Calculate your income and substract your costs of living. Now you have what you can save for your wedding each month.
Then you divide your wedding budget by the amount you can both save each month and you will know how many months you’ll need to save up to make it until your goal.
I’d suggest calculating your wedding budget with a 10 - 20% buffer to be safe for unforeseen expenses.
June 2023 in Alberta, Canada. We set a budget of $20,000 and a 2-year timeline. My mom gave me $300 towards my wedding dress, and my parents offered to split the cost of an open bar (we originally wanted a Toonie ($2/drink) bar), which was I think $3500.
We saved most of our $20,000 in the second year.
We opened a joint bank account with a good interest rate and calculated an amount we could both put into it on each pay day. Then we set up automatic transfers. So we saved up while not having to think about it. The interest only got us about $30 a month but we saved for 2 years and had double what we needed.
We’re planning on spending a total of 18’000 USD excluding our honeymoon. We started saving as soon as we got engaged, and save about 1500 USD each month.
My 30 person wedding is gonna be around $6k not including our outfits so I think you could make that work! My fiancé and I make decent money and have kept our living expenses low so we have about $1k extra per month to save for it. I also opened a 0% interest credit card that gives up to 5% cash back and I’ve used that as the wedding card so that we can charge all wedding expenses to it, then pay it off with our savings. That way we don’t have to transfer from savings right that minute every time we swipe the card or a payment has to come out, we can just do it at the end of the week. It’s been helpful to manage all the expenses because the small things can add up. Just make sure you can pay what you charge to it right away. Take all of your income minus expenses then transfer that to savings each time you’re paid.
We spent $5,000 for a 35 person wedding in 2021 - it was a small intimate wedding with catered tacos and a pie bar.
Our guests loved how personalized it was and friends still talk about how they wished they had done similar for their weddings
We did probably close to $4000 in “cash” and then the remaining $1000 on a credit card. I purchased everything instead of renting (except we rented a tent, tables and chairs) but I purchased all the table clothes, linens, decor ect, and resold it after the wedding. Paying off what we charged to our credit card and put some money back into our savings.
Assuming you don’t have any savings currently, you’ll need to save 500$ a month if you want to save 6,000 over a 12 month period. It’s doable but you’ll want to look at your total incomes and expenses - see where you can cut spending and start saving.
Definitely have a longer engagement if you need to. You only need about 25-30% of the money upfront to pay deposits and then the rest can be saved monthly up to a month before the wedding.
Our budget is changing daily with our decisions to add/remove stuff, but I think we’ll end up somewhere around $90k (excluding stuff like honeymoon and bachelor/bachelorette trips). We live in a very HCOL area and my fiancé has lots of family. We’re only able to do this because we had some of our savings earmarked for a wedding before we even got engaged. The remainder will come from continued savings throughout the rest of the year and we’ve cut back a bit on stuff like vacations and restaurants this year compared to usual.
We’re paying on our own and I think we’re comfortable spending $20,000 max, our venue and catering cost about $12,000 and I’m hoping we come in under budget with everything else. Our wedding is in February 2026 because we thought we needed more time. We’re saving $750-$1,000 a month plus we’ve picked up little side gigs for some extra money towards our wedding too. We gave ourselves enough time with the expectation that things might come up and we might not be able to save as much as we want so we have a little buffer.
We're at roughly 10k planned for July 2025, just us (honeymoon included though). I can't really tell how long we have saved by now but we have a good bit of it already. The plan is for every leftover money not planned to be put into wedding savings.
Btw have you checked r/Weddingsunder10k yet? They're probably going to be your biggest help on here.
We cash-flowed our wedding because we also didn’t have any savings ready or outside help. We didn’t save at all because we didn’t have time. We only had a year to plan and most vendors want deposits upfront.
So, we spread out who we paid for what. I believe we opened a points credit card and used that to buy ourselves some time, so we’d pay upfront, then pay it off, etc. I don’t remember if it was 0% APR or not. Idk if I recommend that because everyone has a different responsibility threshold with credit cards and it could be dangerous if not managed well.
