On the 11th anniversary of Obergefell my now wife and I tied the knot!!! 💍💍🏳️‍🌈

Budget ~ a little over 50K
Venue: The Oviatt
Downtown Los Angeles
116 guests

Our wedding day was truly the best day ever. We were overwhelmed with love and gratitude. Everything went smooth and if there were small hiccups we didn’t hear about them. We really chose well with vendors and felt like they all went above and beyond. Especially our day of coordinator. 🥹

Before the wedding I was a little obsessed with watching wedding regret videos on TikTok and reading similar posts on Reddit. I made sure to listen to the top regrets mentioned so we hired a content creator and had a photographer and videographer whose work we loved. The content creator was such an amazing investment because we got to see so many moments from our wedding as soon as the next day. The professional photos from our photographer (shared here) completely blew us away.

We had a wedding weekend and that was the best decision. The night of our welcome drinks event felt extremely surreal and I kept trying to ground myself. It was just strange and unreal being at an event we’d been planning for a year and a half and seeing people from every part of our life in the same room. We hosted welcome drinks at Golden Gopher in DTLA and they were the absolute best hosts. We had a tab for our guests and they allowed outside food.

The day after our wedding we hosted a pool party at a house rented from Peerspace. It was the perfect way to wind down and process with everyone and end the weekend.

We’re still on a high but I wanted to post here because I visited this sub and other wedding planning subs so often throughout the wedding planning process!!!

♥️

The day started great and exactly as it should have - I got ready with friends and family, took a few photos - everything was perfect.

We only had 2 hours to set up before the ceremony began at 5pm, so around 3pm, a handful of friends and family headed to the venue to start setting up decor, put out the cake, put table numbers and menus on tables, etc. I was an extremely organized bride. I had the entire day planned by the hour, and everyone had an assignment to help the day go smoothly.

At 3:30, I received a text from one of my bridesmaids: "What time is the catering team supposed to get here?" They were supposed to arrive at 12pm to start setting up, but I don't panic, assuming that they're just running late or caught in traffic.

One thing to note here - our catering team wasn't just responsible for food. They supplied the tables, chairs for the ceremony and reception, linens, cups, plates, bar tables...pretty much everything. I start to call a few people from the company to get an ETA.

I can't get through to anyone.

I finally call the restaurant the catering company has. The teenager who picks up has no idea what I'm talking about, but says he'll get back to me ASAP.

Ok, fine.

Another 15 minutes goes by. Silence.

I call the restaurant back. "Anything?" I ask. "Nope," says the teen. "I can't get in contact with anyone either."

A few minutes later, I get a call from Susan, the woman from the catering company who I've been working with for 15 months.

"Hi Susan, how are you?"

"Well, honestly? Not great."

Susan then proceeds to explain to me that they somehow wrote my wedding date as May 25, 2025, instead of the correct date of May 24, 2025. She says everyone is scrambling to figure out how to get food, chairs, tables, etc over to the venue as quickly as possible.

Somehow, I remain calm. I'm 5 minutes from the venue so I text my bridesmaids the situation and just take deep breaths. We're an hour from the when ceremony is supposed to begin and have no chairs, no food, no staff, no water...nothing.

Here's everything that happened in that next hour:

- My bridesmaids found a winery close by that felt so bad for us, they let us borrow 40 chairs for the ceremony for free so we could start at 5:30. My dad drove in his pickup truck to pick them up, and my entire family helped set up the chairs (and take them down after the ceremony!)

- We convinced the violinist to stay an extra half hour to cover the ceremony (she was paid ofc).

- My bridesmaids found an umbrella in the venue, flipped it upside down, filled it with ice that our groomsmen bought from a nearby liquor store, and made it a makeshift cooler for drinks. We supplied our own alcohol, so guests were able to grab a beer while they waited for the ceremony to begin.

The ceremony began with only a 30 minute delay, but here's everything else that we missed out on:

- I lost 30 minutes of my wedding by starting at 5:30 instead of 5

- My dad missed an hour of his daughters wedding dealing with the chairs

- I got dressed by myself because everyone was handling things for me (no pics during this time either so I don't have any pics with my family or bridesmaids pre-ceremony)

- Paper napkins instead of my gorgeous twill blue linen napkins, and white tablecloths instead of the color I picked

- Plastic cups for drinks and champagne toasts

- We used this massive carving knife to cut the cake instead of the ornate cake cutting set I ordered through the caterers

- We only had 1/4 of the passed apps I paid for (I was SO excited for the bacon wrapped scallops)

- No high top tables or chairs for cocktail hour

- Only 3 attendants instead of the 5 I paid for

But you know what? I honestly wouldn't have changed a thing. My family and friends stepped up so completely and totally, I was in tears not from the stress but from the love I felt for everyone.

