Possible to have a nice wedding for under 5k?

I will never understand why some people spend ridiculous amounts of money on a wedding. I guess if you (or parents) can spare that kinda cash no problem then go for it. Me and my wife got married last weekend in 10 minutes, for $600 rings included. $5k or more? To me that's crazy, that's a car, that's money towards medical expenses when you have a kid, closing costs on a house, a kitchen remodel, a pool, a supercharger, 1 ton axle swap, 4 link setup, LS1, I could go on and on. If you don't have that in cash and your financing the deal your mental. Don't start off your marriage with unnecessary debt.
 
Tux for me- $120
Lisa's dress- $400
Denver's bow tie- $20
Gift card for my buddy who is ordained- $100
Getting married on the Blue Ridge Parkway with only 2 of your closest friends as witnesses and no drama, priceless!
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I understand what all you guys are saying and I appreciate the input. this is why I posted this on here. to get opinions.
Only thing is...everyone talks about a compromise....A wedding to me is great, Im excited for it, but i do know that getting married is something that a woman thinks about from a very early age. it seems to be in their DNA, as cars, anything with a motor, women, and boobies are in ours as a man.
I don't want to cheap out on my end because I don't want to cough up the dough and have her resent me for not giving her the wedding that she has dreamed of for a long time. to me, that is not a compromise...and she doesn't wanna anything crazy...but she does have a big family, so a small wedding is not really doable.
 
Point #1- How do you 2 want the wedding to go? This is y'alls day, nobody else's. Don't let it become what is expected, make it the way you guys want it.
Point #2- When there is clear communication there cannot be resentment also. Ask her point blank to tell you what she would like and then discuss it maturely and rationally. There is no need to spend too much on the wedding if the marriage will suffer. Too many newly married couples swim in a sea of unneeded debt.
Point #3- My wife has a big family and I have a small one. We made our wedding day just that, OUR WEDDING DAY. We knew if we invited xxx on her side, we would "need" to invite xxx on my side. It started to stress us out and took away from what the day was actually all about. So we didn't invite any family. That way nobody was treated any differently than anyone else. It was us, our dog and 2 close friends to serve as witnesses. Start your life together the way you want it, on y'alls own terms.

I did things differently the first time around. That is partly why there was (thankfully) a second time around!
 
Ron said:
...Dress was custom sewn by a friend. We had an old fashioned "shogun" wedding...thye dont necessarily make wedding gowns for folks "in her condiiton"...
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Assuming by "in her condition" you meant
Shotgun Wedding:
awww.josephbonifacio.com_wp_content_uploads_2014_02_6a00d83451b07469e200e54f71f9f98833_640wi.jpg


And not
Shogun Wedding:
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We did our wedding and reception for just under $7k, it was a beach wedding and that included paying for a condo for bridesmaids, one for groomsmen, one for each family, and one for the preacher and his family.
 
Honestly...I just want a simply well done ceremony. The place we have in mind is perfect. very rustic, not western...its going to be a rustic, fall themed wedding. mums, pumpkins, tea lights, stuff like that. I want us to have a good time, but I also want our Family to have a good time as well. Nothing is set in stone, we are basically ironing out all the details at the moment. getting a guest list together...which is going to be about 120 peeps.
 
My chick and I are planning a destination wedding, not less $5k...but there is considerable fluff in these numbers, and a lot of it could be gotten for cheaper if need be. We're going to get married out in Nags Head. There will be roughly 30 people there. The actual venue will be on a sand bar just off a beach in Jockey's Ridge. That's free. Her grandfather will be the preacher...free. Wedding dress she already bought from a local boutique for $40. I'll be wearing khakis and a button up. Bridesmaids and Groomsmen will be wearing dressy beach attire that they already have. Photographers have been anywhere between $800-2500. Décor we'll make and we're planning on $1000 for materials. Rehearsal dinner will be held at the OBX Brewing station in the upstairs, and depending on head count will be between $1000-1500 (roughly $50/head). Now, we're also planning on renting a 15-20 person house the week leading up to the wedding to allow the wedding party/family stay and that will top out at about $3500. Our reception will be held at that house and will probably be catered by Kill Devils (the burger joint)...and just have a big blowout bash house party. Alcohol will be beer, wine, whiskey and homemade liquid corn. Wedding bands will be under $1000. And the honeymoon we haven't decided if we want to do a Maldives bungalow or go on a cruise in the Mediterranean/Caribbean/Alaska. So without the house rental, and excluding the honeymoon, and we opted for the cheaper options...we're under 6k.
 
