Wedding Blog

Our $1000 budget wasn’t actually set in stone: it just worked out to be around that much. We wanted to spend as little as possible, so I tried to come up with what I thought were reasonable amounts to spend on the things we need and want in order to pull off our wedding in style. Here are the details. The green number after the slash indicates our actual expenditure.

Marriage License: $110/?
$110 is the cost for a marriage license in Minnesota, where we were originally considering tying the knot. If we do it in North Dakota, it’ll cost a little less. We haven’t decided yet.

Dress: $250/$14
This was my initial dress budget. The brown suit cost $170; I returned it. My white eyelet dress was much more budget friendly! I am still planning to buy a shrug, pashmina, or light jacket to go with my dress, but I don’t think it’s going to bring the dress budget total even close to my original estimate.

Shoes: $100/?
I haven’t bought my shoes yet, but I hope to do better than $100 for them.

Accessories: $50/?
I have a string of pearls given to me by my grandma. I bought a pair of earrings that are similar to my ring; they were $28 at Macy’s but free with a gift card I had from Christmas. I’m still unsure about a hairpiece. (Barrette? Headband? Birdcage veil? We’ll see.)

Flowers: $60/?
…if I get them at a florist, which I might. I don’t intend to buy a “bridal bouquet”; I’m just going to get some flowers and wrap them myself. Grocery store flowers tend to cost about $20/bouquet, so I’d estimate about $40 in case I want to combine two bouquets.

Cake: $30/?
A round cake for 10 costs about $15 at our local grocery store. I am thinking of making my own topper with materials that will cost under $10.

His clothes: $100/?
We’re not sure what Mr. Mary Jane is going to wear. This may amount to a shirt and tie if he wears pants and shoes he already owns.

Dinner for 8: $150
We plan to buy dinner for our 6 guests and ourselves at a local restaurant.

Announcements: $150/?
I’m planning to make some kick-ass marriage announcements (about 50) to send to friends and family to alert them of our new married status.

Total estimated budget: $1000.

What am I missing above? For starters, the paper products. No invitations or save the dates. No postage. There is no reception. No centerpieces, no DJ, no tent rental, no favors, no plating fees, no wait staff or catering. Transportation? We will use our own car. There will be no professional hair or makeup, no wedding party, and no dress alterations (aside from those I may do myself). Photography? Our parents will take photos of us. (Though I may have something else brewing - we’ll see!) We may decide to do an after-shoot, but it depends how good the photos from our parents are and how much money we have after we spend a summer home-improvementing. So right now, photography is not in our budget. My hope is that we will save money on enough of the other items above to allow for us to add it to our expenses without breaking our budget.

You may also notice that I did not include our rings in the above budget. Wedding rings are life-long symbols of our commitment to each other. They are someday-heirlooms: our most treasured pieces of jewelry. They are not, in our opinions, a wedding day expense (and hence not part of the wedding budget).

I also did not include a honeymoon. While we are planning to have one, we’re not planning to have one right after the wedding. One of the reasons we elected to have such a low-key wedding was so that we could afford the rings we wanted and the honeymoon of our dreams. We don’t know what that dream is yet, but we know we want to leave the continent, and for quite a while.

So there you have it: a rundown of our very bare-bones budget. I plan to revisit this with updates and reflections after our wedding so you can see what saved us money, what was right on, and where we had to splurge a little.

Do you have a budget? Have you been pleasantly surprised by some expenses, but hit harder than anticipated by others? What were your biggest splurge and your best savings?