PW Guide Article: The 10K Wedding

Great ideas!

I think you did a great job. However, I am working on our budget right now. What did you do about paying the officiant? Was there a cost for your venue? Did you get gifts for the bridal part? What abou grooms attire?  Also, did you do favors? Guestbook? What about music for ceremony and reception? It seems to me that we thought we could do the wedding for around $8000 but we are at $10,000 and that's being very careful. Did you just not spend on those things?

We're keeping our costs down by choosing a venue that let's us bring our own caterer, and also offers tables and chairs included in the rental fee.

Instead of spending money on full blown invitations (from design to printing and mailing), we are requesting RSVPs via email. For more formal invites, we're printing 100 full color (front/back) postcards for only $50.

Additionally, we are fortunate to have many talented friends, so we'll be asking our various friends to:

• officiate (with a stipend)
• cater the wedding (ingredients and labor provided at cost, not marked up)
• perform acoustically - bluegrass soloist for reception, classical musicians for ceremony (with a stipend)
  
• photograph for 4 hours (at a discount) - requires a well prepared shotlist
  
• make the cake - talented tennis teammate has a baking side business

This article is missing a LOT! No music? No offcient? We are saving an absolute fortune by getting married at FI's bosses estate for FREE!

I have friends, that are getting married at her Grandpas house...

How many people are on this guest list?

Thank you for posting this. Im in the same price budget with (about) 100 guests. My biggest issue will be the flowers. Alot of people have suggested Sams Club(same flowers, quality) as a high end florist at half the costs.

Great article.

Hmm...  The first suggestion here was to hire a wedding planner, yet the ultimate budget does not include anything for the planner?  And the expense of hiring a planner is justified by the wholesale deals a planner can get you, yet all of the items discussed seem to be deals that one could get without a planner...

As others have noted, the budget is missing several items that most people would want to have.  (It doesn't even appear to include rings.)  Even so, it's unclear whether the budget is actually below $10,000 by the time you add in alterations for the dress, the gratuity for the reception, and the taxes and fees for the honeymoon.

I'm hopeing ours will be around the same price, We have cut the guest list, found a restarant meal at lunch instead of dinner. Then having cake and punch, for more guests later in a small party room in our Apartment complex.  I'll make the cakes myself. our biggest expense will be clothing.