If you guest list is about 120, you will likely only get around 70 to show up. About 40% don't come.
Cherokeekid88 said:
Honestly...I just want a simply well done ceremony. The place we have in mind is perfect. very rustic, not western...its going to be a rustic, fall themed wedding. mums, pumpkins, tea lights, stuff like that. I want us to have a good time, but I also want our Family to have a good time as well. Nothing is set in stone, we are basically ironing out all the details at the moment. getting a guest list together...which is going to be about 120 peeps.
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Keep in mind about 40% of people that you invite will not come on average.
 
6 years later, friends and family still talk about how much they enjoyed our wedding.

My wife only had 1 demand, and that was the photographer. I don't remember any of the numbers, but I know the photog was a couple thousand dollars. The wedding was at St Johns church in Valle Crucis, and the reception was at the Apple Barn. Nothing about it was cheap, but her and the women of her family did most of the decorating.

DSM Turbos said:
If you guest list is about 120, you will likely only get around 70 to show up. About 40% don't come.


Keep in mind about 40% of people that you invite will not come on average.
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We invited 106, we had 105. 2 didn't show, and 1 brought an extra. We are the exception in that regard. But we only invited close friends and family. My wife has a large family that made up about 40% of the guest list. We were trying to keep it small, and that was the best we could do.
 
jeepinmatt said:
6 years later, friends and family still talk about how much they enjoyed our wedding.



We invited 106, we had 105. 2 didn't show, and 1 brought an extra. We are the exception in that regard. But we only invited close friends and family. My wife has a large family that made up about 40% of the guest list. We were trying to keep it small, and that was the best we could do.
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Dang! We invited 200 and about 120 came, it was hard for us to get the list even to 200.

We had an awesome wedding in the mountains of VA at a Winery, cost a good deal of money but no regrets about any of it.
 
Cherokeekid88 said:
I understand what all you guys are saying and I appreciate the input. this is why I posted this on here. to get opinions.
Only thing is...everyone talks about a compromise....A wedding to me is great, Im excited for it, but i do know that getting married is something that a woman thinks about from a very early age. it seems to be in their DNA.
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I call Bullshit. Some women may think that way, some of us don't wait for the guy to show up and plug him into our "dream".

Jody Treadway said:
Point #1- How do you 2 want the wedding to go? This is y'alls day, nobody else's. Don't let it become what is expected, make it the way you guys want it.
Point #2- When there is clear communication there cannot be resentment also. Ask her point blank to tell you what she would like and then discuss it maturely and rationally. There is no need to spend too much on the wedding if the marriage will suffer. Too many newly married couples swim in a sea of unneeded debt.
Point #3- My wife has a big family and I have a small one. We made our wedding day just that, OUR WEDDING DAY. We knew if we invited xxx on her side, we would "need" to invite xxx on my side. It started to stress us out and took away from what the day was actually all about. So we didn't invite any family. That way nobody was treated any differently than anyone else. It was us, our dog and 2 close friends to serve as witnesses. Start your life together the way you want it, on y'alls own terms.

I did things differently the first time around. That is partly why there was (thankfully) a second time around!
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Like Jody says, what do Y'ALL want?

We wanted about 50 people, left out whole groups of friends and family friends because you can't invite 4 when "the group" is 30... ended up inviting about 90 because my mom kept insisting (they did end up helping financially, but we had every intention of paying for OUR wedding ourselves)... Some brought extras (one brought 3!), some couldn't make it. My only regret was my boss, but that ...itch wouldn't have let me live it down, considering I was planning it from my desk on my lunch hour for a month or more.
 
