My Small, Almost-$10,000 Napa Valley Wedding

And that’s without buying a dress!

I wanted to take a moment to post our exhaustive list of wedding expenses, because I tracked everything.  And I mean everything.

Be forewarned: This is not your typical “$10,000 Wedding” list, which purports to describe more than it actually does.  Most wedding expense lists include everything day-of: The dress, the food, the photographer, and the space and don’t talk about all the little things that add up.  So, to remedy that, here’s the TMI list of our wedding expenses, from the engagement ring repair to the stamps to the Spanx, to mistakes and unforeseen events that cost us $650 – the difference between keeping and breaking our budget.

Target budget: $10,000
Actual spent: $11,343 (This will be $10,993 if we get our $350 cleaning deposit back from the local community center, which I’m hounding them about weekly.)

Engagement Ring and Wedding Bands:

• Family heirloom engagement ring repair (chipped diamond replacement, resizing, and replating): $700
• Engagement ring appraisal for insurance: $150
• Wedding bands: $145

Invitations and All Mail-Related:

• Custom, letterpress save-the-date cards: $493 (At the time, we’d planned to have two receptions in two states and ordered save-the-dates accordingly.  We scrapped that mental anguish for one reception, but wasted about $250 here).
• Custom, letterpress invitations: $674 (Another mistake cost us here: I ordered invitations per person and not per household, almost twice as many as I needed, hence the extra $300 spent here.)
• Rehearsal dinner invitations: $50
• Envelopes: $54
• Stamps: $32
• Gold pens to write with: $5
• Return address labels: $10
• Bridal party gifts: $289

Bridal and Groom(al?) Attire:

• Groom’s tie and pocket square: $110
• Spanx: $40
• Bride’s new shoes: $100
• Dry cleaning for bride’s something-old dress and groom’s suit: $189 (If you’re in the SF Bay Area, I cannot recommend Crystal Cleaning Center in San Mateo highly enough.  Go see Lynnette!)
• Bride hair (trim and style): $42
• Makeup artist deposit: $100 (The week of our wedding, the makeup artist decided she wanted to arrive three hours earlier than scheduled so she could attend a personal event.  It wasn’t going to work, so I’m currently out $100 but trying to get my deposit back since she changed the arrival time stated in our contract.)
• Bouquets: $0 (A gift from my mom but otherwise $18 for three bouquets.  I cannot stand florist prices and the local florist quoted us $345 for three small bouquets.  Can you say “extortion”?  Instead, my mom went to Cal Mart, found two of the loveliest, bright bunches of flowers, split one bunch for the two bridesmaids, wrapped ribbon around them, and we had utterly gorgeous bouquets that lasted all day and into the next… for $18.)

Reception Space and Decor (We were married at a family member’s home, which took care of the ceremony):

• Calistoga Community Center (13 hours at $9/hour – no, not a typo): $135
• Community Center cleaning deposit (refundable): $350
• Cleaning supplies: $16 (The bathroom was filthy and stinky when our rental time arrived, so I ran down to the always-full-of-awesome Cal Mart and bought some Mrs. Meyer’s products.  My mom, grandmother, brother’s girlfriend and I then proceeded to scrub the bathrooms.  Hey, it kept me busy and gave me less time to worry about trivial things!)
• Event liability insurance for one day, required by community center: $175
• Handmade soaps for guest gifts: $195
• Glass chimneys for homemade centerpieces: $100
• Fabric for ceremony not-a-chuppa-but-looked-like-one: $64
• Fabric for cloth banner: $48

Food and Wine for 44 Guests:

• Wine: $500
• Cake: $0 (A gift from my grandparents, but otherwise $200.)
• Caterer (full cocktail and dinner service, china, linens, service and gratuity): $5,014

Photographer and Prints: $1,500