I had a few people ask me over the course of the day why I was so calm and seemed so relaxed about the whole situation. I realized that having everyone I loved in one place on the day I was going to marry the love of my life was all I ever needed. If worst came to worst, we'd order pizzas and eat standing up while giving toasts with beer cans and we'd have an absolute blast.

I wanted to make this post to reassure every stressed out bride that no matter how prepared or organized you are, there are still things that can go wrong and are totally out of your control - but THAT'S OKAY. I prepared and organized so. freaking. much. during the lead up to the wedding, that anything that went wrong was simply left to fate. I truly had the best day and felt so touched by my family and friends for literally saving the day again and again.

Oh, and I negotiated a 75% refund from the caterer, so...not so bad after all.

Edit to add: I forgot to add the currency but it was $31.2k CAD, so about $22.3k USD!

After two years of planning and endless hours of stress, our wedding day was one of the best days of my life and I want to pass on some of my key take-aways:

1. DIY flowers save soooo much money but what you’re not spending in cash, you’re spending in time. We ordered flowers from Bloom by Bunches, which is a farm-to-person wholesaler and they were wonderful to work with. With that said, DIY flowers were way more work than I was anticipating and flowers are a lot more delicate than I thought so we definitely lost a couple stems due to my inexperience lol. We had to do so much flower prep (cutting the stems, taking off the leaves, refreshing the water every 24 hours, designing the bouquets, wrapping them in floral tape, wrapping them in ribbon, etc.) We prepped them over 3 days, and we had the help of one of my cousins and bridesmaids. If it was just the two of us it would have taken wayyy longer and it still took so many hours. They ended up looking gorgeous so I’m still really happy with how it turned out but just a heads up for anyone else looking to DIY! We spent $800 total for my bridal bouquet, 7 bridesmaids bouquets, a ton of greenery, and 12 boutonnières, and we repurposed the bouquets to decorate the sweetheart table. We used fake florals for the centrepieces ($200). We then took our florals the day after the wedding to the elderly long term care ward at our local hospital and they were so appreciative and sweet - would recommend.
2. Have super clear timelines! Do both an “overall” timeline broken down just by hour (I.e., when hair and makeup is and where, when the first look is, when ceremony is, cocktail hour, dinner, speeches, first dance, etc.), and then also a “detailed” timeline that breaks down exactly where each member of the bridal party/family should be and when. Build in an extra 15 minutes of buffer time in each slot - we did this and it helped us stay on time because then if one “slot” went over, it wasn’t a domino effect for the rest of the day. Send these via text to everyone who needs to know so they have them on their phones AND print out a couple versions to have around the getting ready areas on the day of. I also handed one to our photographer and MC and they helped corral us all. We still got some questions about who needed to be where but the timelines helped a lot imo.
3. We decided not to get a DJ and just use Spotify, using their mix feature to add fades/rises/blends between songs. Instead of just choosing the “normal” version of each song, for a bunch of the songs I found “DJ remix” versions on Spotify to add to the playlist. I was super nervous that it wasn’t going to go well and people weren’t going to dance but ohhhh man the dance floor was PACKED. Like I think it was genuinely the best party of my life hahaha everyone was getting DOWN. We had a ton of people come up to us afterwards and tell us how they wish they had Spotify for their weddings because it felt like a DJ had been there. I will say that I did spend hours curating the playlist, moving songs around to create good blends of slow/fast/genres/etc but I’m so happy I did that because the vibes were impeccable. We also had a “song request” section in our RSVP and I made sure to add in everyone’s songs requests throughout and that was also a huge hit.
4. We used a local Italian restaurant for our catering and worked directly with their head chef to curate a buffet menu and wow it went amazing. Would highly recommend y’all reach out to local restaurants you like to see if they do catering - it was $5500 for full cocktail hour catering + buffet for 80 people and they just went above and beyond with the food.
5. We picked up 3 Costco cakes the day before the wedding (one chocolate, one vanilla, and one cheesecake). They added writing on top of each one as well! We got soooo many compliments on the cake and every time we were like “if you want to taste it again, we got it from Costco!” everyone was shocked and super happy hahaha. People especially loved the chocolate cake. For 3 cakes it was $90!!! (They weren’t our only dessert but we feel like we saved a ton by not doing a custom wedding cake and no one even knew the difference.)
6. I created “wedding day binders” that had the seating chart, ceremony lay out, photography shot list, photography inspo pics, important phone numbers (like parents, maid of honour, vendors, best man, etc). I’m not sure if these actually got used by anyone other than our DOC for the set up but it gave me peace of mind to know they were there just in case.

