For you married folks

[Anubinomicon]

ours was about 30,000 when all was said and done. we wanted to spend less, but her parents (who are not rich by any means) wanted to do it a certain way and took out a loan against their house. i'd say though my wife and i covered about 6-8,000 of the 30,000 by the time we bought everything to make decorations and paid for the dj, 3 piece ensemble, shuttle bus to after party, minister, etc. it was 12,500 for the reception which included ridiculous amounts of quality food for 105 people, open bar, grounds for the ceremony, etc.

 

[Bubble181]

i've never been to a wedding without an open bar in my life. that must be at least 10 ceremonies.

We love our booze in Belgium

Add in some more. Honestly, I've never seen, been to, or heard of a wedding without an open bar; besides some of extremist muslims.


That aside, my brother's spending about €10,000 on his wedding, some friends of mine spent clsoe to €15,000, and some other friends of mine managed to keep it under €5.000.

 

[rabbitgod]

also, since we have a lot of married folks here i was just wondering. What music did you have when you were walking down the aisle? I mean i know the traditional is the here comes the bride thing, but thats so... lame. I was just thinking about it the other day and there has to be people that have done something different.

That's where our Harpist came into play, I don't remember the exact piece, but she played classical. Nobody remembers that part anyway.

I wish mine had been simple. But my mother in law was so excited, we kind of handed the reins to her. Oops.

Yeah I was pushing for simplicity, but my mother in law didn't get the wedding she wanted, so she went a little crazy for ours. They wanted a whole traditional thing. I picked my battles and was able to come out half way. They wanted Tuxes - I wanted Suits. So I let them pick the food.

And the occasional boat.

The location for mine was 1 block from the railroad so our ceremony was interrupted twice, the First dance once, and then twice during the dinner. I thought it was nice though.


In the end you have to make the wedding your own. We wanted to have Day of the Dead elements in our decorations. Nothing grusome just classic art. But the in laws went crazy about it. They thought it was inappropriate. My wife and I snuck some stuff in any way and guests still talk about how much they liked those things. They fit our personality. I think that's something you need in a wedding. It's a joining of two people and the union should be reflected in the vibe of the ceremony/reception.

 

[Cajungal]

Now that I think about it, I've only been to..... one or two weddings down here where hard liquor didn't cost a little something. Wine and beer were free, but yeah. I wouldn't blame religion at all... Catholics are the best at getting shit-faced. But it could be because of the sheer volume that southerners can put away without even getting tipsy (My "cheap drunk" gene is recessive down here ).

 

[Rob King]

NVM

 

[Hailey Knight]

Oh, I never knew there was a branch called the Salvation Army. I always thought that was just some organization, not affiliated with a religion.

EDIT: And apparently while letting the page linger before Quick Reply, you erased it... For some weird reason. Didn't seem to be anything bad in it.

 

[Rob King]

Oh, I never knew there was a branch called the Salvation Army. I always thought that was just some organization, not affiliated with a religion.

EDIT: And apparently while letting the page linger before Quick Reply, you erased it... For some weird reason. Didn't seem to be anything bad in it.

Sorry. It just seemed way off-topic afterward, so I figured I'd go back and edit it away.

If anyone was curious, the gist of it is thus: I was raised Salvation Army, who prohibit alcohol, tobacco, recreational drugs, and gambling for it's members, which is why most of the weddings I've attended have been without alcohol. Where I live, some members are so conservative as to even prohibit dancing and card playing, although neither of those two things are expressly proscribed by the organization as a whole. (And for that matter, the 'no alcohol' bit is ignored by a good portion of the Salvation Army in Europe).

As far as the organizational structure of the Salvation Army is concerned ... it is a Christian organization, and a fully realized denomination of the church. When it comes to the work of the Salvation Army though, we don't discriminate based on race, gender, sexual preference, religion or anything else. Yes, as a Christian organization, there is some evangelizing involved, but having been involved with the Salvation Army across several countries, what has come first is the service to our fellow man, every time.

