The Wedding Pie: Kathryn and Chris
So you’re engaged. You picked a date and are beaming with glee about your upcoming nuptials. You’re culling through thousands of gorgeous, dreamy weddings online and wondering how much would it be something like this? Unless you have close friends and siblings who have recently got married and know how much their weddings cost, you have no idea where to begin setting your budget. This is why we’re beyond excited to start a little section about budgets from real couples who are kind enough to give us the skinny on how they divided their budget. We hope you like it as much as we enjoyed creating it!
Please keep in mind that costs vary in many ways, from the location of the event, vendor’s experience level to the time of the year, month, day of the week and even date if it’s a popular one in demand (like 11.11.11). The chart below is a ball park for Chris + Kathryn’s wedding featured earlier today. To see their wedding, click here.
Our number one tip to setting your budget is to give priority to what’s most important to you (photography, wedding gown, catering, etc), then work your budget around it. For Chris + Kathryn, they wanted organic catering, a conveniently located venue and photography.
How did their budget stack up?
Wedding wardrobe: $2500 (bride and groom)
Location: $2500
Food: $3000
Hotel accommodations: $400
Stationery: $1000
Gifts: $250
Dessert: $550
Band: $1500
Day of wedding planner: $500
Bar: $1000
Everything else: $3000
Total (approximately): $16,200
Fool proof buying guide for their Organic Elegance setting:
1. baby’s breath bouquets (available at most local flower markets)
2. Oleg Cassini CWG352
3. Black bow tie
4. ruffled girl’s dress
5. Walk Away with Bronze Dress
This = genius. I love seeing how gorgeous their wedding is and that it didn’t break the bank! Love love love the wedding pie…being able to visualize the priorities is so helpful.
LOVE this!! So helpful for a girl on a budget!
Can you tell us how many people were at this wedding? That seems to be a big factor in our budget!
Love this feature!! Such a wonderful idea! I absolutely adore your site and the weddings that are featured, but often wonder what their budgets are! Thanks so much!
I would love to know how you catered a wedding for $3000, unless it was tiny!
Love that you’re doing this! It’s going to be so helpful!!
This is a great idea – but how guests will be a key factor! Can you add that info?
Oops – how many guests….
Such an awesome, helpful idea!! Knowing how many guests that covered would be even more helpful!
I am in love with this. The world needs to know that beautiful, memorable days can happen for reasonable amounts of money.
it was for 100 people
$3000 for catering? Did that include the rentals (tables, linens, dinnerware)? Also..where is the cost for their photographer? I haven’t found anyone below $3250!!
Hi Susan,
These are just ball parks on how they split their budget. Photography is shown in the infographic to give you a general idea of what their biggest expenses were, then shown below under everything else. I see you’re in Salt Lake City – please keep in mind that rates can vary from location to location.
Hope this helps!
I’m so glad you took suggestions on blogging. I’m sure others suggested it too but I was one who wanted to see the budget of real weddings, but yes, as everyone else said… it’d be nice to know how many guests there were. 🙂 I’m so happy about this!!
I am so glad this has come to Ruffled! Love this and am looking forward to more!
Nice way to put it. Love the idea.
How much was photography?
The ball park for photography is included under everything else and shown in the infographic to give an idea of proportions over total budget set.
Hope this helps!
You forgot to mention flowers, something brides wait until the end to plan and forget to budget for. Flowers make more of a statement than linens, etc. I find that a lot of brides are disappointed when they do not have enough left over for the flowers they want.
Jenny – the story included this: “baby’s breath bouquets (available at most local flower markets)”
So they saved money on floral by going simple. I’ll say I didn’t have any real flowers at my wedding whatsoever. I found a fabulous crafter on Etsy who made me a bridal bouquet and bouquets for my three bridesmaids from book paper, as well as enough paper roses for boutineers and corsages. The whole lot cost me $250. I wouldn’t change a thing.
Love. love. love this idea. Wedding planning is so much easier when there are some numbers to go with the pretty pictures.
You listened to my suggestion, yay! 😀 There must have been other people who were thinking what I was thinking! So helpful 🙂