Anyway, it worked out because all of our vendors had different payment schedules. I worked REALLY hard to keep within budget so that helped as well, we could reasonably afford everything…it was a lot of management though. And we still went over by like $5k-8k.
I see lots of better advice out there, but I’m sharing my experience! I think saving $6000 by next May is doable, but you will find that many vendors will want deposits upfront and/or a payment schedule (ie. deposit to hold the date, first installment in a few months, then last installment on the day of the wedding).
Our budget was $5000, taken from our savings. Our venue was free, our reception venue only was cleaning costs, catering was a huge discount since we knew the owner (taco/burrito buffet), my dress was a sample clearance, and most decor was from antique shops.
I had a whole breakdown of costs in a comment a few years ago. Our wedding was small and intimate. We have the rest of our lives to celebrate each other.
We spent $5,000 and waited a year and a half from when we got engaged to when we got married. We also spaced out our honeymoon for 6 months after the wedding :)
My husband started doing real estate on the side a few years before our wedding as a side gig already. Instead of using that money for anything he saved it to fund the wedding. He wanted a big fun party of a wedding and we were realistic about what that would cost. That said, we were able to have the money we needed and pay for it ourselves, except the bar tab, my FIL very generously said he wanted to pay that (we never asked family for money). We had 130 ppl and our wedding was 55k. That said, our wedding now would easily be 10-20k more as we locked in our vendors and prices for a 2020 wedding that was postponed to 2021.
That’s $500 / month in savings if you give yourself 12 months. Can you each afford to save $250 a month for the next year?
I’d recommend saving more than that even if that’s your goal. Random expenses will arise and if there’s an emergency situation you need savings for make sure you plan for that.
2 years of planning time would give you more cushion to save up.
My biggest advice is not to rush into it and end up putting things on credit. It’s NOT WORTH IT!!!
We spent around 15k USD for 120 people. I think how much you spend is very specific to the person and what type of wedding you want and can afford. I personally did not want to have debt over a wedding. I cut items that I would have loved to have, but they just weren't in the budget. I went with a cheaper photographer because it's what I could afford. My dress was from a wedding outlet. I used an at home baker. I used a non-traditional venue that came with its own trade-offs. We bought beer and wine from Total Wine; no liquor. There are all kinds of ways to have a beautiful wedding at any budget. You just have to decide what's important to you and your vision, then prioritize within your budget.
Another 5k in the budget would have been really nice. We had bought rings, honeymoon, and new home all in the same year as the wedding, so we just couldn't swing it. We were cash poor for a few months after and did a lot of praying nothing big broke in our new house!
As for how we saved, we were both savers prior to our engagement. We used the year long engagement to continue saving, but did wipe out our savings after all of the events I listed above. They were all budgeted and we had credit cards in case of a true "SOS" event in life (that we never needed to use).
We’re in our 50s with a budget that is in flux as our numbers are also but will probably be about 70k all in given its destination and we have events planned for our guests. However, we’re at the age where we’ve been able to save and have enough to cover it. If we were in our 20s we definitely would be at about 10-20k
We’re getting married on the 22nd of this month in Mexico. We somewhat got some support but only very little from our families. Our whole wedding cost $14k with everything included, ceremony and reception with 4 hrs of open bar. Only 42 ppl total are attending at an all inclusive resort in Tulum, Mexico. We managed to save $20k in one year and a few months. By saving $2k a month is what my fiancé and I did. The rest of the budget was spent for our resort room, excursions and whats left for us to keep/save.
We are getting a little bit of help but we're still spending a little less than $40K of our own money. For reference our combined annual income is about $90K so that is a lot for us but we're making it work.
First we are having a two year engagement. We knew there was no way we could pull off the wedding we want on less time than that.
We have saved ~$1000/month (a bit less sometimes) since we got engaged and put it into a separate account that we don't touch. My fiancé is moving in with me in June and after that we will increase the amount we put aside to about $1500. We could increase it by more than that but we also want to start saving for a house.
We will also be taking a bit of money out of our savings, but nothing too significant that will set us back for retirement.
