I haven’t posted about our reception or honeymoon yet, but I’ve had this budget post in my queue for a while. So forgive me for being slightly disorganized.

As soon as we started wedding planning, my aunt made us a spreadsheet to keep track of expenses. However, towards the end, I got lazy, so I don’t have exact figures. I estimate we spent about $23,000 on everything, the ceremony, reception, wedding bands, and honeymoon.

$23K was less than my friend’s catering bill at her wedding, but I still remember having heart palpitations about dropping that amount of money on anything other than a down payment. Our family contributed about $4,000, so to be fair, $19,000 was our own money.

When planning a wedding in an expensive city on a budget, prioritization is key. A beautiful reception venue in Manhattan and a luxurious honeymoon were our top priorities. So, we found ways to save money in all other areas.

• Wedding bands. No Tiffany’s or Cartier for us – overspending at a designer retailer held no interest for us. We purchased our wedding bands from discount retailers online and we couldn’t have been happier. A diamond eternity band for me, simple white gold band for ST. They cost about $800 together.

• Wedding apparel. This was the area that was easiest to cut costs. My wedding dress cost $700 after alterations. I got my beloved Badgley Mischkas new in box for a fraction of the cost on eBay ($90). My reception outfit cost about $200. My sweet mom paid for my wedding day earrings, necklace, and hair flowers. My gold leather clutch was by Michael Kors and cost $98 on sale at Macy’s. No Louboutins, Laura Merkin, or Amsale and no regrets. Similarly ST looked dashing decked out in an Emanuel Ungaro suit from Cohoe’s for under $100. He scored a Hugo Boss tie from Century 21 for $75. His shoes cost $100.

• Hair and makeup. I got quotes of $1,000 per day just for hair, $150 per face for makeup, and $400 for bridal hair and makeup. Insanity. So I went on Craigslist and posted a gig for $300 which included hair and makeup for the bride and hair for my bridal party, my mom, and cousin. I got about 50 responses. I only considered people who were A) friendly and B) willing to work within my budget. I met the perfect person – Meg Molloy. She dolled me and my girls up good.

• Photographer. We ended up not having a great experience with our photographer, though our photos are pretty nice. He was recommended by a friend and we paid $2,200 for an engagement session and the whole day of shooting on our wedding day. We got discs of edited photos three months later. While I don’t think we skimped on this, we also didn’t hire my dream photographer, Tony Yang. We saved $1K but it wasn’t worth the savings and quite frankly, this is the one decision I regret. It doesn’t always pay to save a few bucks.

• DJ. I went to three weddings that hired the same horrible DJ. One bride told me he was a”bargain” for $1,000. ST and I were not about to pay someone to irritate our guests all night. All we wanted was someone who would play the hits so we could party. Craigslist to the rescue again. We posted a gig for $300 and received tons of responses again. We met with our DJ at a local Starbucks and after confirming he was not a weirdo, we asked him to DJ our wedding. The dance floor was packed all night and we danced our butts off.

• Wedding cake. A high school friend recommended our mutual friend’s sister. We got a red velvet wedding cake with cream cheese frosting and 5 dozen each of chocolate chip cookies, snicker doodles, Mexican wedding cookies, and oatmeal raisin for our cookie buffet. The total cost was $450. It was delicious! Come to think of it, someone mentioned our Mexican wedding cookies to me just the other day.

• Flowers. Want to save a big wad of cash? Skip the floral centerpieces. We paid $1,100 for a bridal bouquet, 25 rose boutonnieres, four bridesmaids bouquets, two junior bridesmaid bouquets, two flower girl orchid pomanders, one orchid boutonniere, two mother’s bouquets (which we lost between the beginning and end of the ceremony – to this day, no clue where they ended up), two mother’s corsages, and two grandmother’s corsages. All Baccara roses and orchids. The price included delivery from Bensonhurst to Midtown East.

• Limited open bar. It would have cost an additional $150 per table for a three-hour open bar. Since we knew only about 4 tables would be drinking, it would have been a huge waste of bucks to go that route. So we asked the restaurant if we could pay per bottle of wine consumed, and they agreed. At the end of the night, our guests drank 30 bottles of wine and left rosy-cheeked and happy. We saved $1,750.

• DIY photo booth (or fauxtobooth, if you’re trendy). I purchased David Cline’s DIY photo booth script for $10 and my friend installed it. The photo printer and TONS of ink and paper cost about $200 (we had so much left over, we used it for my sister’s wedding and we gave the rest to another friend and we STILL have some left). Props were purchased from Dollar Tree and 200 stick-on mustaches were procured from eBay for $20. For less than $200, we had a photo booth that entertained people for the entire night rather than several thousand dollars for only 4 hours. Also, that printer has seen a lot of miles. Three other people have borrowed it, and one more friend will use it at her wedding in September. Good investment indeed.

Things we could have skimped on, but didn’t:

• Favors. These are big in Chinese weddings. The traditional favor is liquor – cognac, champagne, or wine. My cousin spent $10K on her Remy Martin favors! We decided to add some Mexican flair by giving away mini bottles of Patron tequila accompanied by a custom shot glass. I packaged them up in gold takeout boxes and ribbon. The total cost was $8 per favor. Let’s just say people REALLY enjoyed their favors so it was money well spent. Our friend took home some empty Patron bottles and put homemade hot sauce in them! She gave us a couple bottles when we got back from our honeymoon. I love creativity and hot sauce.

• Paper. I know this sounds whacky, but paper quality is pretty important to me. I think I spent $500 on all our paper stuff, which includes our letterpressed invitations. No regrets at all.

Top priorities:

• Reception at S. Dynasty. I loved everything about our reception venue – the decor, food, staff, and ambiance. The cost was very affordable at $500 per table for 17 tables. You’d be hard pressed to beat that price at the greasiest Chinese restaurant in Sunset Park. Our final tab was about $11K, with tax and 20% tip included. Steven actually asked what tip we wanted to add – he didn’t automatically add anything, which I thought was very considerate an quite cool of him.

• Honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta. Our honeymoon was the best trip ever. We paid about $700 per person for airfare and one week at Villa del Flamingos in Puerto Vallarta. Four words: jacuzzi in the bedroom. After nine months of wedding planning, laying out on the beach for a week was just what the doctor ordered. We highly recommend this resort.

I’m really proud that we didn’t incur any credit card debt during this whole process. For items that we couldn’t afford to pay off right away, ST paid large deposits and then paid it off each month in person, in cash. We saved for our honeymoon and paid it all in one shot.

Was it worth it? Sure! Our wedding was a blast. Was it the happiest day of our lives? Well, on that day it was, I guess. I’m incredibly happy every morning I wake up next to ST. I have no doubt that the happiest day of my life will happen again and again.

Budget image via Zankyou Magazine.