First I wanted to thank this sub so much for all the knowledge shared! When I originally was googling for wedding stuff I was so overwhelmed with all the price quotes I was getting and without this sub I would have been totally lost! We finally had our big day a couple of weeks ago and it was everything we wanted and more. We paid for the entire wedding ourselves and are so happy with the way everything turned out. I loved seeing the budget breakdowns of weddings and wanted to add my own since we're in an HCOL area. We invited about 30 people and about 20-25 people showed up.

Some highlights:

We did our first look at the Belmont Plateau, which is my grandma's ashes was released at couple of weeks prior (she passed back in January).

We got married at the Philadelphia Wedding Chapel, which was amazing! Our officiant Stacey was very friendly and accommodated all of our requests. We did have some issues with the music skipping but other than that everything went well. We used the chapel for our family photoshoots and gave folks a two hour break before the reception.

We did our reception at a small gallery event space, which included setting up chairs and seats. My mom and aunt helped with decorating and getting the food.

What we cut cost on:

Invitations - We decided on making our own invites and emailing them to everyone. The few that needed physical copies my partner printed out on premium paper and my mom handed them out.

Wedding Planner/DOC - We planned the entire wedding ourselves and I know everyone says you should have a DOC and we were looking around for some at one point, but at the end of the day we could not justify having one. We are both huge planners and were able to move things along smoothly. My partner hosts events a lot so that definitely helped. The only challenge we had was our photos at the wedding ceremony, but my partners friend stepped in and helped with coordinating it.

Makeup - I had consulted with a few MUA's but either they were booked, ghosting me or did not specialize with my face type (I have oily/combo skin with textured face and hyperpigmentation) so I ended up doing my own makeup which came out great

DJ/Music - We made a playlist on Spotify

Food - We did drop catering from a Mexican restaurant (we did tacos) and paid for delivery. We also got fancy party platters from the grocery store

Drinks - My partner doesn't drink and I'm not a big drinker, so we told everyone to BYOB (the venue allowed this)

Decorations - I brought all the decorations and my mom and aunt helped with setting things up

We also did not do a rehearsal dinner, bridal/groom party, have bridesmaid/groomsmen, or any of the traditional wedding reception stuff (first dance, bouquet toss, etc.)

Here's the budget breakdown below, let me know if y'all have any questions!

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