I absolutely ADORED my wedding. I had a ton of fun with family and friends and had a really meaningful ceremony to the love of my life.
That said I HATED planning the wedding. I thought it wouldn't really be that bad because I plan events for a living, but even with that skill set planning a wedding, especially on a modest budget, is an emotional rollercoaster I gladly never have to ride again.
I think the biggest thing that helped me enjoy the day was deciding early on that on the day nothing would bother me. I know thats easier said than done but honestly if you can put yourself in that mental space it will go a long way to making the day magical. A bunch of things went wrong, My HMU artists didn't bring an assistant and made us 30 minutes late, we didn't have time to do most of the pictures I wanted before the ceremony, my baby nephew refused to go with anyone but my sister, it was a super cloudy day and my meticulously minute by minute schedule was changed about 30 times as we accommodated for the rain that finally came., it literally took us three tries to do the toasts. I refused to care about anything other than my husband and having a good time..and it worked!
I found these breakdowns super helpful when I was planning but I'm not a huge fan of putting details online so if you want more specifics or contacts for vendors let me know and I can send them privately. O also I rounded all the numbers for ease so the math might be a little wonky.
Bachelor/ Bachelorette Party - $1300 I did a simple spa day at the Fountainbleu with about 10 of my girlfriends then dinner at my house. My sister ( Maid of Honor) called the spa and got us all 20% of the spa treatments since we were a big group. The husband went with 6 or so of his friends to New Orleans (a few of them already live there)
Invitations We did them all ourselves. Luckily my husband can photoshop and we both work in the arts so we were comfortable designing them. I sent the Save the Dates electronically just by email which was a bit of a fail. Lots of people never saw it but I wasn't wasting money printing and mailing them, so no regrets. I did print a few as pictures for us as keepsakes, cost like $2 so I'm not even counting it.
*Invitations - $200 - printed them through https://smartpress.com/. They were trifold and not traditional at all and they did an AMAZING job. No envelopes we just bought stickers and sealed them and put the stamp directly on the invitation. some were a little damaged in the mail but no one cared. I ordered more than I needed and they sent a few extra so I ended up with far more than we needed but as they weren't crazy expensive that was ok.
Postage - $70 for invitations and thank you cards
Thank you cards - $30 - for 100 of them on vistaprint during a sale. Again we designed them and made them into postcards so we wouldn't need envelopes and could use cheaper postage. Haven't mailed them yet but the printing was great.
Labels and sicker seals - $30*
Dress/Suit - $3000 I hated dress shopping most of all. There are a million bridal shops in Miami and I found maybe 5 dresses that were even remotely passable for my body type. I hated the store where I ended up getting the dress but I did LOVE my dress in the end ( though I second guessed the decision right up until I got dressed that morning). Having to buy a dress 6 months in advance is absolutely ridiculous and the price of it all makes me sick, alas I don't entirely regret my big puff ball.
Dress - $1000 (Morilee 35501 - Marina Wedding Dress in Ivory)
Alternations - $428 ( took some of the tulle away to make it smaller, shortened, took in the top, and added and extra piece of lace to the cleavage so it wasn't so exposed)
Shoes - $80
Veil - $40 ( in materials I made it with my grandmother, would have been much less but I bought a lot more lace and tulle then I needed. If you are making it yourself make sure you get a comb with extra long teeth or the weight will pull it out of your head. And use invisible thread, cheap and easy to find at a fabric store)
Dry Cleaning after Ceremony - $400 - not preserving just cleaning at a local dry cleaner.
Groom - $1100 -Suit, shirt, tie cufflinks and shoes
Hair/ Make Up I really loved my make up but it didn't last as long as I would have liked. Also I blubbered a lot at the wedding so that didn't help. As i mentioned my HMU artists was suppose to bring an assistant and didn't which made us about 30 minutes late. Luckily I planned to be at the church an hour early for pictures so it didn't push the ceremony and we got plenty of pictures so it was ok.
*HMU - $600 for three of us, my mom, sister and me
Nails - $150 for all three of us, gel manicures regular pedicures
Haircut/ Eyebrows - $125
Groom haircut and Beard Trim - $50
Catholic Ceremony Getting married at a Catholic Church is so much more money than it should be. And takes a few hurdles. I am a lapsed Catholic and my husband is completely unreligious so don't let that intimidate. I have been Baptized and had done my First Communion, I hadn't and didn't get Confirmed. The Husband didn't have to do anything, not even get Baptized. What we were required to do:
Church Donation ( mandatory, non negotiable) - $1200
Marriage Retreat - 2 - 8 hr days- $125
*Fully Engaged Classes - $25 for books, how many sessions will vary according to your church *
Reception musician - (mandatory to use their singer, but she was lovely so we were happy to) - $200
Marriage License - $60 (discounted since we took the church marriage prep classes)
Rings $500 Got all the rings on Amazon. Mine are all Moissainte and his is Tungsten. You can't see in the picture but his is blue inside and I love it. My engagement ring was too snug so instead of resizing we returned it and got the right size (no loosened stones) and for our rings we ordered 4-5 each until we found the one we liked and then returned the rest.
