Last week, I talked about the number one piece of advice that budget brides and grooms hear: Cut your guest list. And then I talked about how Stephen and I ignored that piece of advice.
How did we ignore that advice? By budgeting. By choosing to have a Friday wedding, when we could save on the venue. For that matter, by choosing a park for a venue. By opting for a dessert buffet instead of a full meal for food.
Let's look at the key pieces of our budget.
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| Our ceremony at Riverfront Park's Canada Island. Photo courtesy Todd Wagner. |
The Venue & Rentals
We spent a total of $500 on the ceremony and reception locations at Riverfront Park in Spokane. How did we find a venue this inexpensive? By looking at non-"wedding" designated places, like public parks and community halls.
I had always dreamed of having an outdoor wedding, so these locations were perfect. Add in rentals that many venues will have (chairs, dance floor), and our grand total in this category was $1175.
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| Our dessert buffet by Couple of Chefs Catering. Photo courtesy Couple of Chefs. |
Food, Drink, Service & Food Rentals
We definitely helped our budget by having a dessert buffet from Couple of Chefs Catering instead of a full meal. It gave us a budget-friendly edge in two ways: first, desserts are a lot less expensive than full meals (duh); second, we didn't have to get a cake. And our guests raved about the food!
In addition, we were able to pack in having the caterers service the buffet for the entire reception, San Pellegrino limonatas as well as the fruit waters that the caterers brought to drink, plates, water goblets, and a couple other miscellaneous things for just under $1750.
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| US! :) Photo courtesy Erika Ellis Photography. (PS: This is a sneak peek of our pro pics!) |
Attire
With my dress from Marcella's Bridal coming in at about $860 with alterations, my shoes at $100 (splurges, okay?), my undergarments at another $110, and Stephen's shoes at $20, we spent just over $1000 on attire for us. Then, add in the ties for the groomsmen, on which we spent roughly $40 and the jewelry for the bridesmaids, on which we spent roughly $60, we got ourselves a $1130 bill.
Then there was the headpiece. First, I spent about $5 at the fabric store buying the necessary items to make myself a birdcage veil. When I was done, though, I didn't like how it sat on my head. I thought it was a DIY fail.
When I saw a brand new (in the packaging) polka dot birdcage veil on the classifieds section of Project Wedding, I had to have it. At a cost of $30. Scroll up to the photo of our ceremony really quick. Do you see a birdcage veil on me? No. Because, lo and behold, I didn't like how it sat on my head either. My solution? Cut it up and make a cute fascinator from it, as seen on my head. :) So $35 spent on me trying to make up my mind. That brings our total to $1225.
I'll make a confession. I have no idea what Stephen's outfit cost since he and my dad went shopping without me for a male bonding experience, and my dad covered the bill. BUT I know a similar look can be done easily for less than $30.
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| Bouquets from Special Touch Florist. Photo courtesy Todd Wagner. |
Flowers & Decor
Aesthetics were big for me for our wedding. We had the personal flowers from Special Touch Florist, the loose stems from Fred Meyer that we made into centerpieces the night before the wedding, drapes, tissue poms, and a few other details. This all came to roughly $1200.
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| Dancing at our reception, thanks to the awesome music! Photo courtesy Todd Wagner. |
Music, Photography & Entertainment
Due to some really fantastic friends, one DJ and one musician extraordinaire, we got our music as gifts. This included the DJ-ing during the reception, and the amp from which we played our iPod playlists for the ceremony. This also included another friend going through his whole music library to find the music we needed for the ceremony and reception. :)
So, for our music, photography, and entertainment budget, we must consider the price of photography from Erika Ellis Photography (which was REALLY great), the price of the photobooth from Seattle Wedding Photo Booth (which was one of the best wedding-related decisions we made), and the sound rentals from Inland Audio Visual so our DJ could work his magic. This came to a total of $1750.
Stationery
I DIY-ed all of the invitations, RSVPs, and inserts on InDesign and had them printed at CatPrint, a printing company based in New York with amazing prices. I tied them up with pretty ribbon, stuffed them in kraft paper envelopes from EnvelopeMall, and sent them off!
I also created guides for our wedding party to aid them in picking their attire for the day, and I printed these at my local Staples. These projects, including postage, came to a total of $260.
Miscellaneous
Our miscellaneous budget, which included hotel rooms, gifts for the attendants, our coordinator, our license, and a couple other things, came to just about $700.
That's a total of under $8000!
(PS: I know that if you add up all of the figures above it comes to more than $8000, but that's because I rounded all of them up. Our actual total was just at $7906.)
That's a really comprehensive budget breakdown! Thanks for being so open to walk us readers through it! Makes me keep hope that mine won't go too far over... been feelin' budget blues lately.
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