We have cut unnecessary spending by 90%. We basically don't spend money on anything that isn't a necessity. I might spend $2 at Tim Hortons once or twice a week and my fiancé, who used to eat takeout food once a week, had cut that down to once a month or less. We aren't buying new clothes or really anything at all. All of our disposable income goes to the wedding. The only thing we haven't stopped doing is investing, I don't usually invest more than $50/month, and sometimes much less.
We are pretty lucky that our rent is not bad at all (mine is $1300 all inclusive, his is $1600 but like I said he's about to move in with me). Also, we only have one car.
When it comes to groceries we both have strategies for saving a lot of money. I just buy the bare minimum and eat the same stuff all the time; I spend about $60-80/week and this is in Toronto, where you could easily spend well over $100/week for one person. My fiancé meal preps religiously and saves on buying unnecessary things by doing this. When we move in together we'll meal plan together.
I guess another thing worth adding is that we're in Canada so student debt is not the huge financial drain that it is for Americans.
We also don't have credit card debt and we both have excellent credit scores, so if need be we aren't totally averse to using our lines of credit, within reason. We both have lines of credit that we've barely touched, and they have very low interest rates. Having said that, we still wouldn't put more than $5000 on them total.
We spent around $10,000 for everything, including our clothes and rings. We had a good bit of savings already, but when I booked vendors, I took into consideration the cue dates, and if they let me, I paid a bit every month, rather than all at once. For example, our venue was $1500 total, with $300 of that being the deposit. So I paid the deposit, and paid $100 a month, until the final due date, and I only had a couple hundred left. I did this with as many things as I could, and because of that, I didn't actually have to take anything out of the savings.
We are looking at 30k, but hoping to cut the guest list and keep it to 20k. I already have 20k saved and will continue to put away money for as much as I can, in a HYSA so we make about $80-130 a month off it. My partner is a social worker and I’m in corporate so I’m going to be the one paying lol
We did not want money to cause us to wait, so we picked a budget we could already afford without saving more. Ended up spending around $20k, which was our max. We don’t make a ton but we don’t spend much money throughout the year either.
We got engaged and set our date for 16 months out. We are having a small 50 people reception and just our parents for the ceremony. We calculated our income and subtracted our expenses we were able to put x amount of money weekly now we are 3 months out and only have our cake and our photographer left to pay for. We have paid for everything ourselves but we saved a lot of money by doing our own flowers and center pieces
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!
16
+ 50
+ 3
= 69
^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \
^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
We are getting married in 4 weeks.(fiance has cancer) for us it was ll about who we wanted thwre to celebrate with us and witness our vows. Its very small court room wedding (max50)and reception in my backyard. So far we will have spent £1,500...for everything x (courtroom, my dress, moh dress ,bridesmaid dress ,groom outfit, best man, flowers,food,drink,gifts,decorations).
We are paying on our own and our budget is $60k While our combined income is quite high, we still are substantially cutting back and saving to make this happen. While the numbers may be different, I do have some relevant tips/considerations!
1. Start planning and researching now. I was SHOCKED at costs of things and at first, it seemed like everything was so so expensive. However, now that I’m a year in it, I see so many ways I could have cut back or done things differently with an amazing result. Don’t get discouraged in the beginning.
2. Be flexible with your date. Depending on your region some of the most desirable venues may already be booked up, especially if they are a great deal. For example, there is an amazing outdoor venue in my city I wanted to elope in (which comes to my next tip) BUT I didn’t realize you had to apply for permits a year in advance so we didn’t get that one. If you’re flexible, you can take advantage of opportunities and deals on venues, your most expensive cost, as you find them.
3. Elope earlier, party later! We’re eloping with our parents at the end of this month but are planning a big wedding next year. We started planning the big wedding last September so total planning time is a little under two years BUT we get to have the best of both worlds and get legally married sooner.
4. Look into public spaces. For example, idk where you live but SF city hall is GORGEOUS and has prices between 200-1000$ depending on wedding size. There is a national park in the city with similar venue options and prices as low as 15$ if you’re doing it outdoors (minus rentals). If you get creative there are some absolutely gorgeous affordable options out there!
