Wedding Blog

It’s one year later, and finally, I’ve mustered up the courage to share our wedding day budget with you!

Date: 6/07/08
City, State: within 10 miles of Boston, MA
Budget: $25,000
# of Guests: planned for 200, actual # 170

Ceremony Costs, $405 (2%)

We were married at St. Catherine of Genoa in Somerville, MA — the same church Mr. Toucan’s parents were married!

I had agreed to get married in a Catholic Church* (Mr. Toucan is Catholic, but I am not) under the conditions that the church had to be pretty (how shallow is that?!). Luckily, this church was beautiful, had sentimental value, and didn’t break the bank! Other Boston area churches cost much, much more.

*I just remembered now that we also paid $125 in a Pre-Cana course. Technically, not a wedding day cost, so I’ll just note it like this.

Reception Costs, $12,315 (49%)

We held our reception at Jin Asia Cuisine Restaurant, a Chinese Restaurant in Saugus, MA.

When searching for wedding reception venues, we went back and forth on whether to have a Chinese Banquet reception, or a regular American-style reception. In the end, we chose the Banquet because of the cost. We had no reception site fees, and we got much, much more food for the money!

Apparel, $2,498 (10%)

Our apparel costs could have accounted for much, much more! These costs include, my wedding gown, alterations, the groom’s attire, the bridesmaid dresses, flower girl dresses, FG and ring bearer tux rentals, and Chinese reception outfits! Luckily, we found ways to cut costs!

I purchased my Tara Keely wedding gown (Style #TK2703) for $621 (including MA state tax) from VOWS bridal outlet in Newton. The gown was a sample and was few sizes too big, and I had a couple major alterations made (original posts here and here). Alterations from Alterations by Anahit cost another $565, which included:

• taking in the dress at the bust, waist and hip
• taking up the hem
• re-shaping the bust (making a less severe sweetheart shape)
• sewing in cups
• fixing the train of the dress (because I had so much taken in, we lost a lot of the ruffles in the train)
• a 3-point french bustle, and
• dress pressing

My bridal accessories only cost a total of $69 because I only bought shoes and a veil! My shoes were BGBGirls Isabel from Nordstrom on sale for $50, and my veil, a simple ivory 1-tier cathedral length veil, cost $19 (including shipping) from eBay.

We had the bridesmaids’ dresses custom made in China when we were there for a family vacation the December before the wedding. This saved us a TON, as the dresses only cost us about $55 each! I also got a fantastic deal and bought each of the girls hot pink shoes (Nine West Jojus and BP shoes from Nordstrom). On average, each pair of shoes cost about $35.

The flower girl dresses are the Cherry Blossom Embroidered Taffeta Dress from The Briar Patch. Including shipping, each dress cost $55.

Like the bridesmaids’ dresses, Mr. Toucan’s tux was custom made in China. It cost us only $123, and was finished in 4 days! At the time, we hadn’t decided what color vest/tie he was going to wear, so we just rented an ivory vest and shoes for $40 from Men’s Wearhouse.

In hindsight, I wish we ordered all the guys’ tuxes in China. The guys rented their tuxes from Men’s Wearhouse for $130. Even the ring bearer’s tux cost $110! Since Mr. Toucan already had his tux, we used our free tux rental for FIL Toucan (Daddy Toucan also had his tux made in China).

Lastly, I wore 3 other outfits on our wedding day! It is traditional for a Chinese bride to change multiple times during the evening. For the tea ceremony, I wore the traditional Chinese qua. This cost us $0 because it was borrowed from my aunt. 3 of my other cousins also wore it on their wedding day.

I had changed back into my wedding dress after the tea ceremony, but after we cut the cake, I changed into my qipao, another traditional Chinese dress, for the parent dances and to toast the tables. I had my qipao custom made in China, as well, and it cost $80.

I pretty much wore my qipao for the rest of the evening. I had purchased another outfit to wear for the end of the night, but I was having too much fun to take the time to change. After most of the guests left (including our photographers), I did end up changing into the Sue Wong Dress (it was more comfortable to sit in than the qipao!). The dress was purchased at Lord and Taylor for $200.

Beauty, $625 (2%)
For hair and makeup, I hired Lypor Hair & Makeup Artisan.

In 2008, Lypor charged $90 for hair, and $95 for makeup. We also paid for the bridesmaids’ hair (each $60), and my mom’s blowout ($50). They all each did their own makeup.

