How to Have a 6K Wedding?

My wedding was $2,500 TOTAL. That was the clothes we wore, our rings, gifts for our attendants, food, invitations, photography--everything.

We had our wedding & reception both at Forepaugh's in St. Paul. There were 35 people at the ceremony, and then around 70 at the reception. The owners have changed, so the prices could be different, but our reception bill came to $1,200, including tax and tip. We got married on a Friday night and did a "cocktail reception" with heavy appetizers: cheese & meat tray, salmon tray, deviled eggs, veggies, croquettes, etc. We provided punch and coffee, and then there was a cash bar. Forepaugh's did our cake, too.

I realize this is not a popular opinion, but I think wedding flowers are, for the most part, a waste of money. I carried a family bible and we decorated it with ribbon and corsages someone had given us to wear at our shower. A friend of mine got married last year, and she ordered cut flowers in bulk and then did her own bouquets the night before.

I have an old friend who is a semi-pro photographer, and since she was going to be at my wedding anyway, she did the pictures "at cost", and then we added a little extra for her time. We are lucky, here in the Twin Cities there are lots of photography students and semi-pros who can do great pictures at reasonable prices. Just ask to see their portfolio and get a reference or two.

My husband has a friend who is a singer, and she came with a guitar player and sang a lot of big band and lounge music--it was great. Forepaugh's is not really big enough to have a dance, if that's what you have in mind.

Good luck planning!

My cousin Christina Beaudry is a wedding photographer
check out her web site....

christina Beaudry.com
she may have some other contacts for you too.
If you are not doing real flowers you could try and do them yourself?
B.

If you go to theknot.com you will find local message boards. Through that I was able to find small business people in my area which saved me a lot of money. I had a wedding and reception for $6000 for over 100 guests. I asked people to help me with the wedding instead of buying me a gift. I self catered the wedding reception. My MIL, niece and I made most of the food and friends grilled at the reception. We had better food than most weddings including steak! I bought the steak at Sam's club and saved a fortune. We also had beer, wine and soft drinks. We had pie instead of cake and saved an arm and leg. Plus I like pie 100x more than cake. The trick was to find a site where we could bring in food and drink. We wanted more of a picnic type reception, so I rented the barn (no animals)at Gibbs Farm Museum (St. Paul) for $500 and rented a tent in addition to that. The curator was there and made homemade ice cream with the children, but everyone enjoyed it. I hired a DJ, but that is where I could have saved more money and had someone volunteer for that job. My priority was photography so I spent more there. The only thing that didn't work out was the flowers. The person I hired did them too early, so they didn't look fresh. That was a problem with choosing the wrong vendor not because I didn't spend enough. My advice would be to decide what is really important to you. Once you set your priorities it is easy to choose what to put money into and where to cut back. You could have a wedding for under $1000 if you just have a ceremony or have a reception with just immediate family. If you don't have a formal gala or have set ideas there are any number of options that will give you a wonderful experience without the Cinderella price tag. Check out the library for books about having a wedding on a small budget.

Addition--I just thought of something else. My niece was married just months before me in Lacrosse WI. She was able to have a country club reception for what it cost me to have a picnic reception. If you can have your wedding in a small town or city, you can find big savings.

My hubby and I just got married in Sept 08. Total cost for our wedding was between $3-4,000.00. We got married in my in-laws back yard (there is a lake in their back yard).
Anyway, to cut the cost of the wedding down, I made my own flowers and bought things from discount companies on the internet.

We were originally going to get married in April 08 but re-scheduled for Sept. I didn't go with the same MOH or BS that I originally picked out. Which ended up being a good thing due to my original MOH didn't even bother to show for the wedding anyway...

Also, for my bach party, the girls threw a Passion Party for me... Got lots of goodies on that one!!!

my husband i got married 2 years agao for just over 5 grand. we got married at my parents house and did a bbq. we rented tents in case it rained and made our own decorations. we kept everything as cheap as we could. i made my own wedding cake since im not big on the fancy ones so that saved a bunch of money. i wasnt big on the whole proffesional pics so my moms cousin did all our pics and they turned out just fine. casual but nice. we had the reception at a vfw which was cheaper because we didnt do dinner there and we shopped around and found a dj for 500 bucks and they were great. we did free beer and pop and people had to pay for thier own drinks. it can be done you just need to decide how fancy you want things. just keep it nice but simple and cut corners wherever you can. good luck and congratulations.

If you have a church, use the fellowship hall. It is likely not expensive and if you are a member of the church it is even cheaper (join!)

The most important thing is that you are together! Remember whatever doesn't go according to plan, makes a great story and good laugh later. My sister and her husband locked the keys in their running car as we were getting out of the cars at the reception! Not so funny at the time, really funny now.