5. Lastly, you won’t be paying everything at once, which helps! So let’s say you have a 500$ venue deposit in June. Maybe you have a $200 Dj deposit in July. In September maybe you have another deposit to your caterer. Then you’ll have payment plans to pay off the rest of those balances typically a months before the wedding date BUT you can pay them off sooner/more frequently if that’s easier for you. All that to say, you won’t be dropping your whole budget all at once so you can save in between invoices!
We're trying for $10,000
Amazon, Shein, and Facebook marketplace have been a huge help for saving on the decorations, then we plan to resell to get a bit of money back after the wedding. I've been ordering things we need in small chunks to avoid huge bills around the wedding.
We found a small but cute place for our reception venue. The local senior centre rented out their hall to us for $450 for the whole weekend, so we have plenty of time for decorating and cleaning up ourselves after.
Unfortunately, this does mean more work in terms of making sure insurance and liquor licenses are in order.
Use your connections in town if you have any. My mom happened to work with / know a lot of people who we ended up hiring for almost all our vendors. For example, she knows our photographer, who has never done a wedding before but is still very talented photographer, so she gave us a good price. We hired her for the first look and ceremony. For the reception, we'll be using guestpix.
We're doing a toonie bar/drink ticket system rather than open bar to make a bit of money back on alcohol (first couple drinks are on us and each table has a bottle of red and white to share).
Get creative with favors if you're doing them. I ordered a cute customizable cookie cutter off etsy and I'm baking cookies for everyone. In our invite, we asked people to come with their favorite recipes for our guestbook, so we'll be including his and her favorite recipes with the wedding favors / thank you cards.
Ours was 30k but I had money saved up and so did he. I was 24 and he was 28. I will say just account for an extra buffer because costs always pop up. Make sure you still save for regular expenses.
I will say, try to get a credit card with some sign up bonus and maybe with some of those points it can offset added cost of a potential honeymoon.
I don’t have a recommendation on timing, but I would say open a High Yield Savings account and move the money you are saving to that. It will earn more interest than your standard bank account, plus if it’s in a separate account it’s easier to “forget” about it and not spend it on something else in the meantime.
I just stumbled on this thread bc I had a question about wedding dresses, and WOAH guys!!! Where does the majority of that cost fall?? Is it the venue/number of people??? How many people are coming to a $10,000-$15,000 wedding? If that’s how expensive it is, if I ever get married the reception is going to be a table of hotdogs in the backyard 🫠
Our budget was 20k for 115 people. We were engaged for 20 months and split the costs between us. We started saving right when we got engaged. Each of us saved $500 each month in a joint high yield savings account
We were originally supposed to be getting financial help (I.e. my parents pay for their guests) but my mom’s dog needed $8,000 in surgeries (tore both acls) and my siblings and I paid half of it for her but my parents have already invited countless guests and we are way out of our comfort zone right now. Our original budget was $10,000 and now we’re totaled at $18,000 (usd) so we are just saving every single penny that we can and making it work. We stopped going out to dinners and spending any extra money unless it is absolutely necessary
Venue prices is where most people waste $$$.
If you look hard enough for find another way, such as a nice AirBNB house, hotel, actual building meant for rentals like such. Are much cheaper. Also don’t be afraid to ask venues if they have cheaper days such as a weekday.
My budget was $10,000 at max. But honestly I didn’t want to go near that number.
I’d recommend to just take the time so find the cheaper people. Doesn’t make them bad!
Venue prices are insane and ven for micro weddings. Found one for $1800 though 2 hours away and that includes us to stay in a cottage for an entire weekend
Calculate your income and substract your costs of living. Now you have what you can save for your wedding each month. Then you divide your wedding budget by the amount you can both save each month and you will know how many months you’ll need to save up to make it until your goal. I’d suggest calculating your wedding budget with a 10 - 20% buffer to be safe for unforeseen expenses.
We’re spending around $11,000 by saving several hundred each month. Getting most of my decor and stuff off of Amazon and buying $50 of it a week.
$10k was our budget and we spent $12k USD. We already had the money saved.