I think that’s everything off the top of my head but I am happy to answer any questions anyone has!! Everything went seamlessly and I’m just so happy with how it all turned out.

It was such a beautiful day, I couldn't have asked for better. All our vendors were amazing, and after a morning of nerves I was so happy to see my best friend!

Our wedding was the intimate dream we had been hoping for since our engagement and whether our not the day went perfectly, it was perfect for us :)

Just need to vent and share my frustrations with people who get it. Our dream venue which is actually within budget, has two required catering companies we can work with. The one that’s supposedly the cheaper option just came back with a whopping $18,000 quote for a 100 person wedding (including a $4,000 staffing fee and a $3,400 admin fee). Honestly, are we being unreasonable with a $10,000 budget for $100 people? We didn’t ask for anything fancy, buffet style dinner with desserts and some appetizers during cocktail hour. The most annoying part to me is that she asked us a hundred super specific questions knowing that it would be way out of our price range. I was trying to get info on their extra fees and she had me picking out where in the venue the appetizers would be located just to give us a quote that’s $8,000 over with no suggestion on how to lower it or anything.

We’re still waiting on a quote from the other caterer, but they don’t have a reputation for being affordable and I’m losing hope we will get to have our dream venue simply because we can’t afford their required caterers 😭

ETA: Located in Dallas (so I assume hcol area) $18k does include the most basic alcohol package. Seen some people say we can’t afford the venue if we can’t afford the catering which is true, and is why we have a hold on the venue but haven’t put a deposit down. Trying to get catering numbers before we commit for this exact reason. I think at this point, we may just elope. I don’t think either of us realized it would cost so much for the basic options.

It is my first time being a bridesmaid where I’ve been asked to contribute to a bridal shower and the costs seem to be very steep.

First, I am coming from out of the country so my travel costs are almost up to $1000 alone, not including accommodation. The bachelorette party is $500 per person but I am not going.

Originally I got added to a bridal shower group chat. The MOH and another girl planned everything and no decisions were asked of anyone else. Now this receipt got sent to the bridal party for us to split between the 5 of us. The mothers of the bride and groom offered to contribute some but we are still expected to pay $325 each. No budget was discussed and we were not involved in any planning or decision making.

We were just given this bill and asked to pay. I was not aware that we had to pay for 40+ people’s drinks totaling up to $2000. When I asked why we were expected to pay for drinks and why it wasn’t discussed, the rest of the girls just responded that it’s pretty standard for a shower. On top of that, I live out of the country so I wasn’t in attendance. Is this normal? I’m not really sure what my financial role in this would be.

EDIT: The bride is not aware of this. I offered to contribute $100 towards the venue and decorations, which was ignored.

Hi everyone 👋 2024 bride here. I just wanted to drop a few things I wish someone told me before I opened Pinterest and emotionally blacked out.

1. Everything costs more than you think.

If you think something is $3k, it’s $3k + tax + service fee + “admin fee” + gratuity + random “mandatory upgrade.” Just mentally add 20–30%.

1. Guest count controls EVERYTHING.

Not flowers. Not the dress. Not the vibes. Guest count. Every time I tried to “upgrade” something, it somehow traced back to how many humans we invited.

1. Pinterest is a sinkhole (emotionally).

Half the “minimalist” weddings you see are actually $150k+ productions. Comparison will rob you fast.

1. You don’t need a million signs.

Nobody cares about a custom acrylic “unplugged ceremony” sign as much as Instagram makes you think they do. If you make the signs, make sure the photographer captures them all, or it didn’t happen.

1. Vendor vibes matter.

I appreciated getting to know my photographer via a rehearsal night dinner shoot before she shot my actual wedding (can also do this with engagement photos - but I already had engagement photos done by someone else)!

1. Decision fatigue is real.

2. Protect the relationship > protect the aesthetic.

If something starts causing real tension, it’s probably not worth it.

If you’re early in planning: breathe. It’s supposed to be fun.

If you’re deep in planning: same. We’ll all make it out.