A note about a cake: have a really small lovely cake for you to cut, then use sheet cakes to serve. Wedding cakes are a fortune and once their cut no one cares if it is a slice or a square when served.

My SIL did our flowers and they were really lovely. Use something that is in bloom at the time. We had some greenery ivy that draped clear to the floor when I carried it and it is planted in our yard and has grown all over. It is so pretty and a wonderful reminder of our wedding.

Simple is usually better. Our attendants each carried a single cala lilly and it was elegant.

One other non wedding note: we went to a Engaged Encounter Weekend retreat and it was very enriching and saved a lot bumps in the road when we were first married. I would encourage you to invest in this more than anything else. This is different than meeting with your clergy, and just as important. Regardless of your religious affiliation, anyone can go to these and you really get to the meat of things, privately with your intended. The one we went to was Lutheran Engaged Encounter. They have married couples present topics and then you and your spouse go off privately to talk, write each other letters and discuss things that will affect your future. I call it divorce prevention! Just when you think you know someone really well and have talked about so much, they bring up another topic or scenario for you to dig into. It really helped us and we later did a Marriage Encounter, which brought our marriage to an even deeper more enriching level.

It is worth your time! The ceremony and celebration take lots of time and energy, what is just as important is that you will be partners for life and be a team. Take advantage of an Encounter.

Good luck,
Blessings and Congratulations!!!!
J.

Hi,

We had about 450 guests at our wedding and it only cost about $5,500. We had a chicken and ham dinner with all the fixings and open bar from noon till 10 PM (the whole wedding.)

We got engaged in Nov. of 2002 and our wedding was Sep. 2003. So, I bought a bunch of decorations on clearance after Christmas. (A huge arch, lots of lights, candles, etc. Anything I could pass of as NOT Christmas decorations but WEDDING like!) For the tables we just used fish bowls with rocks in the bottom and them floating candles in them. And we scatterd votives between those. Then we wrapped hershy kisses in tulle and put a "gift" by each chair.

A bridesmaid and I made the flowers. I would buy them when the craft stores ran 50% off. So, it only cost about $150 total for ALL the flowers. (5 bridesmaids, 5 groomsmen, ring bearer, flower girl, ushers, relatives, etc.) We made them to look like REAL flowers by having the ends the same. And we wrapped the middle just like the florists do with real ones. We did NOT use those corny white plastic holders! Most people thought they were real!!!

We got married at our church (free, and Pastor didn't charge anything.) I asked 2 members of the church to sing and play piano. We gave them each $25.

Then we had the reception at my parents home. We rented the biggest tent you can from General Rental and all the tables and chairs. We talked to a local liquor store and were able to get discounts because we bought whole cases. (AND he let us return anything not opened!) We actually hired a band and it was cheaper than a DJ. The band for like 5 hours was only $450. AND THEY WERE GREAT! They played EVERYTHING>

We did get a great deal on the food because it was only $5.25 a plate. We had a small town place cater it in.

And our photographer was a really good price as well. He's been doing it for like 30 years. He only charged us $550 for the whole day (8 AM till 5 PM--we did feed him lunch) and that included all the proofs and we also received 20 8*10's with that package. He was the cheapest by far WITHOUT having to give up quality.

Because we got such great deals by shopping around we even had money left over to hire a horse and wagon team to drive the wedding party from the church to the reception. (Only about 1 mile.) But then they gave out free rides around the block for the next 45 minutes. So, all the guests that wanted to got a ride!!!

I made TONS of calls and shopped around but that is how we were able to afford everything we did for our wedding.

+++++++++++

Just this year my friend had a "backyard wedding". They already had 3 kids as well. They had tons of trees in their yard and about 150 guests total throughout the day. They just set up tables and chairs and had a radio (premade cd's) going. They purchased some BBQ pork from Sams Club and put it in a big roaster. Then THEY made some side dish items. And just put some beer, pop, and water in coolers. and just served sheet cakes. Honestly, IT WAS THE NICEST WEDDING I"VE EVER BEEN TO.

They had no one stand up in the wedding. Their 3 daughters just wore really cute dresses she found at JC Pennys. And they actually just did a private ceremony at Munson Gardens with only 50 people in attendance and everyone was invited to the house for the reception.

I hope people enjoyed ours as much as I enjoyed my friends'.

look at places for a friday or sunday wedding, it will be less than saturday. if you are handy, buy your flowers at the farmers market for CHEAP! see if you can make the decorations, rent things instead of buying them. photographers usually charge by the hour, so limit your time with them to cut costs. make invitations and party favors and keep things simple.

I loved the book "How to Have a Big Wedding on a Small Budget" by Diane Warner. It was amazing! When my husband and I got married, we paid for 90% of it ourselves... Our parents covered a few things each. The book was amazing and gave lots of ideas on how to cut corners... Plus, I still believe that our wedding was just as beautiful as one that was twice as expensive!