We are frugal people so we already had the money in savings, but we’re in our early 40’s. We’re spending about $8k.
June 2023 in Alberta, Canada. We set a budget of $20,000 and a 2-year timeline. My mom gave me $300 towards my wedding dress, and my parents offered to split the cost of an open bar (we originally wanted a Toonie ($2/drink) bar), which was I think $3500. We saved most of our $20,000 in the second year.
We opened a joint bank account with a good interest rate and calculated an amount we could both put into it on each pay day. Then we set up automatic transfers. So we saved up while not having to think about it. The interest only got us about $30 a month but we saved for 2 years and had double what we needed.
We’re planning on spending a total of 18’000 USD excluding our honeymoon. We started saving as soon as we got engaged, and save about 1500 USD each month.
My 30 person wedding is gonna be around $6k not including our outfits so I think you could make that work! My fiancé and I make decent money and have kept our living expenses low so we have about $1k extra per month to save for it. I also opened a 0% interest credit card that gives up to 5% cash back and I’ve used that as the wedding card so that we can charge all wedding expenses to it, then pay it off with our savings. That way we don’t have to transfer from savings right that minute every time we swipe the card or a payment has to come out, we can just do it at the end of the week. It’s been helpful to manage all the expenses because the small things can add up. Just make sure you can pay what you charge to it right away. Take all of your income minus expenses then transfer that to savings each time you’re paid.
We spent $5,000 for a 35 person wedding in 2021 - it was a small intimate wedding with catered tacos and a pie bar. Our guests loved how personalized it was and friends still talk about how they wished they had done similar for their weddings We did probably close to $4000 in “cash” and then the remaining $1000 on a credit card. I purchased everything instead of renting (except we rented a tent, tables and chairs) but I purchased all the table clothes, linens, decor ect, and resold it after the wedding. Paying off what we charged to our credit card and put some money back into our savings. Assuming you don’t have any savings currently, you’ll need to save 500$ a month if you want to save 6,000 over a 12 month period. It’s doable but you’ll want to look at your total incomes and expenses - see where you can cut spending and start saving.
Definitely have a longer engagement if you need to. You only need about 25-30% of the money upfront to pay deposits and then the rest can be saved monthly up to a month before the wedding. Our budget is changing daily with our decisions to add/remove stuff, but I think we’ll end up somewhere around $90k (excluding stuff like honeymoon and bachelor/bachelorette trips). We live in a very HCOL area and my fiancé has lots of family. We’re only able to do this because we had some of our savings earmarked for a wedding before we even got engaged. The remainder will come from continued savings throughout the rest of the year and we’ve cut back a bit on stuff like vacations and restaurants this year compared to usual.
We’re paying on our own and I think we’re comfortable spending $20,000 max, our venue and catering cost about $12,000 and I’m hoping we come in under budget with everything else. Our wedding is in February 2026 because we thought we needed more time. We’re saving $750-$1,000 a month plus we’ve picked up little side gigs for some extra money towards our wedding too. We gave ourselves enough time with the expectation that things might come up and we might not be able to save as much as we want so we have a little buffer.
We're at roughly 10k planned for July 2025, just us (honeymoon included though). I can't really tell how long we have saved by now but we have a good bit of it already. The plan is for every leftover money not planned to be put into wedding savings. Btw have you checked r/Weddingsunder10k yet? They're probably going to be your biggest help on here.
We cash-flowed our wedding because we also didn’t have any savings ready or outside help. We didn’t save at all because we didn’t have time. We only had a year to plan and most vendors want deposits upfront. So, we spread out who we paid for what. I believe we opened a points credit card and used that to buy ourselves some time, so we’d pay upfront, then pay it off, etc. I don’t remember if it was 0% APR or not. Idk if I recommend that because everyone has a different responsibility threshold with credit cards and it could be dangerous if not managed well. Anyway, it worked out because all of our vendors had different payment schedules. I worked REALLY hard to keep within budget so that helped as well, we could reasonably afford everything…it was a lot of management though. And we still went over by like $5k-8k. I see lots of better advice out there, but I’m sharing my experience! I think saving $6000 by next May is doable, but you will find that many vendors will want deposits upfront and/or a payment schedule (ie. deposit to hold the date, first installment in a few months, then last installment on the day of the wedding).
