My Budget Breakdown and How I Stuck to It

Alright ladies, now we’re down to the nitty-gritty: my budget and how I stuck to it.

From the get-go, we agreed to keep our personal expenses for the wedding under $12,000. Matt and I received a bit of help from each of our parents, totaling around $2,000, making our total budget $14,000. So, how did we do? Here’s the breakdown:

$1,400 attire, hair, makeup for Bride & Groom

$540 ceremony and wedding license

$7,000 reception which included a sit-down dinner and a beer/wine open bar for ~150 guests

$350 stationary, invitations, etc.

$1,000 flowers & reception decor

$500 dessert buffet & favors

$1,270 photographer

$770 music, both ceremony & reception

$350 attendant gifts

$300 DIY photo booth

Grand Total: $13,480

How did we do it?

DIYing as much as possible including the invitations, programs, centerpieces, seating chart, photo booth, dessert buffet, flowers and more.

Seeking out the best deals we could. Research was key and every decision was made thoughfully.

Having an off-season wedding. We received a significant discount at our reception site, La Scala Italian Bistro, and our DJ gave us a free hour of play time.

I did splurge on one, important thing:

The Dress…. and it was worth every penny

And I think that does it for me. It has been a blast sharing all the details with the fabulous Budget Savvy Bride community. You ladies seriously rock and I can’t wait to see the next group of brides bring on the budget style! I’ll still be blogging at my personal blog, Bridezilla To Be Becky. Come by and say hello!

In case you were curious, here’s a list of the vendors I worked with:

Dress: Wendy’s Bridal

Ceremony: St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, Columbus, Ohio

Reception: La Scala Italian Bistro

Flowers: The Flowerman, Columbus

Photographer: Jessica Miller Photography

Hair: Brittney and Jeff from Waldo Salon

Make Up: Farrah LaValley

Hair Piece: Artzymorena