The Costs of our Wedding

Well friends, we just received the final wedding bill yesterday and after I wrote out the check, I decided to run through all the numbers and see how we did.

Wedding Budget:  $25,000 

Wedding Expenses:  $25,689.55

Results:  $689.55 over budget

Let’s take a look at the actual numbers:

Budgeted/Actual

RECEPTION – $15,000/$15,132.46

• Rental – $1,000 / $1,100
• Food – $9,000 / $7,423.35
• Beverages – $3,000 / $2,886
• Cake – $900 / $961
• Service/Tax – $1,000 / $3,275.61
• Audiovisual – $100 / $20

ATTIRE AND BEAUTY – $400

• Wedding Dress and Alterations- $0 (Thank you Bird’s parents!) / $0
• Veil – $200 / $200
• Hair and Makeup – $100 / $123
• Shoes – $100 / $0

CEREMONY – $1,050

• Church Rental – $850 / $750
• Officiant – $200 /$250

FLOWERS AND DECOR – $1,000

• Ceremony Flowers – $900 / $836.55
• Centerpieces – $100 / $100

MUSIC – $750

• Ceremony Musicians – $200 / $450
• DJ – $550 / $650

PHOTOGRAPHY – $2,000

• Photographer – $2,000 / $2.035.85

PHOTO BOOTH – $1,300

• Rental – $1,275 / $1,275.67

PAPER – $750

• Invites and Replies – $420 / $465 
• Postage – $0 – Mom paid for all postage
• Programs and placecards – $230 / $130

RINGS – $975

• His – $25 / $25
• Hers – $950 / $1,233

TRANSPORTATION – $400

• Limo – $400 / $0  (Didn’t get one)

HOTELS – $175

• Wedding night – $175 / $210.03

GIFTS – $300

• Groomsmen – $100 / $146.71
• Bridesmaids – $200 / $200

MISCELLANEOUS – $250

• Random stuff – $250 / $0 

REHEARSAL – $500

• Park rental – $116 / $116
• Food and Beverages – $675 /  $599.34

As I mentioned, we had budgeted $25,000 but we had an additional $5,000 cushion, so while we were slightly over budget, we just used a bit of the cushion to cover the extra.  There was no need to go into debt or hit up our savings.  The rest of the cushion would be spent on our honeymoon which is another future post.