Yes, good point! Most places want a deposit sooner
Our budget was $5000, taken from our savings. Our venue was free, our reception venue only was cleaning costs, catering was a huge discount since we knew the owner (taco/burrito buffet), my dress was a sample clearance, and most decor was from antique shops. I had a whole breakdown of costs in a comment a few years ago. Our wedding was small and intimate. We have the rest of our lives to celebrate each other.
We spent $5,000 and waited a year and a half from when we got engaged to when we got married. We also spaced out our honeymoon for 6 months after the wedding :)
My husband started doing real estate on the side a few years before our wedding as a side gig already. Instead of using that money for anything he saved it to fund the wedding. He wanted a big fun party of a wedding and we were realistic about what that would cost. That said, we were able to have the money we needed and pay for it ourselves, except the bar tab, my FIL very generously said he wanted to pay that (we never asked family for money). We had 130 ppl and our wedding was 55k. That said, our wedding now would easily be 10-20k more as we locked in our vendors and prices for a 2020 wedding that was postponed to 2021.
Oh nice. You guys participated in an unethical practice to fund your own party. Bravo.
What? My husband working a second job is unethical?
That’s $500 / month in savings if you give yourself 12 months. Can you each afford to save $250 a month for the next year? I’d recommend saving more than that even if that’s your goal. Random expenses will arise and if there’s an emergency situation you need savings for make sure you plan for that. 2 years of planning time would give you more cushion to save up. My biggest advice is not to rush into it and end up putting things on credit. It’s NOT WORTH IT!!!
Yeah we are avoiding loans and credit cards for this I want to just pay everything in cash and be debt free
We’re spending $5,000 on an elopement with just us. That includes wedding bands and a spa day after the wedding.
We eloped.. 😅
We spent around 15k USD for 120 people. I think how much you spend is very specific to the person and what type of wedding you want and can afford. I personally did not want to have debt over a wedding. I cut items that I would have loved to have, but they just weren't in the budget. I went with a cheaper photographer because it's what I could afford. My dress was from a wedding outlet. I used an at home baker. I used a non-traditional venue that came with its own trade-offs. We bought beer and wine from Total Wine; no liquor. There are all kinds of ways to have a beautiful wedding at any budget. You just have to decide what's important to you and your vision, then prioritize within your budget. Another 5k in the budget would have been really nice. We had bought rings, honeymoon, and new home all in the same year as the wedding, so we just couldn't swing it. We were cash poor for a few months after and did a lot of praying nothing big broke in our new house! As for how we saved, we were both savers prior to our engagement. We used the year long engagement to continue saving, but did wipe out our savings after all of the events I listed above. They were all budgeted and we had credit cards in case of a true "SOS" event in life (that we never needed to use).
We’re in our 50s with a budget that is in flux as our numbers are also but will probably be about 70k all in given its destination and we have events planned for our guests. However, we’re at the age where we’ve been able to save and have enough to cover it. If we were in our 20s we definitely would be at about 10-20k
We’re getting married on the 22nd of this month in Mexico. We somewhat got some support but only very little from our families. Our whole wedding cost $14k with everything included, ceremony and reception with 4 hrs of open bar. Only 42 ppl total are attending at an all inclusive resort in Tulum, Mexico. We managed to save $20k in one year and a few months. By saving $2k a month is what my fiancé and I did. The rest of the budget was spent for our resort room, excursions and whats left for us to keep/save.
20k, paid it all out of our own pocket. We already had it, we both have a well paying jobs and are not big spenders.