Reception Venue
*Catering/Staff (in house) - $6000
Venue Fee - $800
Insurance - $200
Beer/Wine - $1000
Liquor - $1500
Tips - $500*
Our reception was at a Bar/ Restaurant that is part of one of the local Universities. They only serve wine and beer so the catering fee includes a corkage fee for bringing in our own liquors as well as all the the food, waiters, bartenders etc. The staff was amazing, the food was delicious, the view was great and all around we could not speak higher of this place. The price included the space for 8 hours, though they let us come in before that to set up. The reception itself was a little over 6 hours.
Photographer- $3000 Our photographer was the one thing my husband and I agreed to splurge on and was our favorite part of the wedding. She was amazing! Meet with us twice before the wedding, threw in a few hours of a 2nd photographer because we got her longest package and took a ton of really amazing photographs. Not only that but all the guests said how nice she was and how impressed they were that she seemed to be everywhere and always taking pictures.
DJ - $670 ( including tip) I was really against getting a DJ because they are incredibly expensive, most of the ones I looked into were all $1000+. I thought we could just plug in a laptop with a nice Spotify playlist. My MIL insisted we needed a DJ, that it was our day and we weren't going to be worried about the music all night. I begrudgingly agreed. I found our DJ through Thumbtack and freaking LOVED him. Price was reasonable and the service was superb. They actually have a website where you can tell them what songs they need to play, which would be nice to hear and which they had to avoid. It gave them a great idea of our style and they really did a stellar job for us.
Rehearsal Dinner - $300 We didn't have a bridal party just MOH and BM so dinner was just them and our parents. Just picked a restaurant by the church after the rehearsal. Service sucked, food wasn't great, and given my levels of stress I would much rather have been home but at least it wasn't expensive.
Decorations/ Extras We did everything ourselves for the most part so I went with a super simple design. I don't like big center pieces that block peoples view across the table so we did runners with a few votives and vases down the center. All the tables were mismatched at the venue so each one had a different number of vases/ candles. I made a tote bag with what went on each table and stapled a floor plan to each bag and the men in the family took those to the venue the morning off. Staff at the venue set it up. They did a flawless job. I made the Bridal Bouquet too.
*Flowers - $200 ( bought them at costco, half of them were the wrong color. If you are going this route order your flowers so they arrive 4 days before your event. They need 48 hrs to reship so that gives you time to have new ones sent if there is anything wrong. Don't worry about them surviving they lasted for at least 2 weeks.)
Vases - $80 from the Dollar Tree
Votives - $70 for 144 candles at a bulk events store in Miami
Hops - $150 - ordered on Etsy, real dried beer hops and sprinkled them down the runners. We bought a lot more than we needed but our friend is a brewmaster so he used the unused ones to make beer.
Table Runners - $80 - bought rolls of lace on Amazon and cut them to the sizes we needed
Linens - $250 our venue didn't provide them so I bought them at https://www.linentablecloth.com/
Favors - $80 We bought popcorn at Costco and little baggies. Filled them ourselves and sealed them with a round label. We made about 175 of them, took about 4-5 hours. Everyone LOVED them.
Appetizers - $300 the venue let us bring our own so we brought a bunch of Cuban pastries and croquettas.
Guestbook - $25 on Etsy
Instamax Film - $150 ( we already had the camera)*
I am selling the tablecloths and runners if anyone in interested
Cake Our friend made the cake for us as our wedding gift. We spent about $30 on the toppers and bought two sheet cakes ($200) to serve. We had a ton left over and could probably have done a little less. We also spent $100 on cookies and brownies, the venue made them, that we served at the very end of the night as people were leaving.
Honeymoon We went for a little under a week to Aruba. It was Lovely. You can drive the island in 2 hours. Sunsets are spectacular, the sand is soft and doesn't get hot, food is delicious, and the people are all so nice. It is one of the pricier islands but totally worth it. Best part was an ABC Tour that took us off roading in the Natural Park. So great and relaxing.
Airbnb - $1100
Flights - $1000
Food - $1000
Activities - $600
Car Rental - $150
Hope you guys find this helpful! Good luck with the planning, it sucks but your wedding day will be great and hopefully your marriage will be even better!
Submitted January 05, 2019 at 01:27AM by lcjo http://bit.ly/2CPRpL6
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