Planning a Wedding

[Former_Member]

Lately my boyfriend has been talking to me about getting married. I can't wait to be his wife, but I don't know about the hole wedding ceremony. Being college students, we would be on a tight budget and I just don't know what to do. I know I should start saving my money for other reasons then a wedding, but just the idea of saving money stresses me out.

What do you guys think, do you think I should stress about it? Or should I just let it come and go with the flow?

[BeadfulStrings]

I'm probably not the person to talk to since I'm not really into weddings. lol My husband and I went to the courthouse with our moms and my sisters. We only spent a little money on food for our reception which was just a few really good friends. I'm just too practical to want to spend a bunch of money on a wedding. I see the allure for other people, but it just wasn't for me. :)

Save yourself a headache and get hitched the easy way. lol

[jill2day]

first I think you and he have to talk about your individual expectations for the "wedding" (and hopefully for the marriage, too!!) Then you can figure out finances when you know what your goal is. If it is marriage (not the wedding so much) then it could be an easy save... just the facts m'am... the license, etc.

But if you really differ on your fantasy, you will have to reach a joint reality and then think of how it fits into your financial plan (and yes there will have to be a plan!!). Only after the two of you have a united front, should you give any inkling of the plan to other family or friends, because they will have their own thoughts, and the two of you need to be a strong united front when they start voicing their views!

That is my two (well maybe four) cents worth. The bottom line to remember is a wedding is for a day, the marriage is [hopefully] a lot longer!! Good luck with it whether it is a Westminster fantasy, or a justice of the peace ceremony, may it lead to a life of love and support.

[SavoyFaire]

It can be as much or as little as you want! I suggest starting with a list of what you would want, what have you always wanted your wedding to consist of along with any wishes of his. Then go down the list putting costs next to each item.
Maid of honor's husband will take care of music...FREE
Bouquet or vase of Flowers...already blooming in parents yard...FREE

Also after you put pricing next to some spread the word about some things. This is when people will come forward and take care of some of it for you! And you may say food $200 but you do a pot luck so now it's $20 for water and beverages and his Aunt Tillie takes care of that.

Along the way you and others can make things and you'll find yourself start to enjoy it and get involved. If you sit and get overwhelmed because you haven't thought about the numbers and written them down you may have a $1200 number in your head when in reality and after talking to more people that are involved you may get down to very little!

Congrats this is a happy time and give yourself a break about it! : )

[SavoyFaire]

Hey Jill we were on the same page! lol But I took so long to write mine!

[PattenCreations]

Congrats Cozi! First, I second what Jill and Savoy said. Talk to each other about your expectations. But then you just may want to have another set of conversations...with your parents and his parents! You didn't mention anything about that in your original post but you may just be surprised to find out what their expectations are not to mention what they are willing/prepared to pay for!

[Former_Member]

Agreed. Communication is a BIG thing. Take your time. Don't rush into it. Talk about money with him. What are HIS expectations about finances. Does HE expect you to save? How much? Monthly? Weekly?

Other issues should be talked about like this also.. Our best to you.

[Former_Member]

Oh, and a wedding is a big thing too, whether you realize it at this point or not. Later in life, you may regret not getting married, really married, in a church or synagogue. Weddings have been around for thousands of years. Actually, since the beginning of time.

[Former_Member]

My boyfriend and I are very connected when it comes to money. When we first started dating, I would splurge every paycheck I received and really didn't think about it. Now I spend my money wisely and try to save as much money as I can for emergencies.

We both agreed that we wanted a wedding that is fun. His expectation is to not spend a lot of money where it doesn't need to spent. For example, invitations, wedding favors and church ceremony. My expectation is to have a great photographer.

We argue about that a lot because I am willing to pay good money for a photographer, but he isn't. He says we can get our friends (we have a lot of friends who study photography) but I would rather them be at our wedding not taking pictures.

Is that weird of me to want that?

[BuzzPlanet]

I paid for my own wedding, when I was 18 and my husband was 19; it was very simple; and cost $3,000 for the entire thing; for 100 guests. We had a potluck for the reception, and some people brought in catered food as their wedding gift to us. We still have people tell us that the food at our wedding was AWESOME (Italian). We rented a community center for the reception as well, it cost all of $200. The one thing I splurged on was my dress and attire, I think that was about $800 including dress, shoes, tiara, etc. It can be done on a budget!

[Former_Member]

It all comes down to what you guys want it to be. I've done dozens of weddigs (use to be a planner before life got in the way) and at the end of the day money is the last thing to worry about. Discuss what you both want, come up with a plan-THEN and only then start thinking about costs and how to keep them down. I did my first wedding for 50 people for under $500 and loved every minute of it. Have done others for 30-50k. Just remember that its about you two and what you want you lives to be not about that one day.

[PWOriginals]

Lots of good advice has already been given here. I just wanted to say I admire that you are posing these questions now, rather than later!

It's fairly easy to do a wedding when there's an unlimited, or big, budget - you know, just pay everyone else to do stuff. When my daughter got married a couple of years ago (which was a couple of years after my DH passed away), we set a very low budget for the occasion. She identified the 3 most important things to her for that day, and we went from there. Thank goodness for David Bridal's $99 annual dress sale, my sewing machine, a florist friend, a DJ friend, a friend-of-a-friend photographer - things started falling in place. She had the wedding during the day, which saved us a bundle at the reception. We did ready-to-print invitations from a party store (who cares about that anyway?), made favors ourselves, I sewed bridesmaid's dresses. All in all, we really had fun doing it because we did not stress over money. We ended up well within budget. The pictures weren't real great, we were sure the DJ was on crack, and bad weather spoiled the outdoor ceremony, but the important thing was that 2 people who were very much in love exchanged vows that day.

