Dances
Married in Montana: Bouquet and Garter Toss
Married in Montana: The Grand Finale
Married in Montana: All in the Details (Part 1 of 2)
Married in Montana: All in the Details (Part 2 of 2)
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Share this post: Married in Montana: The Big Budget Breakdown
Thanks for sharing your budgets, your splurges and your regrets.
I’m definitely a bride that set a budget and am now sort of just spending and not looking as I go. I’m prepared for the mini-heart attack the ensues when FI and I look at our budget in detail next week.
Your wedding was beautiful and I’m sure worth [most] every penny!
Thanks Mrs. CP. I think that this is one of the hardest things to research when you look into planning a wedding because most people either don’t keep track of, or prefer to keep their budget private (which I understand as well). It is very nice to have a reference for what some of these things can cost. I know I had no idea going into this.
This is such a great post!! I am going to bookmark this and force FI to look it over. We have a *STRONG* (aka not loose) budget. We absolutely cannot spend much more without landing in debt. If only I could get him to stop inviting people…
I know how you feel. We budgeted fo a small intimate affair. then my mother realized it was my dad’s 55th birthday two days before our wedding. so no there is an additional $5,000 birthday at our hotel (band, food, room rental, cake). Then our wedding, is in a garden so I wasn’t expecting to pay for flowers- but my mother felt it was important to have flowers on the iron wrought candlelabras- so she pitched in there. Then my father didn’t want our guests to drive so far on the back roads of napa; hence the limo bus. Then my mother couldn’t envision the tables without chargers, hence the chargers…
It’s funny because no matter how you say “I don’t need this” someone (like your parents) are like “we’ll pay for it, you need it!” At least, that is the case for us…
Mrs. CP– thanks for you candor about this… we started with our budget and are plugging (well subtracting down) as we go…. ugh…we just looked at it last night and its definately dwindling quickly…. =) But, as you said, in the end… it is all worth every BIG or small Penny! =)
Wow, definitely appreciate your honesty here!
Our budget definitely changed during our initial planning stages, but luckily we seem to have kept within it once decided. I did a lot of research in the early days to see what things were likely to cost, so I could say to the mister “look, realistically, it’s going to cost us THIS much”. That definitely gave him a kick up the backside!
I really recommend that everyone works as hard as they can on a realistic budget at the very beginning of planning. Like you, ours was more of a ‘we’d like to pay’ rather than ‘we only have’, but it’s still important to keep track, and make sure that everything can be included in that number in your head.
I think the most important thing, whatever the size of budget, is that you don’t go beyond your means. Glad to hear you have no regrets with that!
… forgot to say, I found those guides at places like the knot that split your budget into percentages really helpful. True, we amended ours quite a bit, but it was really useful to see, “well, if we spend this much on THIS, we only have this much left for THAT”
Thanks for your post Mrs. CP. I know it must have been hard to write - something honest and somewhat gut-wrenching always is! But us brides out here that are desperately trying to stick to our budgets, (or within the ballpark,) really appreciate hearing from other experiences. Thank you!
I’m the same way - sure, I could’ve done it for $20k (or less), but looking back - maybe things wouldn’t have been as well, as special, as well run. Our end budget was 2x that - but no regrets!
Your budget scares me, because it’s awfully close to what I have budgeted for my destination wedding that is looking strikingly similar to yours but my venue is a lot more expensive! I guess I should just be wary…thanks for posting this!!
@Miss Burgundy: Balls! I knew I forgot something. I’ll go back and have it added. Invites were $1500 for the entire suite and TQ notes. Our save the dates were free except for postage.
Thanks for sharing this with us! We are starting to do some - off book spending - too! It’s great to hear that after the fact it was all worth it. I’m not sure if you said, but how many guests attended? (to give me some perspective)
I have a full spreadsheet breakdown of *every item* that we plan to be spending money on. And when something comes up, I add it. Our budget has grown and grown and grown!! What started out as a $15k event has quickly ballooned into a $28k event!! And it doesn’t help that we keep offering to pay for everything…you were smart not to look at it until AFTER because now everytime I go to buy one little thing I’m thinking “Can I do without *this* one??”