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I worked as a caterer for about 5 years on and off in my younger days; this included hundreds of weddings. I could probably write half a book about what makes a cheap wedding, and what makes a good wedding cheap. A bunch has already been covered, Ill throw out some highlights for others in the future.

... keep in mind that these recommendations are contingent upon what type of event you want it to be. Decide this first then plan around it, make sure your guests also know what type of event it is going to be before they get there.

Base all of your estimations for food and beverage not on number of guests, but on man-hours of partying.

Eliminate wastes in the man-hours of partying.

If its a night wedding, split the event into finite and distinctly different segments. The best bang for your buck is to host a shorter reception with higher dollar food and booze, then move to a pre-planned after party at a different venue that is BYOB

If its a day wedding, have the reception at 2. It is significantly cheaper to entertain 100 people at 2pm rather than noon or 6pm.

Flowers always cost more than you think. Try to eliminate them from decorations all together. If you skimp on flowers and don't get enough it is obvious you cheaped out. As someone said before, find some pintresty decorations and load up.

Match all parts of your meal. No mac and cheese next to shrimp cocktail, etc. People always go for the shrimp, you'll run out, and again end up looking like a cheapskate when the caterer informs your guest that there are no more when they ask.

Less seats saves money. Physical seating I mean. Cocktail tables save money.


YMMV, Most important thing is to have a good time. I can't you how many people I saw forget to enjoy themselves at their weddings. Guests will still be disappointed with an expensive wedding if its not a fun event to attend.
 
Get your flowers from Sam's. Surprisingly, they have really good flowers at very fair prices. Order them in advance and they will arrive bundled and really fresh. I think the flowers we got from there lasted more than 2 weeks in a vase in August where most other places, I'm lucky to get 4 days out of them.

Looking back, we would have cut out about 40% of the expenses on our wedding but was still nice and done for less than $7k with 160 people. We saved the rest of the $ for our honeymoon trip to Aruba :D
 
So we need a photographer for a our wedding...not looking to spend a lot...I know I know...but we are trying to get married on a budget and just looking for someone to take some pics of it.


Anyone know anyone that is fairly cheap and decent?
 
I will say this. For your own sake, get a good photographer. Not a cheap one. (Those don't always directly correlate though).

Reason being. Your wife will will spend the rest of your life reminding you about the crappy photographer you hired because they were cheap.

Something's just ain't worth it!!!
 
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x2....12 years in, and that's one thing I'm glad we spent the $$ on ... got a few pics on display here and there in the house, and every once in a while we pull out the video and get a good laugh.

Check their portfolio and be sure it's in the style you like (and a style that won't look stupid in 10 or 20 years), check references, etc. And not just the references they give you...ask folks that they might have worked with before (like your church/pastor/etc).

There are a lot of 'wanna-be' wedding photographers out there that advertise as such...but really aren't that good.
 
Cherokeekid88 said:
So we need a photographer for a our wedding...not looking to spend a lot...I know I know...but we are trying to get married on a budget and just looking for someone to take some pics of it.


Anyone know anyone that is fairly cheap and decent?
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Give us an idea of fairly cheap. My wife spent about $4000 on ours and thought it was a good deal.
 
Mike Gibson of MJ Photography. He's in Gastonia, but will likely travel. He does a ton of weddings. We have used him for pictures on a number of occasions. He is good to deal with and reasonably priced.

www.mjphotographync.com
 
snappy said:
And you smiled and said yes dear... If you where a smart feller!
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Her parents were paying for it, so I wasn't too concerned. I just stressed that she better not get used to it.
 
Staton on here. Someone here can help with more contact info. Not sure if he's still doing it but I know he does great work.
 
I'll second the quality of Staton's work, but also don't know if he's still doing it. I also highly recommend Jack Morton. He's good people.
 
Looking around $500-600. I understand that it's something that we we have for a long time, but I wouldn't feel right spending more on someone snapping pics than the whole damn wedding.

But I know this really isn't something to cheap out on, here just has to be a compromise
 
J Darren Photography. Super nice guy, super easy to get along with. Even did me and my Wifes album a year after our wedding. Didn't have to, but agreed to it with no hassle.
 
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