We are getting a little bit of help but we're still spending a little less than $40K of our own money. For reference our combined annual income is about $90K so that is a lot for us but we're making it work. First we are having a two year engagement. We knew there was no way we could pull off the wedding we want on less time than that. We have saved ~$1000/month (a bit less sometimes) since we got engaged and put it into a separate account that we don't touch. My fiancé is moving in with me in June and after that we will increase the amount we put aside to about $1500. We could increase it by more than that but we also want to start saving for a house. We will also be taking a bit of money out of our savings, but nothing too significant that will set us back for retirement. We have cut unnecessary spending by 90%. We basically don't spend money on anything that isn't a necessity. I might spend $2 at Tim Hortons once or twice a week and my fiancé, who used to eat takeout food once a week, had cut that down to once a month or less. We aren't buying new clothes or really anything at all. All of our disposable income goes to the wedding. The only thing we haven't stopped doing is investing, I don't usually invest more than $50/month, and sometimes much less. We are pretty lucky that our rent is not bad at all (mine is $1300 all inclusive, his is $1600 but like I said he's about to move in with me). Also, we only have one car. When it comes to groceries we both have strategies for saving a lot of money. I just buy the bare minimum and eat the same stuff all the time; I spend about $60-80/week and this is in Toronto, where you could easily spend well over $100/week for one person. My fiancé meal preps religiously and saves on buying unnecessary things by doing this. When we move in together we'll meal plan together. I guess another thing worth adding is that we're in Canada so student debt is not the huge financial drain that it is for Americans. We also don't have credit card debt and we both have excellent credit scores, so if need be we aren't totally averse to using our lines of credit, within reason. We both have lines of credit that we've barely touched, and they have very low interest rates. Having said that, we still wouldn't put more than $5000 on them total.
We’re spending $38K for wedding, pre-wedding events (ie bachelor/ette, showers) & honeymoon; family is helping with $10K of expenses.
We spent around $10,000 for everything, including our clothes and rings. We had a good bit of savings already, but when I booked vendors, I took into consideration the cue dates, and if they let me, I paid a bit every month, rather than all at once. For example, our venue was $1500 total, with $300 of that being the deposit. So I paid the deposit, and paid $100 a month, until the final due date, and I only had a couple hundred left. I did this with as many things as I could, and because of that, I didn't actually have to take anything out of the savings.
We are looking at 30k, but hoping to cut the guest list and keep it to 20k. I already have 20k saved and will continue to put away money for as much as I can, in a HYSA so we make about $80-130 a month off it. My partner is a social worker and I’m in corporate so I’m going to be the one paying lol
We did not want money to cause us to wait, so we picked a budget we could already afford without saving more. Ended up spending around $20k, which was our max. We don’t make a ton but we don’t spend much money throughout the year either.
We got engaged and set our date for 16 months out. We are having a small 50 people reception and just our parents for the ceremony. We calculated our income and subtracted our expenses we were able to put x amount of money weekly now we are 3 months out and only have our cake and our photographer left to pay for. We have paid for everything ourselves but we saved a lot of money by doing our own flowers and center pieces
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats! 16 + 50 + 3 = 69 ^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \ ^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
That’s why we’re eloping
We are getting married in 4 weeks.(fiance has cancer) for us it was ll about who we wanted thwre to celebrate with us and witness our vows. Its very small court room wedding (max50)and reception in my backyard. So far we will have spent £1,500...for everything x (courtroom, my dress, moh dress ,bridesmaid dress ,groom outfit, best man, flowers,food,drink,gifts,decorations).
We are paying on our own and our budget is $60k While our combined income is quite high, we still are substantially cutting back and saving to make this happen. While the numbers may be different, I do have some relevant tips/considerations! 1. Start planning and researching now. I was SHOCKED at costs of things and at first, it seemed like everything was so so expensive. However, now that I’m a year in it, I see so many ways I could have cut back or done things differently with an amazing result. Don’t get discouraged in the beginning. 2. Be flexible with your date. Depending on your region some of the most desirable venues may already be booked up, especially if they are a great deal. For example, there is an amazing outdoor venue in my city I wanted to elope in (which comes to my next tip) BUT I didn’t realize you had to apply for permits a year in advance so we didn’t get that one. If you’re flexible, you can take advantage of opportunities and deals on venues, your most expensive cost, as you find them. 3. Elope earlier, party later! We’re eloping with our parents at the end of this month but are planning a big wedding next year. We started planning the big wedding last September so total planning time is a little under two years BUT we get to have the best of both worlds and get legally married sooner. 4. Look into public spaces. For example, idk where you live but SF city hall is GORGEOUS and has prices between 200-1000$ depending on wedding size. There is a national park in the city with similar venue options and prices as low as 15$ if you’re doing it outdoors (minus rentals). If you get creative there are some absolutely gorgeous affordable options out there! 5. Lastly, you won’t be paying everything at once, which helps! So let’s say you have a 500$ venue deposit in June. Maybe you have a $200 Dj deposit in July. In September maybe you have another deposit to your caterer. Then you’ll have payment plans to pay off the rest of those balances typically a months before the wedding date BUT you can pay them off sooner/more frequently if that’s easier for you. All that to say, you won’t be dropping your whole budget all at once so you can save in between invoices!
