On this blog, I’ve shared budget wedding tips, and general tips for weddings…but I haven’t shared my own wedding yet!
Ben and I got married on a beautiful fall day at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Keep reading for a breakdown of our entire budget and tips for how to save money on your own wedding!
Our Wedding
Ben and I were married on 9/6/2014. Our ceremony was at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and the reception was held at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres. We had about 100 guests – the perfect amount, in my opinion – not too big or too small!
Our Budget
We had planned to limit the budget to $10,000, but it ended up being about $12,140 total.
$7,000 – All-inclusive wedding package (reception venue rental, food, alcohol, cake, DJ, security, tablecloths, silverware, gratuity)
$600 – Ceremony venue rental
$800 – Chairs for ceremony
$200 – Audio equipment for ceremony
$1,200 – Photography and open photo booth
$600 – Dress ($400 for the dress itself, $200 for alterations)
Free – Bustling of dress (my mom did this for me)
$400 – Hair and makeup
$200 – Tuxedo
$500 – Flowers, decorations, and other supplies (ring bearer pillow, veil, flower girl basket, vases)
Free – Transportation (we drove my husband’s car)
$100 – Invitations
$400 – Officiant services
$140 – Dance Lessons
Personalized Details
I love the infinity symbol, so I incorporated that symbol in a few things – my ring, my necklace, the bridesmaid gifts (bracelets) and my garter. We also had a slideshow of photos of us play at the reception during cocktail hour. I love that these little details made our day more personal.
I also love that my husband created our wedding invitations. He’s a graphic designer, so he was able to design the invites for free (the only cost to us was the paper), and they looked amazing! It gave the invitations a personal touch.
How We Saved Money
The biggest thing we did to save money was choosing an all-inclusive wedding package. When I saw the $7,000 price tag at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, I was hesitant at first. Once I realized how many things were included in that $7,000, I realized that it was actually an awesome deal. Many venues in our area charge $8,000+ for the food alone (which is totally insane to me!).
Our Biggest Sacrifice to Save Money
I would say the biggest sacrifice was skipping certain traditional items – instead of trying to find cheaper ways to include those items, we just skipped them entirely. We skipped chair covers, a champagne pour (which would’ve been $700), favors, bubbles/sparklers/etc, a candy buffet, a limo or other fancy car, and videography.
My Advice to Others
Don’t have an outdoor wedding! It seems cheaper because the cost to rent the space is lower, but there are extra costs you wouldn’t have for an indoor wedding. I was amazed that the chairs were $800! We had already booked the ceremony space, so it was too late to back out by the time we realized how expensive the chairs would be. We also had to rent audio equipment for the song that was played during my walk down the aisle. $200 is a lot to spend for a 30-second walk!
Our Biggest Splurge
The biggest splurge was photography. We seriously considered having friends do the photography because photography is such an expensive part of the wedding. We decided that it would be worthwhile to hire a professional photographer who had extensive experience photographing weddings. The one thing that you will have after your wedding day is the photos, so it’s important that those turn out well.
Luckily, we were able to find a budget-friendly photographer who charged only $1,000 for a package, which is very inexpensive compared to other photographers in our area. She offered an open photo booth for $100/hour, so we decided to have the photo booth for two hours. It was a ton of fun and it was totally worth it! An actual physical photo booth (not an “open” one) is usually very expensive (the ones I looked at were close to $1,000).
Another area I splurged on was my hair and makeup – I felt it was worth it to splurge on that. I have very thin hair, so I spent $100 on clip-in hair extensions. It may seem silly to others, but I love the way my hair looks in the wedding photos.
If you’re local, check out these vendors!
Reception: Chanhassen Dinner Theatres
Ceremony: Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
First Photography: Studio Delphianblue
Second Photography – my friend Megan Marti
Cake: Buttercream Cakes and Desserts (the best cake I’ve ever had!)