@Aerika- it looks like she says it was for 100 guests at the top.
Thank you so much for being honest about your budget, it really helps 
Thank you for this post. We are just starting to plan (we’ve been engaged a week and haven’t even talked budget!) so I will be sure to reference this. I, too, have the dream of a $12,000 wedding. (sigh)
Quick question though: you spent $500 in tips. Who the heck did you tip?
Thanks! ME
For those still in the planning process, I highly recommend checking out http://2000dollarwedding.com/ for some excellent ideas on how to have a beautiful, fabulous wedding while saving a lot for other things like down payments, etc. Sara, the writer, is a very clever woman. Good luck!
Thanks for posting this…I know it isn’t easy for the bees to reveal their budgets, but it is so useful!
Thanks! I wish more people would share their budgets, it really helps to put things into perspective. My estimate is $10K, but I know its going to be more once I add in all of the little things. ugh!
@MidwestElle: We tipped the hair stylists (for me & the maids), the caterer, the baker, the bus drivers, our planning crew, the band, and our photographer. Most of those tips were $50 to $100, depending on the vendor, the service they provided, and the amount we spent with them.
Thanks for sharing this, Mrs. Cherry Pie. It’s very honest and it’s great to see how much others are spending on their weddings and where the money is going towards. I also love the part about your regrets or lack of!
Thanks for sharing Mrs. CP. Your wedding was so gorgeous!! And I am right there with ya on the overspending- I’d like to think that we are just 10% over, but I know that isn’t the case.
Thanks for your candor, I think this is going to help a lot of brides be realistic about their weddings.
wow - thanks for being so open about your budget, CP. That’s something not a lot of people are comfortable doing, but believe me, you’ll help a lot of brides along the way.
I think it’s so important to be honest with oneself about money. Here I’m thinking we can pull off an eco summercamp wedding, but I just know things are going to add up in the end.
*edit - I’m thinking we can pull of an eco summercamp wedding for 7 g’s
…we’ll see about that one!
Thank you so much for sharing. Our budget is 22,000, but if I start factoring in “personal expenses” that we’ve paid out of pocket, we’re probably closer to 30,000 as well. Like you and Mr. CP, we’re having a two-year engagement. Maybe being engaged for that long upped our expectations for our “dream wedding”!
Thank you for sharing this. My wedding isn’t till next year, but looking at my budget, I sometimes get that “We could just elope and put a down payment on a house” feeling. But then I realize how much I truly want a wedding - with my friends and family and a poofy dress and a fabulous party. And I understand how, if I was very reasonable, and just used it as a down payment, I’d have some serious regrets later on - so I understand where you are coming from. Being over budget is awful, but your wedding was so freaking cool!
Thanks for sharing this post. It’s nice to have a realistic breakdown on how much a wedding as beautiful as yours actually costs.
Thanks so much for sharing this! A friend of mine just got engaged, and I’ve been sharing with her how much I’ve noticed things are “running”. She was floored. It’s interesting to see the honesty of how much something cost– especially after seeing the final details put together!
We have an estimate budget not a real budget as well! I think it is more realistic. It is hard to plan everything out by price, chances are your goign to go over.
its so helpful to see other peoples budget breakdowns, so I’m loving this post!
I want to say thank you for sharing this! Your wedding was one I have admired the most. From your recaps it has such a relaxed and wonderful vibe but also appears to have been seamlessly put together. Clearly that is a result of a lot of time and resources you invested.
We have a budget we have done a very good job of sticking to. However, with two months left to go, I imagine some last minute “little things” will certainly add up and I am prepared to pay the photographers more to stay late if we’re loving our party.
All in all, a fantastic investment in your marriage and the happy memories your wedding will bring.
You completely rock for sharing your budget and also for showing us that stuff comes up and things get expensive — this is a good thing to remind the brides to be on here. I know you said you could have spent less $ on rings and things, but I will say that your dress looked like it cost way more than $1,500, so there ya go, automatic savings Good luck paying off the rest of the wedding and again, thank you so much for sharing the nitty-gritty with us.
yeah thanks for the honest update. i still have receipts laying around and frightens me to try to tabulate all of them. hehe. one day, when i get to the boxes that they are all hiding in 
@phruphru: Yeah, lemme tell you I was THRILLED when I found out I could get a Spanish-made dupioni silk gown for $1500! It blew me away compared to the other dresses I tried on that cost more!