 

[ZenMonkey]

For music, I had a track from The Mission by Ennio Morricone for the processional, and the instrumental music from The Princess Bride by Mark Knopfler for me. Recessional was the 2nd movement of Beethoven's 7th (the Easter Snoopy dancing part). Also Penguin Café Orchestra while people were getting seated, and Pink Martini during the cocktail hour.

I was very serious about the music. More so than the flowers or what my bridesmaids wore.

 

[KCWM]

"Das Beste" by Silbermond was the song my wife walked in to. I'd be surprised if anyone had heard of it or them, as it's a German band she's a fan of. It's a very pretty song. I have no idea what it says, but it's apparently appropriate.

Our song was "The Luckiest", by Ben Folds.

And our recessional (i think that's the one) was "The Banana King" song from Charlie the Unicorn. Why? I have no fucking clue. But it garnered plenty of "what the fuck" looks from plenty of our guests and laughs from those that got it.

 

[bigcountry23]

I seem to remember we kept it under 5k.

We went with a photographer who was using digital equipment and was able to get him under $500 (This was a great deal, you don't want to skimp on a photographer).
Site was most expensive part, and I think that ran 2500.
Had a Harp and Dulicmer player, think that ran 500
Food/cake ran 1000
Flowers ran 500 (Wife did her own flowers/decorations, so we bought in bulk)

We had a friend perform the ceremony so that only cost us a dinner (I promised him this before I even met my wife, was happy she was in favor of it. It just so happened that my friend has converted to the LDS faith about a year before our wedding, so even though it wasn't a denomination specific wedding, her folks were pleased that we were being married by somone of the LDS faith, which smoothed one of our biggest issues out).

 

[Vytamindi]

Ah... good Ben Folds song! I think about my boyfriend every time I hear it!

 

[Odie]

Hmm lets see, My wedding was a destination wedding (Outer Banks, North Carolina about 6hrs from my home) so that may up the costs a little since we couldnt readily rely on friends and family to chip in. In end I felt we kept most of the costs down.

$6000 for house/location (Tent/Tables/Silverware Included) for the Week (included rooms for all in the wedding party)
$3000 for Food & Servers/Bartender (We did have a open bar but we brought the costs down a ton by purchasing the liqour and having a friend brew the beer)
$500 for DJ
$300 for Official
Free - Pics (Family Friend offered to do this)

In the end including running long at the bar I think we did about 10k for a week long vacation for 15 of my closest friends and have a great party for 125+ people.

It was a headache early on and I can appreciate all those people who say "dont do it , save the money for the honeymoon" but wheres the fun in that. Enjoy your day, youll only get a few days devoted to you in a lifetime and this is one of those. Enjoy it and Congrads!

 

[phil]

Who says that a wedding has to cost money?

Police say newlyweds robbed chapel after wedding
SEVIERVILLE, Tenn. — Police said two Campbell County newlyweds were arrested on their wedding night for burglarizing the Sevierville chapel where they were married. WATE-TV reported that Brian Dykes and Mindy McGhee were married Wednesday at the Angel’s View Wedding Chapel at the Black Bear Ridge Resort. Following the wedding, the couple rented a cabin at the resort.

According to the Sevier County Sheriff, an employee noticed the couple’s car back outside the chapel around 1 a.m. and lockbox with cash was missing.
Deputies found the couple at a restaurant, where they confessed and turned over the missing $500. They are being held in jail on bonds of $10,000.
Information from: WATE-TV, www.wate.com/

 

[Le Quack]

Get a live band, not a dj.

 

[Silvanesti]

Get a live band, not a dj.

Yeah. DJs suck and are smelly.

 

[Vagabond]

Get a live band, not a dj.

Yeah. DJs suck and are smelly. [/QUOTE]

Most of them are incredibly old too.

 

[Sparhawk]

Get a live band, not a dj.

Yeah. DJs suck and are smelly. [/QUOTE]

Most of them are incredibly old too.[/QUOTE]

An amazing amount of them have flappy hooties too.

 

[Morgoth]

Get a live band, not a dj.

Agreed. Live bands are > DJ's. Sorry Dave.

