Mrs. Wallaby does this so much better than me, but let’s talk about money. I’ve alluded to the fact that we’re throwing a pretty low-budget wedding. (There’s got to be a better way of saying that.) I’m gonna try to be pretty open here, even though yeah…it’s a little awkward.
My parents and Mr. Lemur’s parents have graciously offered to help us, and we’re choosing to spend only the money that we were given. We could spend our own money on top of that—but it would mean things like less money toward student loan repayment and taking out a car loan instead of paying cash for the car I just bought. I’m not saying this is what everyone should do, but as a graduate student it was the best option for us! And I’m here to tell you that if that’s what you’re looking to do (I know there are some of you out there!), it’s totally possible.
I want to do a pre-wedding budget post to let you know our general categories. After this all goes down I’ll post again and let you know the specifics! A few things: My engagement ring, our wedding bands, and our honeymoon are not included in this budget. We are paying for those ourselves, as well as gifts. The rehearsal dinner is also not included, as Mr. Lemur’s parents are covering that. Anything else? Uh, hopefully I didn’t forget it! If you see something you’re not sure about, just ask.
Catering: $2,000
I mentioned before that we’re using the caterer from our venue, who is completely reasonable. She charges per item, so a menu of six to eight items for around 120 people is totally in our price range. We’re having coffee, tea, juice, sweet tea, and water, but not serving alcohol—which keeps the price down. The cakes are also included in this total price. We’re doing five simple round cakes with frosting in shades of the wedding colors. I’m so excited to see how this turns out!
Venue: $1,250
In the beginning we set a max of $1,000 for the wedding venue. This is possible! However, our original venues that fell into this category were all booked. This is mostly due to our short engagement. My advice: If you want to save money on the venue, book early so you can pick and choose! We were really limited, although I do love our venue.
Image via Pleasant Ridge Camp & Retreat Center
Photography: $800
This includes our engagement pictures session at $100 and a full day of wedding coverage at $700. We decided to book an up-and-coming young photographer with just a few weddings under her belt. Her original price was $1,000, but we negotiated travel and lodging expense (not included); plus we’re doing a separate couple’s session with her later in the summer (also not included) instead of taking extensive couples photos on the day of the wedding.
Image via Niki Marie Photography
Bridal Outfit: $250
OK, at this point you might be like, wait what? This girl is crazy. Hold on, I promise this is possible! I got the J.Crew Sophia for $150 online new with tags. This is a $425 dress normally—so already inexpensive but I managed to get a great deal. Check around online—my veil was $10 on eBay, in perfect condition. I haven’t gotten shoes or a necklace yet, so those still need to fit into this category.
Paper Items: $200
This includes the Moo mini-cards, 150 envelopes, ribbon, heart hole punch, and 150 invitations printed in color. It also includes 120 crossword puzzle programs and I Spys printed in black & white and color, respectively. I’ll do a complete breakdown in my final post, but I will say we managed to do all of this with money left over—we got a great deal on printing.
Decorations: $200
The bulk of this is spent on books—which I don’t feel bad about because we can have these for a long time. We did get a great deal on the ones we bought and are borrowing some so we can have more than we were willing to pay for. This is also $20 for tissue paper to make flowers and poms to hang throughout the venue, and $30 to buy small Scrabble letters and make larger Scrabble letters. We’re borrowing some glass from family and friends, and tablecloths are included with the venue, but I still need to narrow down what else I need in this category!
Miscellaneous: $300
This includes anything we haven’t bought or taken care of yet. There’s a lot of little things that add up! We also have to include the marriage-license fee, makeup, and who knows what else…
Total: $5,000
This was the total I set from the very beginning, so I’m really glad to see that with less than three months to go we’re still on target to hit it. I don’t anticipate anything pushing us over this, but you never know!
Anyone have any other tips? Any other brides out there planning low-budget weddings? Anything I forgot? (I sure hope not.)
Congrats on getting the quality you want while sticking to your budget!! I can’t wait to see how it all turn out. 
Wow, good for you. You’ve gotten some steals (photography and your dress, mostly). I can’t wait to see how it all turns out!
We are having what I consider a low budget wedding for 150 guests. When we were venue shopping it was starting to look like we were either going to have to give up our dream venue or lower our number when I realized by having our wedding on a Friday or a Sunday our venue price dropped by half ($500) and by having it earlier in the day we could serve lunch instead of dinner again at half the cost $15 vs. $30 per plate. We were able to still have our dream wedding but at a cost I could live with. I also bought my dress online. $1000 dress for $188 new with tags. Veil came from etsy for $25. Still shopping for shoes!
Love your budget post – we had a $5,000 budget as well, and with a LOT of DIY projects, searching around for good deals, and the help of some amazing friends and family, we pulled it off, and I can honestly say it was my dream wedding – many, many of our guests said it was the absolute best wedding they’d ever been to, which goes to show it’s not about how much money you spend. You sound like you’re on the right track, good for you! I hope everything goes well in the final planning stages.
Ya’ll are doing great with sticking to your budget! And I second Treasure – the photography and dress are such steals!
thankyou for sharing.
another tight budget bride here.
we are having a small 50 to 60 guest wedding at our venue(ceremony and reception same location)
at first our budget was $3.500 to $4.000 at most,but when i became a member here and saw and read things i really wanted,my budget is now $6000 lol.
which is still i think low budget.
thanks for your post,it helps as im still planning mine,soon ill post my budget post to.your wedding will be beautiful
I’m jealous! I don’t have your self-control. I’d love to save the money, but finding anything like what we want is impossible on that low of a budget, sadly. So we’re spending our own money (well, we didn’t get any money from family either, so it’s all us). But we’re hoping to pay it all out-of-pocket with cash and not credit!
