married on the cheap(-ish)

According to mainstream wedding websites and magazines, most weddings cost somewhere in the $15,000 - $20,000 range, with the average couple shelling out $18,000 for their wedding.

Were this the case with our wedding, we could not afford to get married probably ever, but definitely not until I was well into menopause and Mr. Astrophe’d gone bald. So we are doing this thing on the cheap. We’re shooting for a $6,000 wedding, although we do have this tendency to overspend, so it might not work out as cheaply as we’d hoped (especially since it appears that finding an officiant is going to be a spendier matter than we’d originally anticipated).

So now the question is: How the hell do we have a wedding with about 100 guests while staying within the $6000 ballpark? The answer: We aren’t entirely sure yet. We hope that we do it well. So far, it looks like we’re going to save on the reception venue, the dress, and the booze. We’re splurging a little bit on the caterer and the photographer. We haven’t picked out the other stuff. My mom is insisting on us having a real wedding cake, so she is buying that.

For your edification (not that you particularly wanted to be edified by it), here is our overall budget plan:

CEREMONY
Marriage license: $50
Officiant: $450 (probably. We haven’t picked an officiant yet.)
Ceremony site/décor: Same as reception, so $0.
CEREMONY TOTAL: $500

RECEPTION
Venue: $315
Catering: $22/person x 100, plus tableware/linens/gratuities/taxes → $3000
Alcohol: $400 for beer, wine, and hot cider
Décor (flowers, candles, etc.): $400
Entertainment: PA system rental for about $200; we’re going to use iTunes playlists in lieu of a DJ
Photographer: $700
RECEPTION TOTAL: $5015

ATTIRE
Gown: $125 (I got it on clearance at Nordstrom’s, and it is awesome. It is a knockoff of that white Valentino gown that Cameron Diaz wore at some awards show sometime, and it is fucking gorgeous and I look pretty hot in it. It also fits me absolutely perfectly, so it doesn't require any alteration - I am the "perfect size" for that manufacturer's clothing. Mr. Astrophe has seen me in the gown, and he nearly defiled it, so great was his ardor.)
Groom’s suit: We haven’t bought it yet, but we figure like $400 for a suit + alterations.
Veil: Not having one, thankyouverymuch.
Groom’s accessories: $100
Bride’s accessories: $100 (though gorgeous, the gown requires insane bondage-like undergarments!)
Flowers for people to carry and/or wear: $100
Makeup: Doing my own
Hair: $35 (Someone has to do my hair for me, because I didn’t get the owner’s manual for my hair. There are insane amounts of it and it is curly like you can’t even imagine.)
ATTIRE TOTAL: $860

STATIONERY:
We have basically made our own stuff. Save-the-dates, invitations, and postage probably sum up to like $100.

WEDDING TOTAL: $6,475

So we are a few hundred dollars over budget as I project it, but we aren’t doing terribly horribly. (I did not include the cake in the budgeting, as we weren’t planning on having a wedding cake until my Mom threw a shit fit that we weren’t going to have one, and said that she’d pay for it.)

We will probably be right on budget if only like 70 people show up instead of the 110 on our guest list. It is likely that not everyone will be able to make it, but I would rather spend a few hundred extra dollars to see people there than to not invite people or, worse, hope that family and friends can't come to my wedding! I caught myself hoping that not everyone would show up, so I told myself that I was going to make a list of people on the guest list who I wouldn't mind not seeing, and then just take them off the guest list. It turned out that everyone on the list was too important to me. It was actually a really nice realization, because Mr. Astrophe and I hardly see anyone anymore, so we frequently feel isolated. It is nice to realize that despite having moved so far away from friends and family, that there are still so many people who are important parts of our lives.