Keep it simple.

[Former_Member]

eh, I was anxious too once we went from just dating to the the 'i believe he is going to ask soon phase"

But you both are in college. So unless you want a cheap wedding (meaning really really inexpensive) it depends on what you want and whether you want to wait to save money.

We mostly paid for our own wedding. My dad gave us a gift contribution, his parents gave a bit too I believe and our family gave us money at the wedding, but we did it mostly on our own. Being in your late 20s, that is pretty standard nowadays.

And we were lucky because my hubby had savings built up, I was the broke one.

But being internet savvy helps. I got an $900 dress online for $199 and altered it for $85.

I think that was way better than those david's bridal $99 sales. I never found anything there anyway.


I also made my own invitations, table cards, rsvp's, etc. It was very DIY wedding. :-D

So the real question is, what kind of wedding do you want and can you pay for it now? Are you willing to wait?

does this really matter? These are all questions that should be discussed with your bf, once he proposes.

Don't worry about this stuff now. In the mean time, do some research and get some ballpark figures. Weddings can be cheap and simple at the courthouse or they can be elaborate six figure-in-a-vera-wang kinda deal. It really just depends on what you want vs. what you can afford.


re: photographer, I must agree with you on this one. I went cheap on the photographer and she ended up with a dirt splotch on EVERY SINGLE OUTDOOR PHOTO OF OUR SHOTS!!! And because I paid for the unphotoshopped package, it would have cost me extra money for them to fix the photos.

GRRR!! If you spend money on anything, it's the photos. I still haven't sat down and retouched those photos yet and we are about to celebrate our 5 year anniversary in October.

lol, oh well, Lessons learned....

[dressurdolly2]

A good photographer is a must, imho. The day is such a whirlwind of activity that it will fly by, and there will be so many wonderful things happening at your wedding that you won't even be aware of. A good photographer will capture those moments for you and help you to recall and preserve your own memories of that special...one of the THE most special...day.

[Former_Member]

OMG Dolly, our wedding was over in a *FLASH*! We did daytime because that was the last slot they had and it was over before we even had a chance to enjoy ourselves!

OP, I also was spending a lot of time on the Knot website (wedding planning forums and such). I got a bunch of DIY tips, ways to save money advice and local referrals to my vendors.

Of course, this was six years ago since I was on there but it may help to research some wedding planning sites (there are a bazillion out there, I believe ;-p) and try to find more ways to save money.

Btw, can you tell I love talking about wedding planning? lol :-D

Before I did etsy I've been designing wedding invites for my family. I love it!

[SavoyFaire]

A guest can't enjoy the day if they are the photographer and if that is what little you want then why not!

[dorsetclothing]

We got married after my husband finished college. He saved up for the ring, proposed and we gave ourselves only 10 months after that to get everything done. Was great in a way because it forced us to make quick decisions and not mull over everything.

A key thing to remember is that you don't have to do everything everyone else does in their weddings. Even in our ceremony we cut out all the readings and poems because we didn't want them. We didn't do wedding favours or anything like that either. We got married in a park that was free (my husband and in laws went down to the spot we wanted about three hours before with a table and chairs and just sat there so people couldn't take that spot!), the reception was in my parents' backyard. I made my wedding dress, bridesmaid dress and groom's outfit. My friend who is a fantastic photographer photographed the ceremony and our official photos, and then we just got copies of everyone's candid shots from the reception. We made our invites, a friend made our cake (still paid her, but it was nice to have something made by a friend, made it special), and both of our mothers cooked a large portion of the food, and other people offered to make things too. All up including wedding/engagement rings it cost us around $6000 for 100 people, but that's because I come from a huge family that drinks a lot, so my parent's footed the large drinks bill!

In the end we did it as cheaply as we could, yet still had it how we wanted it and it was a fantastic day. I'm sure you and your bf will work out what's worth spending money on and what's not (and hopefully he'll come around about hiring that photographer!)

[PattenCreations]

I'll agree with you on the photographer. Those photos are important.

[Former_Member]

Haha thank you for all the great advice. We have been talking about when is a good time to get married, and he decided September after we graduated with college (He was so happy, I didn't want to argue with him). So that will give me enough time to save up money.

I feel weird saying this, but sometimes I get paranoid when I look at places like the knot or other diy wedding websites, because I don't want to give my hopes up and it is not because me and bf don't love each other it is mostly because it feels so wrong to plan or get a idea of what you want your wedding to be and he hasn't even proposed (but he keeps insisting that I get ideas).

What do you think?

[BuzzPlanet]

Don't ask me, I went to a wedding dress shop the day after my first date with my husband! It's ok to dream!

[dorsetclothing]

My husband and I knew we were going to get married years before we did, it just wasn't the right time for us financially. And we weren't ones to do one of those 2-3 year engagements, so we just kept it from everyone else until we got an engagement ring!
Don't worry about everyone else, do what feels right for you!

[Former_Member]

Congratulations! I'm planning my wedding as well and like you, we're on a budget.

After talking about what you want, get some sort of wedding budget worksheet. Most of them lay everything out for you. If you sign up at www.ourweddingday.com, there is a good one. I'm using that one. I will even work out your budget for you according to the 'typical' percentages. You can adjust as you go as well.

There are also a LOT of tutorials out there on the web for DIY projects, wedding related, and ones that can easily be tweaked to be wedding related.

And of course, there is this team and everyone is always willing to help/give advice/opinions and the like.

Best of luck to you!