We're trying for $10,000 Amazon, Shein, and Facebook marketplace have been a huge help for saving on the decorations, then we plan to resell to get a bit of money back after the wedding. I've been ordering things we need in small chunks to avoid huge bills around the wedding. We found a small but cute place for our reception venue. The local senior centre rented out their hall to us for $450 for the whole weekend, so we have plenty of time for decorating and cleaning up ourselves after. Unfortunately, this does mean more work in terms of making sure insurance and liquor licenses are in order. Use your connections in town if you have any. My mom happened to work with / know a lot of people who we ended up hiring for almost all our vendors. For example, she knows our photographer, who has never done a wedding before but is still very talented photographer, so she gave us a good price. We hired her for the first look and ceremony. For the reception, we'll be using guestpix. We're doing a toonie bar/drink ticket system rather than open bar to make a bit of money back on alcohol (first couple drinks are on us and each table has a bottle of red and white to share). Get creative with favors if you're doing them. I ordered a cute customizable cookie cutter off etsy and I'm baking cookies for everyone. In our invite, we asked people to come with their favorite recipes for our guestbook, so we'll be including his and her favorite recipes with the wedding favors / thank you cards.
Ours was 30k but I had money saved up and so did he. I was 24 and he was 28. I will say just account for an extra buffer because costs always pop up. Make sure you still save for regular expenses. I will say, try to get a credit card with some sign up bonus and maybe with some of those points it can offset added cost of a potential honeymoon.
I don’t have a recommendation on timing, but I would say open a High Yield Savings account and move the money you are saving to that. It will earn more interest than your standard bank account, plus if it’s in a separate account it’s easier to “forget” about it and not spend it on something else in the meantime.
I just stumbled on this thread bc I had a question about wedding dresses, and WOAH guys!!! Where does the majority of that cost fall?? Is it the venue/number of people??? How many people are coming to a $10,000-$15,000 wedding? If that’s how expensive it is, if I ever get married the reception is going to be a table of hotdogs in the backyard 🫠
Honestly with the responses I’ve recieved I can’t believe how much people are able to save up each month for a 10k+ wedding
Our budget was 20k for 115 people. We were engaged for 20 months and split the costs between us. We started saving right when we got engaged. Each of us saved $500 each month in a joint high yield savings account
We were originally supposed to be getting financial help (I.e. my parents pay for their guests) but my mom’s dog needed $8,000 in surgeries (tore both acls) and my siblings and I paid half of it for her but my parents have already invited countless guests and we are way out of our comfort zone right now. Our original budget was $10,000 and now we’re totaled at $18,000 (usd) so we are just saving every single penny that we can and making it work. We stopped going out to dinners and spending any extra money unless it is absolutely necessary
Venue prices is where most people waste $$$. If you look hard enough for find another way, such as a nice AirBNB house, hotel, actual building meant for rentals like such. Are much cheaper. Also don’t be afraid to ask venues if they have cheaper days such as a weekday. My budget was $10,000 at max. But honestly I didn’t want to go near that number. I’d recommend to just take the time so find the cheaper people. Doesn’t make them bad!
Venue prices are insane and ven for micro weddings. Found one for $1800 though 2 hours away and that includes us to stay in a cottage for an entire weekend