We managed to do our wedding on just about that budget-I think we spent 8K. It was a second wedding for both of us so we wanted to go more low key and more 'us' this time around. We had the ceremony outside at a B&B in Racine with the reception in and outside B&B. We made the most of the flowers and decorations that were already there so the flower budget was simple..white tulle to drape the porch, my flowers, boutenniers and corsages, (we didn't have a bridal party). We did votives and rose petals scattered on the tables as decorations, (and on the cake). We didn't have a band/dj, but rather an Irish Trio which ended up staying two hours longer because they got everyone dancing! The B&B did all the food and drink-heavy hors d' ouevres, for the cake we used, "eat cake" in Milwaukee...we actually were able to do an open bar because they gave us a flat rate for the liquor and comped the labor.

It's totally doeable it just depends on where you want to spend the most $$ and how big you want the guest list to be.

If you are looking in Milwaukee inside or outside...? Hubbard Park Lodge is really nice..You can do ceremony and reception there...

Also-if you don't feel you have to have the wedding on a saturday you can save a lot and have more date options since venues often are dark on Fridays and Sundays-they'll negotiate more with you.

If you want to do a hotel you can (and should) negotiate the contract that will help with $$.

I'm an event planner-I'd be happy to give you more ideas/help. Feel free to email me.

It is totally do-able! Just cut costs at every turn. Ask yourself if you need every thing. Usually, people find themselves in the moment and just keep spending. Make an itemized list of everything you need and find the average cost of each thing. Then look for the bargains.

We had our wedding in Las Vegas (we lived there at the time and were so busy that I barely planned a thing). It was a fantastic wedding for next to no money. Everyone loved coming to the wedding and considered it a mini-vacation.

I also helped a friend with a wedding a couple of years ago. We bought everything we could at Michaels when it was on sale or used our weekly 40% off coupons. We made all of our center pieces and then sold them to someone else to recoup the cost.

Look at craigslist and possibly post a wanted ad for items that you need. Also look at Ebay.

You can save costs by printing your own invitations and making your own flowers...if are okay with fake.

If you are in the twin cities, I know of a great photographer that charges pennies compared to others and gives you the CD and permission to print your own pictures. She does an excellent job. I've had my daughter's baby pictures done by her and I get rave reviews of the pictures! Her name is Kristy Duggan. www.KristyDugganPhoto.com

If you decide to make/do a lot of wedding items, plan a day once a month where you get your friends and family to help you(and feed them!). Have fun with it and keep your budget in mind.

Oh, and look at grocery stores for your wedding cake. Make sure to sample them.

It depends on how formal you want it to be. My parents paid for mine, and it was not even close to $5K, but then I have very simple tastes.
We had a lot of people who were happy to help, so a friend played DJ, my aunt did the photography, we had finger foods, my very talented Grandma and aunts did the cake, and the reception was held at our church. People said it was the most fun they'd had at a reception.
My sisters also had inexpensive- but FANTASTIC- receptions. I like my youngest sister's the best. My mom bought a large variety of cheeses, crackers, and breads, as well as cheesecakes, cookies, and brownies from Sam's Club. They did hire a photographer, but they shopped around and got references from friends. Instead of a DJ, they had music playing in the background. My BIL had made a playlist of their favorite and romantic songs on his iPod and then hooked it up to the sound system.
Flowers can be bought for a LOT less at grocery stores that have a florist- something that is often overlooked. My mom bought a TON of gorgeous flowers (roses, gardenias, freesia, Gerbera daisies) from grocery store florists for a fraction of the price other flower shops charge. For my sister's wedding, my mom had the high school florist class make the corsages and boutineers for free. I was afraid, but they turned out really nice!
Anyway, like I said, it all depends on your taste- and how much shopping around you're willing to do.
Good luck and have fun!

Hey Krisite,

We couldn't afford to have a huge wedding 23 years ago. We just wanted to live together and start our life.

We had the wedding in my church. Had a friend take pictures. (Needless to say, we have none, due to the fact that he brought a crappy camera, but we are still together! LOL)

We had a dinner at our local bowling alley's back hall. Thankfully there was a great band playing that night. That was our reception! So all we paid for was the meal. And seeing as my dad wanted to invite all his friends, he agreed to split the cost.

I never saw my wedding cake either. The caterers cut it before we could look at it.

But we are still together after 20 some years.

My point is this: it doesn't matter how much money you spend on your wedding. If you love each other, your family's love you, they will will understand whatever you do. Both my sisters went to Jamaica and got married. They didn't even have a reception. And they both have no children and are very well off.

Don't go broke! Have fun!

J.