Wedding Dress Budgeting
August 6th, 2007 @ 5:54 pm by Mrs. Onion
A note about budgeting for a wedding dress: Don’t forget that there are other costs involved than just the sticker price of the gown.
Other costs of your bridal look include:
a) fittings/alterations, which can be 15% or more of the gown
b) tax (which can sometimes be avoided by shipping out of state — but then there are shipping costs)
c) a veil
d) shoes
e) a bra for the dress (can be anywhere from $70-$150 I found)
Although my gown was $1,770, I budgeted $2500 which is about what I ended up spending as follows: Read more…
$25,000 Real Wedding Budgets
July 26th, 2007 @ 1:12 pm by Real Budgets
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.
………………………………………………………………………………………………..
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. Read more…
Reader Buzz: Budget Overages
July 12th, 2007 @ 7:53 pm by Reader Buzz
Commenter Red had a good point about how most brides exceeded their initial budgets in our Real Reader Budgets post earlier today. So we’d like to know how much your budget has changed from your initial estimate, to what it is now (mid or post planning).
Words of Wisdom: Budgets
July 12th, 2007 @ 1:23 pm by Words of Wisdom
Budgets are all the buzz these days around Weddingbee. So while the topic is hot, what have you found to be the best tips for saving money in planning a wedding?
$30-35,000 Real Wedding Budgets
July 12th, 2007 @ 9:30 am by Real Budgets
Today we’re jumping up a few budget brackets to bring you three different weddings in the $30 -$35K range, including one illustrated with photos!
- AL and her fiance are planning a Renaissance-themed wedding for 150 guests in Long Island, New York. They’re splurging on entertainment (including a band, professional trumpeteers to announce them, and Renaissance dancers), but found ways to budget elsewhere, such as an all-inclusive photography/videography package for $3500, and makeup done by mom!
- AA’s Houston wedding had some great details, like a string trio for the ceremony music, and catering by Marble Slab Creamery. They saved on decorations and favors by designing their own flower centerpieces and having photo favors which were included in the cost of her photography package.
- And finally, AS’s lakeside wedding in Milwaukee was celebrated by 320 guests (honed down from 500!). The event was personalized with details such as high-top tables for the bar area, and adjoining hotel rooms for her and her bridesmaids the night before. She made budgetary compromises in some areas (candlelight instead of professional lighting, prime rib instead of filet mignon), and spent money elsewhere (rented linens, Brewers tickets for the dads!). You can see pictures of her wedding below. Read more…
Budgets Are A Girl’s Best Friend
July 9th, 2007 @ 3:00 pm by Mrs. Peppermint
After seeing all the recent budget talk, I thought I should chime in on the hot topic. While I’m far from knowing our final verdict of what the wedding will cost us, I can let you in on how my family approached it.
Much like Miss Corn’s post, our number has been evolving ever since we got engaged. The way we found the sweet spot was to jump in headfirst (research-wise, that is) and see the broad range of costs. Once we saw all that was out there, we were able to narrow down our vision and thus hone in on a general figure.
$5000 Real Wedding Budgets
July 5th, 2007 @ 3:40 pm by Real Budgets
Because we’re turning this into a regular feature, we’ve added a link under the Guest Blogs page for you to submit your Real Budgets at any time. Do you like our shiny new icon? 
Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be featuring several different types of weddings (city, rural, destination etc.) within different budget ranges ($5,000, $10,000 etc.). We’ve already received many submissions so we don’t know if we’ll be able to post them all, but please continue to send in your budgets as we’d like to showcase as wide a variety as possible.
Today we bring you three different $5000 budget weddings that are great examples of how to stretch a smaller budget.
- SK had a 40 person wedding at a restaurant in Manhattan. Restaurants can be surprisingly affordable venues that often offer lower per person prices than many caterers or wedding venues. And because they’re already equipped with tables, chairs, linens, and china, you don’t have to worry about paying for rentals.
‘Mo Money, ‘Mo Problems*
July 3rd, 2007 @ 6:40 pm by Mrs. Pumpkin
I am still not sure how comfortable I am giving out the entire details of our budget, but I’m going to do it anyway because I am almost certain that no one who would care (except our photographer) knows that I blog on Weddingbee. It seems to be of interest to the WB readers, and so hopefully by posting this, I will be helping someone else plan their wedding.
So, here it is kids! The first ever Canadian bee budget. Since our dollar is doing so well lately, these figures are pretty comparable with the US prices. But please do keep in mind that all of my figures are in Canadian funds, and that some items were purchased as far away as one year ago (so the exchange may be a bit funky).
City - Regina SK Canada
Budget - $30,000 (or $40,400, depending on how you look at it. See below for my small discussion on budgets in general)
155 Guests
Ceremony Site Fees: $900 - including ferry rides to and from the island for all guests and vendors throughout the day Read more…
The Cost of ‘Priceless’
July 3rd, 2007 @ 3:09 pm by Real Budgets
(A guest post on budget from former bride KM)
Isn’t the most special day of your life “priceless”? Well yes…and no. The reality is that there are costs involved. Most people don’t plan weddings for a living, so how does one even begin to figure out how much to spend? Hopefully the monetary details of one 2006 wedding can help provide some perspective.
This Bee’s Budget
July 3rd, 2007 @ 9:31 am by Mrs. Corn
Ok Bees, I have a confession to make. I have no idea what our wedding budget is. Before we were engaged, you know, back when I was trying to figure out what was taking Mr. Corn so long to decide I was the one for him, I tried to bribe him by suggesting we could hold a $5,000 wedding. He popped his eyebrow at me and remained quiet.
Once we were engaged we tried to realistically discuss our budget, I think the number $10,000 did come up at some point. Of course, prior to confirming that number we needed to figure out how many people we would be inviting. Originally, we both wanted something small, around 70 guests tops. But soon after getting engaged, Mr. Corn’s parents took us to a celebratory dinner and before I knew what had happened (and after a bottle of expensive champagne) we somehow had agreed to 120 guests!
Mr. Corn and I live in the city of Boston and I attend church in Cambridge. It became apparent very quickly that hosting a wedding in Boston or the immediate area would be very cost prohibitive if we went with our initial desire to host a fun, inviting party for our family and friends, so we started looking outside the city. We also thought, erroneously, that by having the wedding ceremony and reception outside we would save big bucks, but I can tell you that tents and rentals add up just as quickly as banquet fees and room rentals. So that didn’t help us save, either.