Do not worry about anything. The day is going to go exactly how it is going to happen. Your hair may not be perfect, your make up may start to melt. The photographer who ghosted you for 3 months will show up. Don’t worry about saying hello to each and every guest. Enjoy your new husband. Don’t worry about timeframes and sticking to an itinerary. Be with your loved ones. Don’t worry about being a drunk bride, it’s your day have fun. You feel bloated in your dress? Cool who cares, people are going to say you look gorgeous anyways because everyone is there for you and your husband not to judge how your body looks. Don’t sweat small details when planning because honestly no one cares except for you. You do not have to spend a million dollars to make memories. Don’t worry about stepping away from your husband you’ll be with him hopefully forever. If you have family that is causing problems just ignore it, it’s not your problem that day. Just relax, feel like a bad ass, and enjoy your day because it happens so fast.

Sharing this because of the regrets I have for doing this. For context: I absolutely love flowers and floral arranging, my friends know me as the “flower” girl, and flowers are very important to me…which is why I wanted to preserve my flowers professionally in a shadowbox.

I am here to tell you: don’t do it. Where I live (Raleigh NC) the best/cheapest option I could find costed me around $650. It was one of the last wedding planning things on my list and I was so tired and didn’t want to do any more research, so I just gave in and paid. Again, don’t do it. Here’s why:

1) The shadow boxes are so freaking thick, like around 4 inches thick is the thinnest option, and it is not realistic to hang on a wall

2) it is so DANG expensive. I still have regrets paying that much for something I thought I would love, but actually lowkey hate

3) Unless your flowers match your home decor colors, there’s really no point in having a shadowbox. I didn’t think of this: my floral color palette was light pinks/peach/burgundy/creams (my flowers were perfect and absolutely gorgeous for my wedding!) BUT for my home decor my color pallete is definitely neutral, earth tones, beige, etc. so the shadow box doesn’t match any of my home decor or vibe I’m going for

3) it’s just clunky and…ugly? Even though I love flowers, I just don’t know what I’m going to do with this.

WHAT I WISH I HAD DONE:
-I wish I gave my bridesmaid my bouquet and asked them to press the flat flowers/greenery in a book, and when I got back from my honeymoon I could select a small glass frame and just put the flowers I wanted. That way, it’s more realistic to hang (a flat frame), I still would have had some special flowers from one of the most special days of my life, and I could have selected the more neutral flowers to preserve so it could have matched the rest of my home decor

I just had my wedding on Friday. I used an anonymous account along the way to solicit advice. I was told my dress was ugly, my vows were bad (people were even suggesting I use AI to rewrite my lovingly crafted vows 🙄). My wedding was low budget - tacos in a local park venue, no flowers, etc. Almost everything we did (or did not do) was non-traditional. I was heading into the thing nervous it would come off cheap and poorly done and everyone would hate it. And you know what? Almost every guest went out of their way to tell me that this was the best wedding they ever attended. My dress was so gorgeous they were crying. My vows were so impactful that despite never crying at a wedding before they were tearing up. The taco buffet was the talk-o the town. Even vendors were coming up to me telling me this was the best wedding they've ever worked. I'm sure people would be complimentary regardless, but all of these comments were so over the top gushing that I feel they really meant it. And most importantly, my new husband and I had the most perfect day and couldn't be happier.

Not saying this to brag, but to remind you all that are still in the depths of wedding planning and dealing with anxieties and insecurities that reddit is full of nerds many of whom have not touched grass recently. Don't let negative comments sway you from your vision. You know you, your fiancé, your families, and your friends, better than anyone here. If it feels right to you, it probably is. Even if it hasn't been done before or is unusual. You got this 💪

I got married last month and though obviously I am overjoyed to be married to the love of my life, the actual wedding weekend did not go smoothly. I wanted to share a few reflections in the hopes that other people in my same position (a huge family, not a lot of money available, time pressure to get married) can avoid making the same mistakes I did.

Some background: due to an immigration situation my husband and I had to get married before a certain deadline. We both have giant families, both of whom live here in the US, but we didn’t have much savings. Because of the immigration situation we couldn’t push back the wedding. We felt lots of family pressure to do a traditional-ish wedding and invite everyone from both families.

After a lot of back and forth, we decided to only get a few vendors but DIY as much as we could. We also hosted a rehearsal dinner for all out of town guests because that is the expectation in our culture. Total cost was about 15k in a HCOL city. We had 75 attendees.

Here are my biggest regrets:

1. We tried to do an “appetizers only” rehearsal dinner event, with some heavy apps and a 2-drink limit at the bar. People got hungry and started leaving early to get food in their own friend groups, which kind of defeated the mingling goals we had for the event. I overheard conversations among guests during the event asking if there would be more food which made me feel bad bc there was little I could do at that point. I wish I’d either spent the money to do a real dinner - even just a buffet! - or not had an event at all.

