So today, I worked on a quick budget for the wedding. Adding up everything, it looks like the total costs will be somewhere around $10,000. This is despite having our invitations being given to us as a gift by one of Annie’s friends, jewelry being made by another, a cake being made by Annie’s sister, the dress paid for by Annie’s mother, and the hard work of a variety of others in making flowers, and other odds and ends for our celebration.

It seems like a great deal, but it is a church wedding with one hundred people, and so there wasn’t going to be any easy way to do everything on the cheap.

The biggest cost is our reception, which looks to be around $7,000 of the total expense. This is for food, unlimited pop and juice, one bottle of wine for every eight adults and a pay bar.

So far, we have saved a little less than one third of what we need for our big day. We still haven’t locked down a photographer, our wedding bands, my suit, or many other details and we have eight months to pull it all together.

Annie and I have been talking about trying to raise some funds with a stag and doe. We’ve also been discussing monetary gifts and how helpful they’d be over getting “stuff”. We are also happy that we have a two month break between our wedding and our honeymoon to be able to properly save for the trip.

I can definitely see why so many people want to hire wedding planners for their big day. The whole thing is super stressful. Here’s hoping it goes off without a hitch and I want to express a huge thank you to everyone that has helped so far. I don’t know how this would have turned out without the help and support of family and friends.

Side note – I did everything in a cool spreadsheet using calculations, so I could test out how changes in our guest list would move the bottom line up or down. It made me really happy to use some spreadsheet-fu today.