Dance Lessons: Ballroom and Wedding Dance Studio
Chairs for Ceremony: Apres Party and Tent Rental
I love that your dress wasn’t a huge expense. A lot of people spend a CRAZY amount on their dress! I got mine online for about $300 and spent $100 or so to get it altered.
I also agree that you should pay for a good photographer. We got a local lady to do it for about $850 (included engagement pictures and wedding day pictures) and it was absolutely worth the money.
Pictures are the one thing that’ll last forever! I think it’s crazy when people spend thousands on the dress.
I’m not sure if I ever broke down all the costs of our wedding, but I was all about doing things for the lowest cost possible. Then afterwards I sold as much stuff as I could on eBay! :)
That’s smart! I sold a bunch of stuff to a bridal consignment shop!
I live in Minneapolis also. I think your venue was lovely, in spite of the add-on expenses. My daughter had her wedding on Lake Minnetonka on a vintage paddle boat (100 guests). This was 13 years ago, and the total cost of their wedding was about $5,000. She bought a gorgeous dress on eBay for $200. Your wedding costs were very reasonable.
Hubby and I had a very simple wedding back in the day that cost about $500. I am gobsmacked when I see costs today of $30,000 plus for a wedding. Just blows my mind. All I can see is house downpayment!
Thank you! It’s crazy how expensive weddings are these days! When I started researching the costs, I had to readjust my expectations pretty quickly. I realized that my “dream” venues would likely end up costing $20-$30k which is just crazy to me. I agree that $12,000 is a reasonable amount, but there is a part of me that wishes I had put that money toward my student loans instead.
What a beautiful wedding! I’ve heard that about chairs and other items you wouldn’t really think about. Crazy how little things like that turn out to be super expensive (hello wedding monopoly). One thing I’ve come to realize is that while we always say it’s the bride’s day, not so much the case. Peach cares way more about specific things in a wedding than I do, so the day will really be more about his wants than my own. I’d love to have a small ceremony of 75 people or less in a brewery and then have a kick ass time dancing the night away. But…I have 120 relatives that need to get invited, so it’s not going to happen. And Peach wants to get married in the church. Ah well, a girl can dream!
Thank you! It’s crazy how expensive some of the little things are! Your ideal wedding sounds perfect to me. My husband has a huge family, and we invited a ton of people. They live out of state, so many of them couldn’t make it. It’s too bad, but it really worked out for the best because we ended up with 100 guests. If all of them had been able to come, the wedding would’ve been much more expensive!
Your dress was beautiful and it looks like your wedding turned out amazing! Thanks for being so transparent with the costs – I’m in full wedding planning mode now so this helps me out a lot! We’re going with an all-inclusive wedding venue too and it’s saving us a ton of money. My outdoor ceremony is going to come out to $600 too for about 100 people. My dress was about $500 and I have an alterations appointment this weekend so I’m hoping it doesn’t exceed $200 but we will see. So far, we’ve been able to stay on budget but I’m wondering how the decorations and all the little things will add up at the end.
Thank you! An all-inclusive venue definitely helps a lot with the cost! It also makes it so much easier to plan – you don’t have to coordinate things with as many vendors, which helped ease some of the wedding planning stress for me.
That’s great that you’ve been able to stay on budget so far! It’s crazy how the little things add up. I skipped some of the those things entirely (chair covers, most types of decorations, etc) so that helped us to stay on budget. If I could do it all over again, I would’ve skipped the flowers. Even fake flowers ended up being $400, and it just wasn’t worth it.
Beautiful photos — thanks for sharing them! :) I have no personal insights into wedding planning, but I feel like what I consistently hear from other people is that it’s worth it to splurge on things that you know will make the day more meaningful for you — and it sounds like for you, those splurges were having a great photographer and photo booth, and getting your hair and makeup done the way you wanted. Congratulations!
Thanks, Sarah! I definitely agree. The cost of a wedding is so crazy these days, so I think it’s important to only splurge on the things that are truly important to you and to be very frugal with everything else.