2. We hosted the actual wedding in the backyard of my family friend’s home for free. We had enough space but obviously had to rent everything - tent, bathrooms, you name it. It caused a big strain on my relationship with the friend because using her home as a space ended up being way more intense and high drama than I thought. And the tent delivery man damaged her garage :(

3. Related to the above, I put my friends in charge of the decor. Because they weren’t professionals they sunk a ton of time into doing decor that was gorgeous but also cause a little bit of damage to the yard. This was challenging.

4. My family wound up being my vendors so the whole week leading up to the event, they were all super stressed about all the DIY stuff getting done. It now makes me sad that they spent my wedding week that way. I actually don’t know if my wedding was fun for them?

5. There was an insane amount of cleanup that, again, fell to my friends/family and I felt pressured to get it done literally the next day bc it was all at a friend’s home.

Overall I wish I had either cut the guest list in half or just had a microwedding or something. Trying to do a “full” wedding with that many in a HCOL city just meant my friends and family had to put up with a lot and that took away from my enjoyment of the event. I wish someone had told me things would turn out like this. I know I’ll feel better with time but for now I’m just sad.

I mean. They were there for all the important parts and it was fine but. Once the dance party started pretty much everyone, save for about 12 people (including bride and groom) left.

Is it bad that I feel sad about this? I still had fun with the people who stayed and I know not everyone likes to dance but it just felt kind of crappy. Or is this normal? I of course expected some people to leave at that time, but not almost everyone lol. But tell me if I’m crazy!

We’re getting married in a couple of months, and we’ve worked incredibly hard to keep costs down while still having a “white wedding.” We’ve made sacrifices, shopped around, and carefully chosen what to prioritize—cutting things that weren’t essential, negotiating where we could, and finding creative ways to stretch every dollar.

And yet, even after all that, we’re still floored by what an average budget actually gets you. It’s one thing to hear that the ‘average’ wedding costs $30,000-$40,000…it’s another to see what that money actually covers. A standard venue package that only includes chairs. A catering minimum that somehow doesn’t even include appetizers. A photographer’s base package that only covers half the day. Decor that is so wildly minimum.

Obviously, this will vary by location and venue—we found the most affordable option for our area that wasn’t a backyard or convention center kind of space—but just be prepared for what that price tag actually gets you. Even weddings that look modest in Pinterest photos are often well above what most people assume is a “reasonable” budget. Just keep in mind that the industry baseline is just so much higher than what you’d expect!

Got married on November 8, and I can't even think about the day without fuming with anger at my planner. We were engaged for 2 years as I was in law school and we wanted to wait until that was over to get married. I hired a FULL wedding planner, who was to provide all decor (linens, flatware, glasses, vases, candles, printing, signage) and also carry out coordination. She had done some beautiful weddings so I thought all was fine.

We do a walk-through about 2.5 months before the wedding at the venue and she is looking at me for the answers about the venue. Apparently she didn't make contact with the owner at all prior to this day. Flash forward, it takes nearly a month to get ahold of her as i needed to know what else i needed to order, like extra candles or faux florals if they didn't have enough, etc. and her excuse is that they have just been super busy. That's fine, but no follow up email after the walk through was sent.

Flash forward to the WEEK OF THE WEDDING. I get a call saying she needs to charge me extra because the venue wasn't going to set out the tables and chairs. I told her that some of our wedding party would be glad to help, and we would be there bright and early Friday to set up. We get there, only to find our help isn't needed. Keep in mind, the venue is an hour away from all our homes, so we drove there for nothing....

Here is where the real kicker comes in. Not sure on who this truly is because both ended up lying about so much. But, the caterer we paid for rehearsal dinner was also doing our wedding day. I finalized the menu, gave her a final count, and paid her. The day comes and we are all getting up to go get food. My now husband and I notice there is next to nothing out as far as protein goes and the food is not what we had talked about. He goes and talks to the caterer, who says she thought the food was supposed to be like a cocktail hour type thing, not a whole meal. Mind you, I communicated DINNER and MEAL multiple times.

Beyond embarrassed, I go have a mental breakdown. I had been dreaming of this for 2 years, we had people fly in. and now, we don't have enough food. I call my planner, who had left immediately following rehearsal, at which point she goes and calls the caterer. I was, and am still, just beyond mortified that this happened. Thankfully, they got their act together the day of the wedding and everyone still compliments the food.