We are running into the EXACT same thing. I keep picking up accessories or buying a little something extra for the BMs and not pulling the cost from the wedding budget. I’m terrified to see what our “real” budget will end up being.
Yours is one of the most beautiful weddings I’ve ever seen on ANY blog, and I have no doubt that it was worth every single penny. I hope I can say the same about ours this time next year!
I do have one question - what does the DOC/$2500 in incidentals cover? Gratuity?
thanks for your honesty mrs. CP! i know talking about budget makes people nervous and it can be a hairy discussion, but it’s just really helpful to see someone breakdown their budget and be forthright about how it wasn’t what they originally started with =).
we are planning a wedding for almost 200 people and our original budget was $15K. now it’s more like $20-22K, with $5K for the ceremony, $10K for the reception, and almost $7K for all the other stuff — the dress and other attire, invites, transportation, etc etc. i think i’m still okay though. like you, i had a different way of assigning budget priorities, and we also were splitting it between our parents and us. and we’re still keeping quite close to what we originally budgeted for important things like the reception, which is pretty remarkable.
anyway, it’s been a joy following your recap =)! can’t wait to see the honeymoon post!!
@DCKate: Let’s see. Travel time for the DOC and crew (coming from far away, fairly expensive), rehearsal hourly, extra hours for extra crew on Saturday, mileage, hotel, meals, and a few other little things. There were three people in the crew as opposed to the standard 1 or 2.
Mrs. CP thank you so much for this post. When Mrs. Bee was asking for feedback recently, I mentioned that I wanted to hear more of exactly this part of the journey we all go on when planning a wedding. Your wedding had beautiful, coutrified rustic charm, but I could tell from reading your posts that it didn’t come cheap, and I think this post is a thoughtful meditation that will help those brides in the early planning stages who wouldn’t necessarily have been able to spot the types of details that those of us on the homestretch can see making a budget spike up. Thank you again for your honesty. An excellent, helpful way to end your recaps!
CP, as always you are the best. Thank you for being so honest about your budget. I have a feeling we are also falling into the same predicament. Your wedding was fabulous, and I am sure that you and all the guests will remeber your special day forever.
Our wedding is now more than double what we originally intended to spend. I did find the budget tool on marthastewart.com to be a godsend - it reminds you off all the items you don’t think to add into your budget.
Honestly, and I hope this makes you feel even better, but your wedding looked so much more than what you really spent!
Thank you so much for sharing! Budget can be such a touchy subject, it’s nice to get insight on what other brides spend on things…since I’ve been too nervous to ask friends!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. I hate that no one will give you actual numbers. I mean, I know that it’s private to a lot of people but I wish more people would post anonymously about it on sites like this. It’s SOOO helpful. Much appreciated.
I think the reason people including myself end up spending so much more than we planned is because you hardly ever see real wedding budgets. Thank you so much for sharing yours! My budget was much smaller than yours, it started at $5,000. And we ended up spending $10,000. It is hard to budget what you are REALLY going to spend when there aren’t many places to find out what weddings REALLY cost
Thanks so much for sharing your budget… I’ve been drooling over your posts, and seeing your budget helped me put my non-outdoors venue back into perspective! *lol*
Originally I dreamed of doing it all for $8k, now we’re looking at $!2k - and I think we’ll come pretty close!
Thank you all for your feedback! Yes, it made me nervous sharing my budget, but I figured it could only help other people. I was afraid some would be critical, but I am glad to have had this reception instead. I wish y’all could have been guests!
As Mrs. CP pointed out, we purchased many things as “personal expenses”. While it does work into the overall cost of the wedding it didn’t feel like wedding costs in some way.
Consider that every month many of us spend several hundred dollars on miscellaneous stuff. It’s where our salaries go after bills. In the sidelines we had the wedding account with it’s parental contributions just lurking. We were practically on top of the wedding when we finally touched that account for the items it had been set aside for. By that point the credit card expense of the wedding band, purchased months before, was paid and forgotten.