Stationery/Postage, $1,174 (5%)

I admit this category was a hard one for me to keep track of, as there was so much paper and postage!

Again, our invitations were an overseas purchase! We bought them from Joy Card in Hong Kong. The cost of our invitation set was $961, which included an engraved 3-panel pocketfold invitation (both in English and Chinese), response cards and envelopes, map with schedule of events on the reverse, and shipping from Hong Kong.

We spent another $61 on paper and supplies that we used for our programs, escort cards, table cards, menus, at home cards, and thank you cards. Postage cost us an additional $141.

Our “guest book” (which is not actually paper, but I feel like the guest book goes in this section), was a red silk Chinese signing cloth that cost us $10. (Note: we meant to get the cloth embroidered before the wedding, but ran out of time. The strips of white paper were just place holders!)

Photography and Videography, $3,570 (14%)

Since we decided not to have a videographer, we could allocate more money towards photography.

Our photography team: 2nd shooter, Krista Guenin; our photographer, Robert Mirani;
and lighting assistant, Dana

We hired Robert in 2007, and for $3,570, we got a package that included: 10 hours of shooting, an engagement shoot, a 2nd shooter, lighting assistant, and hi-res files.

Music and Entertainment, $1,850 (7%)

I wasn’t quite sure where to put the organist and cantor for our ceremony. I suppose I could have included them in the ceremony costs above, but I just lumped it here instead. The church organist and cantor cost us $350. For our reception, we hired a husband/wife duo to DJ and MC, which cost us a flat rate of $700.

We hired a couple unique “acts” to entertain our guests before dinner started. For the cocktail reception, I hired a guzheng player (don’t know what is is? Listen here). I hired a local guzheng teacher to perform for $200. I also hired Gund Kwok, a local all female lion dance troupe, for a 20 min performance for $600. Our guests loved these 2 unique performances!

Flowers & Decor, $533 (2%)

With a gorgeous church and almost-over-the-top venue, I didn’t need to spend much of decorations– just flowers!

Like most brides, I just loooooooove peonies, and had to have them! Lucky for me, peonies are in season in June. In season or not, peonies tend to be pricey flowers. Again, lucky me, we found a way to cut some costs!

I ordered 100 peonies from Bridgewater Gardens. Each stem cost $2.25, plus a overnight delivery charge of $58 for the order, brought the total to $283. My aunt, who assembled all the bouquets and altarpieces, also bought $250 worth various of wholesale stems from a florist friend. This brought our total to $533.

If I did this all again though, I could have saved even more money… we had TOO MANY FLOWERS! We could have easily cut the order in half. My parents and some relatives got to bring home little arrangements my aunt made with all the extra flowers.

Gifts, $1,367 (6%)

This was the one area I knew I overspent. I was pretty determined to have somewhat useful favors, and we ended up spending over $3 per favor!

We bought 250 glass tea cups while visiting China (at the time we estimated we’d have 200 guests, and bought more in case we ended up with more guests or some broke during our flight home). We also bought ~250 flower tea balls. My dad, the bargainer, bargained the price for these items down to $737 (after conversion). I spent an extra $30 on wrapping paper to make the boxes look pretty.

We also spent another $75 on gifts for the bridesmaids and groomsmen for a total of $300.

Transportation, $824 (3%)

To be honest, our transportation was supposed to cost us more ($1,174). However, the combination of a freakishly hot day in June (93 degrees and humid!) + a stretch Explorer with NO AC = some money back. The limo cost us $674 + $150 driver’s tip.

Cake, $0 (0%)

Mr. Toucan and I were very lucky to have a very talented baker friend. She made us a 5-tier wedding cake (I am not sure how many people that feeds, but we didn’t cut anything past the 2nd layer!) of alternating lemon with white chocolate frosting and raspberry filling, and a fiddler on the roof cake.

She didn’t stop with the wedding cake though… It was Mr. Toucan’s Mario Cake that stole the show!

Mr. Toucan’s Mario cake was a confetti cake! Our friend made both cakes free of charge!

Aaaaand, I finally reached the end. I should note that we spent $0 on both the coordinator and hotel categories. We decided not to hire a coordinator, and chose to spend our first night as husband and wife in our brand new place!

So that brings us to the total… DRUMROLL….

WEDDING DAY TOTAL: $25,161
TOTAL COST PER PERSON: $148.00
(divide wedding day total by # of guests)

*phew*
Just $161 over budget!

I hope this was helpful to you all, and I’d be happy to answer any questions. Happy planning!