Wedding day comes, I am an anxious ball of energy. I can't enjoy getting ready, nothing is going right and I just wanted it all to be over. I go downstairs and the escort wall is wrong, names misspelled, the welcome sign is done horribly, and the table decor was NOT what we discussed. I just defer to my MOH, who then talks to the planner, and still, excuses.

Come to find out, they never had enough candles for the vision I had sent and we discussed probably 20 times and I had, MULTIUPLE times asked if I needed to buy more. Each table had 1 candle and thank god I had extra baby's breath to use. Instead of consulting me about it, she throws on some god awful faux florals during the flip and to say it looked cheaply done is an understatement.

Not a single vendor had a timeline, so I was contacted by every single one asking what time they should be there. My cold sparks were put in the wrong spot, the DJ announced the wrong person for our officiant for the blessing of the food, and I had to leave my reception because the planner couldn't figure out how to turn the lights off, mind you, IT WAS A BUTTON THAT SAID "ALL OFF."

My husband and I got married and at the end of the day, that's all that matters. Still though, we were engaged for so long and for there to be such a hot mess, just baffles me.

OH and we also are convinced the caterers and/or planner's staff might've stolen some of our gifts/cards as we are missing several things people have mentioned bringing.

Overall, my question is how do you get over something like that happening and stop feeling so embarrassed? I want to love my wedding photos but I just can't get myself to look at them without feeling sad and upset.

UPDATE! Thank you all so much for the kind words and empathy. I did reach out to the caterer personally before leaving a review and while they did try to blame everything under the sun, they ultimately agreed to refund half of the rehearsal dinner cost.

My fiancé currently has a guest list of 70 while I have one of 15.

We went through them and some of those people he hasn’t talked to in YEARS. I told him I am not paying for random people to come to our wedding (especially his dad’s random friends) so we can each pay the per head price of our guests. Once he found out I wasn’t splitting it 50/50, the guest list cut down a bunch.

EDIT: Some context to our relationship- we normally split everything 50/50. I think my fiancé just did not understand how much to the total he was adding by inviting basically strangers.

I'm finalizing with the restaurant event planner our menu and had to plan out how the alcoholic drinks will work. My fiancé and I decided we'll buy around 8-10 bottles of wine at the restaurant and beer if anyone wants that, but we told the event planner to let the waiters know that if a guest wants cocktails to kindly let them know that would be put on a separate tab for them.

I see a lot of posts about people shaming couples that don't do an open bar... but if it's a free for all at a really nice restaurant (cocktails $18-$20 each) there is absolutely no way for us to know how many people will order and just the drink part of the check could easily be well over a thousand dollars. There will be 13 guests, 15 in total with my partner and I.

As a guest, if you experienced this set up would you be offended or disappointed? We're obviously paying for everyone's food and opted to choose a pre-set dinner menu with 3 different options for an entree (chicken, seafood scampi, and petit filet for variety).

Throw away because I’m embarrassed lol. I’m getting married at the end of August and our small intimate wedding has turned out to be 3x as expensive. With all the details and added things that come with planning a wedding 2 hours away it truly has made me reconsider my life lol. Being really vulnerable here… we have taken out loans and honestly in hindsight we should have cancelled this wedding and eloped. It is the most irresponsible thing I could have done and I feel a guilty fr starting my marriage this way. Our parents can’t really afford to help us but honestly I would be too ashamed to ask for help. Sharing a cautionary tale for those who may be in a similar position. Don’t do it, the anxiety alone is not worth it

Used Honeyfund to collect gifts from my recent wedding. It was a very large wedding as is custom in our cultures so we got a significant amount of cash in gifts. I started to withdraw funds only to hit the $10k lifetime Venmo limit. I have probably $18k stuck there with no option to redeem except for gift cards.

There is definitely fault on our end for not reading fine print. But I feel very misled that Honeyfund was not upfront or transparent about the withdrawal limitations. We noticed a few ways that the website seemed intentionally convoluted to trap people:

1. Gifts are automatically prompted for a donation to the Honeyfund Gives charity. Elder guests were very confused and many ended up donating 10% on gifts because they thought it was a processing fee/didn’t know how to zero the balance.
2. You don’t get prompted at set up to choose wallet or bank transfer. You have to go look for the option to set up bank transfer. You also can’t elect for a bank transfer after you’ve received gifts. Fees on this method are higher.
3. Our website went live immediately when creating a page without any toggle to become active or not, making us instantly searchable.