In that way the personal expenses were more manageable. No less real, but because many of them got rolled into our monthly cost of living they were less painful.
I was always raised to be open and honest about money and I’ve tried to get Mrs. CP to be the same. Not talking about money or budgets just perpetuates people not knowing how to deal with either (at least that’s what my dad says!)
thanks so much for posting this, mrs. CP! budgets are such a personal thing. to the extent that you haven’t put yourself in a dire financial situation because of your wedding…if you are at peace with how much you spent, whether you’ve spent $1000 or $100,000, that’s all that matters. i’ve enjoyed your recaps and i thought your wedding was beautiful…even more so because of all the thought and sentiment that went behind every element.
You are awesome, Mrs. CP… so down to earth! I am the 53rd person to say this but I really appreciate your honesty here. I often sit and wonder the cost of weddings posted by the Bees… could I do something similiar or is way out of my league? So far we have been pretty good about sticking to our budget… I have gone way over on personal accessories but my dress was about $400 less than budgeted for so I guess I just broke even there.
FI sees it the way some others see it… “maybe we could take some things out and put it towards our down payment for our 1st house,” but I am so focused on the wedding that he just can’t crush my little heart by taking things away. Sometimes I think I/we all just get too wrapped up into it all, but I just want it to be everything I have ever dreamed of looking back. I can’t perfect everything, I know, but some things just have to fall into place to make it all just click.
thank you for posting about your budget. at first i thought i was crazy because our budget kept on changing (rising) and since we’re more flexible with some expenses.
thank you for sharing so honestly - we’re adding every single item into an excel file (love google docs for sharing!) so we see exactly how much is left.
that said, our initial $7,000 budget grew into $10,000, and we’re making sure it doesn’t evolve anymore!!!
Thanks for the post. I thought we were realistic with our budget (we gave ourselves a big buffer) but it just keeps growing! There are still things on our checklist not finished and we gotta learn to curb our wants
thanks for this post! The day after I got engaged I told my parents I wanted a small, romantic wedding, and that we should “be able to do this whole thing for under $10K.” We’ve already spent $19K, and that doesn’t factor in so many things — there’s no way we’re getting out of there for less than $24K.
I like to think that this “makes up” for those two quarters I graduated early from college (saving my parents about $28K! Which they could invest and use as they wanted for the past ten years!).
This is one of the best posts ever. Thanks Cherry Pie!
PS Your wedding looked amazing!
Mrs. CP–THANK YOU FOR SHARING! I am especially thankful for so many extra reasons. My FI and I are getting married in Billings and I will be talking to my parents soon about our budget… I was definitely shocked when I started learning how much things cost, I know she will be as well (I have always liked chivari chairs, but never knew they’d cost $8 each!). So, I think your budget breakdown will be a talking point for us–thanks for helping out! It’s helpful to see what other Montana brides are spending.
Similarly, we would like to incorporate a few elements that you did in yours, so it gives us a jumping off point in budgeting.
Also, I had considered working with Katalin Green, too… but she is really terrible about getting back to me. But that issue aside, it’s interesting to hear your review of working with her and that you would have scaled back on her services.
So thank you!
Thank you! This is AMAZING! I’m newly engaged and just starting out with planning so it’s great to know what others spent since I’m so clueless about this all!
Thanks for being brave to help all us out! 
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Miss Cherry Pie, Seattle/Polebridge, Montana
Age and Occupation: 25, Marketing Communications Specialist
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Nurse Practitioner
Engagement Date: August 26, 2006
Wedding Date: September 2008
Blogging Since: April 1, 2008
Venue: A tiny town just outside of Glacier National Park
About Me: I think of life as a journey and I love the places it's taking me! I went to school to study Magazine Journalism, ended up with a second major in Japanese language, and now work at a company that makes software for libraries. I love writing, computers, photography, and the great outdoors. I spend most of my time playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band or geeking out online with Mr. Cherry Pie. I'm happiest when I'm on the road, especially traveling abroad, or just nesting quietly at home with my sweetie, who is a fabulous cook and bakes a delicious rendition of a certain cherry-filled dessert!
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