I think you did a great job sticking to your budget…so far. Our venue is $3000 but it’s also the oceanfront house we are staying in for the week leading up to the wedding. We are having a cocktail party/reception in the house for 50 after a wedding on the beach.
I got my dress online and spent $120. My alterations were $175 but I still can’t complain about less than $300 total.
We are serving alcohol but only beer and wine and we bought it all at Total Wine and BJs so that saved a lot of money.
We are doing a lot of DIY projects and my sister is the crafty one in our family so she’s been very helpful!
Thank you for posting this! Out “budget” is technically $12,000 but that includes the honeymoon. Anything we don’t spend, we get to keep (fiance’s parents are giving us the money) so we’re trying really hard to keep cost way, way down so we can afford other things in life (like a new[er] car, a house, ext)! I was beginning to think it wasn’t possible… especially since I have a not very helpful family base with DIY projects!
I am SO jealous!! You are going to have such a special day for so little!!!!! It sounds like you really have your priorities straight.
Congrats – both on having awesome family to contribute and for staying on budget! That’s SERIOUS self-restraint and so awesome, especially because it doesn’t look/feel like you’re trying to stay on budget, you know? Thank you for sharing this.
This is great!! We also had a budget of $5,000- used an up and coming photographer who was only $600, my mom grew all the flowers for centerpieces, friends designed our invites, performed our ceremony (he was a deacon- but is my dad’s best friend), did the music at our reception (live band and a DJ gifted to us by another friend).
Does the catering include gratuity and taxes? Unfortunately for us that’s what really felt like it spiked the budget. With all gratuity, taxes, and delivery fees we’re at $2800-ish total. But I think there’s at least $100 in delivery fees, 20% in gratuity, and 7% in taxes in that total number? I have the exact breakdown written somewhere but can’tr remember it off the top of my head right now.
This is really impressive. We decided to give ourselves a significant savings goal so we could afford to host the wedding in Scotland. I never really realized how expensive weddings were until we started planning our own. We’re happy to pay everything in cash and not have any debt after the wedding.
It is so great to see another bride with a $5000 budget, and sticking to it nonetheless! Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one Kudos for staying true to what is really important to you both and being mindful of what you are willing to spend!
@shaynapunim & @Mrs. Treasure: I can’t wait to see how it turns out either! I would have been too nervous to write this post a few months ago but finallyyyy things are coming together
@kellylee: GREAT deal on your dress! And I know I could have paid less if I had been willing to have my wedding on a Friday or a Sunday but I really, really wanted a Saturday. I was willing to work around anything else to make that happen. So I paid more but to me it was worth it!
@Flower Fairy: THANK YOU for your encouraging words! Sometimes I feel like all the weddings are expensive — I love hearing about other weddings that were successful on less! We are so blessed to have amazing friends & family
@Mrs. Wallaby: Thanks!! I know to a point you get what you pay for… but I’m really happy with the quality we’re getting for less
@sharonmariep: $6000 is definitely still low budget. I think you can totally do that! Especially with a “smaller” guest list. It totally depends on what you really think is important and are willing to spend time and money on. For me this was more venue and less decorations.
@Blonde17Jess: It definitely takes a lot more work. In some areas I’ve had a hard time saying no/being willing to compromise… Mr. Lemur & I had to talk through some things and decide they had to get cut! Those aren’t fun conversations but it all works in the end.
@courtoni: I love that you got a great deal on what sounds like a beautiful house! A wedding like that sounds amazing
@steph8907anie: That was the thing with us… we could spend more money but I really want to buy a house someday and we need to pay off Mr. Lemur’s student loans first It’s a balance unfortunately! We’re only getting married once and I want a nice wedding, but I didn’t want to go into debt over it either.
@lealorali: I’m honestly so excited about how well it’s coming together! I know it’s not super fancy or formal, but that’s ok
I can not limit myself to a low budget, my fiance is from another country and many people are comming to mine, so I am committed to providing a detailed wedding. So we have decided to sacrifice our honeymoon.
@StephK527: It helps that we’re sticking with a really casual theme and are trying to keep things laid back! It’s easier to save money that way. And the morning wedding/brunch reception combo… it’s a lot of little things like that
@MaggieL: Your wedding sounds beautiful! I especially love that your mother grew the flowers… that’s so special Honestly, the photographer is the biggest thing. I wanted nice professional pictures… but I didn’t want to pay $3000. That’s a HUGE chunk of the budget!
@lovelyduckie: I didn’t break down the details because I don’t know them yet. As of right now we have enough room in the budget to accommodate that but… I’m a little nervous about what the final will look like. We’ll know more when we have a guest count!
Mrs. Lemur, Greenville, South Carolina Age and Occupation: 22, Graduate Student Fiance's Age and Occupation: 22, Security Officer Engagement Date: October 9, 2012 Wedding Date: May 2013 Venue: Pleasant Ridge Camp & Retreat Center About Me: I may fancy myself a doctor after too many episodes of House—but in reality I'm finally almost done with my degree in business administration (less than three months left!). My fiance and I met at school in undergrad hundreds of miles away from either of our hometowns and have been happily running and hiking together ever since. We're undertaking a long distance relationship as I finish school and we plan our casual wedding for a day after graduation—needless to say, it will be the busiest and most exciting weekend of our lives so far!
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