I'll rephrase, good bands are like a 1:5 chance you'll get a great one. Good DJ's are a 1:20 chance. We actually had both. A DJ for the reception and a band for the after party. The band was much better than the DJ. Might have been luck, but from all the weddings I've been dragged to recently by my reaching their mid to late 20's friends, I stand by my assertion that live bands are better.

 

[Cajungal]

---------- Post added at 09:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:13 AM ----------

...because talking about wedding music always makes me think of this.

 

[Morgoth]

---------- Post added at 09:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:13 AM ----------

...because talking about wedding music always makes me think of this.

Can...a...DJ...move...like....thiiiiissssssss? <shimmies>

 

[Cajungal]

Well, Dave?

 

[Rhys55]

My wife and I married at the courthouse and threw a reception about 3 months later for everyone. that cost me $30 bucks.

The most expensive thing was renting the building we were at I can't remember it's cost now but it's around $800. it also housed a farmers market in the day before we were there and the flower vendors all gave us their bits they'd throw away normally. So we had a huge table of flowers that all we had to do was sort through and organize.

Spent maybe $100 on decorations, that my wife made each table have a fall theme with, if you do this part yourself you save tons.

I made wine and beer for the event, it cost me about $200-$250 for 2 kegs worth and about 60 bottles of wine (we had some left over )

Cousin of my wife's did the photography, and she's really good. But we also put the disposable camera's on every table and let people just take pictures. These came out the best actually because it was so random.

Music was done by a friend, who has a band. Live music is so great if you can swing it. It was free to us, just cost food.

I used to cater weddings so the food part I knew people for. I did a ton of work on it the day before and let them handle the actual event. we spent about 500 bucks on food.

 

[Alex B.]

We had a DJ and it was fine. He was young. It was nice to have someone to keep things organized and moving along and what not. One less thing for us to worry about, and he was great about playing all the songs we requested.

I'm pretty sure we had a cash bar, with the toast champagne or whatever free. If it means the difference between a relaxing honeymoon or one where we constantly looking in our wallets to see if we have enough money, I have no problem making a handful of people pay a few bucks for the couple of drinks they're going to have at the wedding. I guess that makes us assholes.

Our photographer was just getting into the business and needed more weddings for her portfolio, so we got her cheap. My best friend and his girlfriend video weddings all the time, so she shot the event and he edited it later and put together this great little DVD case and everything as their gift to us.

We rented our tuxes from Men's Warehouse. I don't remember exactly how much they were, but they were well under a hundred bucks. I hate when people ask you to be in the wedding and then make you spend a lot on tuxes and dresses and what not.

I'm not sure how much we spent, my wife and her family paid for everything, but I don't think it was more than 3-4k, and we had an awesome wedding at the Dallas World Aquarium.

 

[Morgoth]

We had a DJ and it was fine. He was young. It was nice to have someone to keep things organized and moving along and what not. One less thing for us to worry about, and he was great about playing all the songs we requested.

I'm pretty sure we had a cash bar, with the toast champagne or whatever free. If it means the difference between a relaxing honeymoon or one where we constantly looking in our wallets to see if we have enough money, I have no problem making a handful of people pay a few bucks for the couple of drinks they're going to have at the wedding. I guess that makes us assholes.

Our photographer was just getting into the business and needed more weddings for her portfolio, so we got her cheap. My best friend and his girlfriend video weddings all the time, so she shot the event and he edited it later and put together this great little DVD case and everything as their gift to us.

We rented our tuxes from Men's Warehouse. I don't remember exactly how much they were, but they were well under a hundred bucks. I hate when people ask you to be in the wedding and then make you spend a lot on tuxes and dresses and what not.

I'm not sure how much we spent, my wife and her family paid for everything, but I don't think it was more than 3-4k, and we had an awesome wedding at the Dallas World Aquarium.

No, it doesn't make you assholes. It's your wedding; do what you like. To counter though, it is a nice gesture to offer free bar to your guests. I know that alcohol was an important feature at my own wedding. I personally enjoy myself more when my guests are having a good time.