Has anyone had luck with their support team in getting large cash sums sent to bank? We were planning to use the money for a down payment so I am pretty devastated that it feels locked up. We don’t need $18k in gift cards.

Would not recommend using this service. Go for something with more flexibility. Learn from my mistakes!!!

***EDIT: The Director of Member Success directly addressed my email and helped to get everything paid out via Venmo. She also told me that in part given this situation they’ve raised the lifetime limit to $20k. Still not great if you’re having a big wedding, but worth taking note of. I still would not have gone with this platform due to the kind of wedding I had but wanted to make note that I did receive excellent customer service to resolve the issue.

• Plan a summer wedding if you expect guests with children who would have to fly in. Even if they want to make it, childcare and school schedules make it harder for them.

• Even if you don't plan on having a registry, make a damn registry. You will be asked every other day for two months where the registry is. Fill the registry with cash donations for charities you like, just make a goddamn registry.

• If you don't expect a lot of people, expect a lot of people. People seem to love weddings, even coworkers who barely know you.

• If you expect a lot of people, expect a lot of them to not show up. Make sure your budget and planning can handle a 25% variance in the number of guests to actually RSVP and show up to the wedding.

• Sunday is a terrible day for a wedding. There's a reason they tend to be cheaper bookings.

• Don't plan a wedding in 3 months. It's doable in the same way passing a 7mm kidney stone is doable. I've done both, trust me, spend a lot of time planning it. Maybe this is why people love going to weddings, they're quality testing your event to make sure they don't get things wrong.

• There are two kinds of people: good people, and people who don't RSVP.

Maybe the above is obvious to everyone else but I boy was I not aware. Do any of you have other lessons learned?

For brides getting married or who got married from the year 2023+, how much did you pay for your wedding gown? I'm seeing such a wide range of prices. I feel like brides aren't paying even half of what I see bridal shops offer.

We got married June 22, 2024 at the end of Rist Canyon in Colorado. We originally had about 120 RSVPs, then a few last minute cancellations and no shows landing us at 106 guests not including us. I found these so helpful in the planning process so I thought I’d share since I just got the full gallery back!

Venue - $12,000 We chose the venue because it was the closest to my Husband’s request to get married on a specific river near and dear to our hearts. That made our options very limited but this is the only venue we toured and I cried when we saw it, so it was the one! It included use of the site Friday-Sunday, chairs, tables, linens, reception barn, dance floor, honeymoon suite and various decor. Our friends were also allowed to camp for $25/person (they paid). We had about 30 campers and they set the firepit up for us after the reception was over for our camping after party which was a blast. I loved that they had a cottage for us to stay in with a real bed, we walked back to it at about 1:30am!

Catering/Bartending - $7500 We originally thought we’d get away with spending much less on this but ultimately we decided a full service caterer would be the least stressful for us. This was the cheapest of the full service catering quotes and everyone raved about the food. It included 3 appetizers, 2 entrees, 3 sides, salad, bread, water, iced tea, real dinnerware, water pitchers on tables, bartenders and wait staff. This was also for 124 people, so we overpaid a little with the last minute cancellations but that’s ok.

Liquor - $1600 We ended up contacting a local liquor store about their return policy and turns out they had a whole events division we worked with. We got a discount on the entire order and they delivered to our venue (an hour away) including unpacking everything into the fridges for $30. They accepted anything re-sellable for return and we ended up returning over $1000 worth. Which was honestly super nice because we didn’t know which of our four signature drinks would be the most popular and we didn’t run out of anything! The only hiccup here was we were supposed to bring bitters from our home bar and completely forgot so served the old fashioned without bitters.. oops!

Dessert - $1300 We had an ice cream cart which was incredible! And we also had a personal cake, cookies, blondies and cinnamon rolls.

Florals - $7000 I absolutely love flowers and had a specific color palette/vision so this one was pretty important to me. Included bridal bouquet, groom’s boutonnière, altar arrangement, aisle arrangements, welcome table arrangement, two bar arrangements, arrangements on the welcome sign and seating chart, bud vases on tables and cake flowers.

Photography - $5000 I loved her so so so much! This included an engagement session, 8 hours of wedding day coverage, next day sneak peeks and a 10 week turn around for the full gallery.

Videography - $4000 Included 8 hours of coverage, drone footage, a 7-8 minute highlight film, a 1 minute social media teaser and a 1hr+ documentary film of all the important moments compiled together mostly unedited. Still waiting on this!

DJ - $1900 This one was a doozy.. we loved our DJ but there were a lot of challenges on our wedding day! He was supposed to get a rental car but the company ran out so he came an hour or two late in a U-Haul. Then he realized his mic receivers needed power for the ceremony despite us telling him there was no power at the ceremony site. Luckily our officiant had a contingency plan for this. The ceremony ran off his parent’s goal zero battery. Then he didn’t have all of the dance music downloaded and the WiFi went down in the reception so he ran back and forth to where he got WiFi downloading things throughout the night. The wonderful thing is, the problems were all solved without involving us. We learned all of this after the fact. So despite the complications, I’d say we hired the right guy!

Transportation - $3000 We probably rented a larger shuttle than we needed but since the venue was an hour drive up a canyon from town, we offered a shuttle to and from the hotel block.

Bride’s Apparel - $6020 I can’t believe this number got so high! I’ll break it down further.. Dress - $3689 Tulle Wings - $326 Shoes - $584 (included ceremony shoes, cowboy boots for reception, and welcome party shoes) Alterations - $675 Jewelry - $105 Shapewear - $54 Reception dress - $200 Welcome party dress - $240 Getting ready PJs/Slippers - $145

Groom’s Apparel - $1300 He wore a linen/cotton blend suit from Banana Republic. Also includes shoes, socks, welcome party outfit and reception outfit.

Stationary & Website - $1210 This also added up more than expected! We used Catprint for all printing. I’ll break it down. Wix Website (I created) and custom domain - $170 Save the date and thank you cards - $200 Invitation suite - $230 Vintage Postage - $230 Day of stationery (menus, signs, etc) - $230 Custom art for seating chart - $150

HAMU/Beauty treatments - $1500 Actual HAMU was $900 for me and my mom, but sheesh there’s a lot that goes into week of beauty! Hair, dermaplaning, spray tan, manicure, pedicure.

Misc Decor - $2300 Includes guest book, Polaroid, film, candles, petal toss stuff, etc

Gratuity - $1100 We tipped bartenders, wait staff, HMUA, DJ, photographer, videographer, and the venue coordinator and her assistant

Grand total - $56,730+ Honestly might be missing a couple things. 😂 We were fortunate enough to have my parents pay for 95% of this and my husband’s parents throw us a welcome party for the entire guest list. We would not have had the incredible, stress free wedding weekend we did without them!

My fiancee and are are burnt out. The wedding is in two months and we legit don't even see the value on it anymore. Anything we do is an argument with (my) family, the vendors are weasels constantly changing up the deal whenever they get a chance to. The whole thing seems like a giant waste of money.

For those that canceled and stay with your fiancee what needing to happening

I’m planning a summer wedding in a coastal area (local for most of our guests, with some coming from out of town), and I found a venue I’m absolutely in love with. The catch is… having it on a Thursday is significantly cheaper

If we moved it:

• Friday would be about $10k more

• Saturday is closer to $20k more 🫠

Part of me feels like a Thursday could actually be really nice—people could turn it into a long weekend and enjoy the area. But the other part of me is worried about guests having to take time off work and potentially not coming.

If you were invited to a Thursday wedding in a coastal town, would you go? Does it being a nice location make a difference, or is it still inconvenient no matter what?

Be honest 😅

UPDATE- when I say out of town- it’s the state right next to us so the longest travel time would be 1-1.5 hours

So I am 5 months out from a destination wedding in Colombia. I am late with sending my invites, but asked for the payment link this morning. Our original budget was $25k for 80 guest. We already knew we were over budget by about $8k. We thought we were going to save a lot of funds having it there…not the case. We were expecting to pay for it with our bonuses. Well that not happening anymore. Both of our companies did not meet the goals and bonus was well underfunded. Resulting in not having enough money to pay for it with the bonus. We thought, no problem, we can get a loan for this. But looking at the number today, there’s no way I can logically make sense digging ourselves into a financial hole like this when there’s no much economic uncertainty. We are in pretty good financial standing, we own our house and although we have debt, we are not drowning. But even with that, I feel like going through with this would be setting ourselves up for a harder overall future. We want kids and those little mfs are EXPENSIVE!

This is not the only reason though. My dad is not a citizen (he is a permanent resident), he is going through his process currently to become a citizen. But with all of the uncertainty surrounding being a non-citizen in America, I am not sure it’s worth it to possibly put my father through that risk.

I am not sure what I am looking for with this post. I guess I just needed to let it out.

I am thinking maybe we just elope and host a small party. I just feel so defeated! How do people afford this.