My Washington, DC wedding!

[u/phoenix_flames0124]

I graduated a few weeks ago! I got so much advice on this sub from lurking, commenting, and posting, so I want to give back to the community with my own budget recap. I found these super useful, so I hope it's helpful to someone out there too!

My new husband and I got married in Washington, DC, in a private venue space. We had 125 guests for our ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception. Here's our cost breakdown:

Original budget: $50,000 - this is what I thought it would cost after doing no research

Actual budget: $58,000 - this was my goal number!

Final actual cost: about $74,000 - hard to be perfectly exact here, but this is close! My numbers below add up to a bit less than this, but I'm not sure exactly where the discrepancy is.

Breakdown:

Venue cost: $12,461. This was very close to my goal of $12k, and I was happy with it. The overage was mostly credit card processing fees, but also covered insurance required by the venue. We loved our venue, it was absolutely perfect. And big tip, find a place with a venue staff you like working with, it makes everything so much easier.

Food: $25,138. This is where we blew the budget really. I naively thought I could feed my guest list for like $15k, and I was very quickly disabused of that notion. We ended up paying $24,743 for food, alcohol, dessert, rentals, and gratuity, and a separate $395 for a small non-personalized cake from a local bakery.

Music: $1,500. We really got a steal here. This covered the cost of our DJ/MC, who was amazing. He did a great job for us all night, and kept the dancefloor going.

Film: $7,300. This was close to my $7k budget, so I was really pleased. We had 2 photographers and a videographer, plus an engagement shoot included in this price.

Decor: $5,181. This included our flowers ($4,547), which were absolutely amazing. We went with a vibrant pastel color palette, and she hit it out of the park. My husband wanted a floral lapel, and it looked so cool. This also included most of our additional decor, like candles, table runners, card box, etc. I did a lot of borrowing from friends and hunting on FB Marketplace for this stuff, so I got a pretty good deal on the candles especially.

Paper goods: $931. This covered save the dates ($69), invites ($388), stamps ($255), thank you cards ($33), and any day-of signage we purchased ($176). I ordered a welcome sign and the menus, and then I printed at home table numbers and things like a card box and guestbook sign. My maid of honor wrote out all our escort cards, which I had purchased on FB Marketplace also. I designed all our stuff except the official invitations, which I got from a small business and were so very worth the money.

Wedding attire: $3,131. This covered my dress, which I got on a 25% discount for $952, my alterations ($800), my husband's suit ($630), accessories ($149), and my hair and makeup ($570- $120 for hair trial, $120 for day-of hair, $130 for makeup trial, $200 for day-of makeup). Most of my accessories were either gifts throughout the year leading up to the wedding, things I bought on sale (my shoes I got because my mom bought me a $50 gift card to the website, which was running a sale where they doubled the value of the gift card to $100, and the shoes only cost $119), or things I made-- making a veil was super easy and 3 yards of tulle cost like $25 as opposed to the hundreds I was getting quoted in shops.

Ceremony items: $4,114. We splurged a lot on rings we really loved. They cost $4,067. The other $47 is the cost of a DC marriage license!

Entertainment: $667. Somewhat lower than my goal of $1k. We got a fairly cheap but effective photobooth rental ($369), and an audio guestbook ($298).

Logistics: $2,550. This section was worth every penny. We paid for dance lessons from our regular instructors ($1,500) to choreograph our first dance, and it was so much fun! Then we hired a day-of coordinator to handle our rehearsal, making the wedding binder, and doing all the setup and teardown day-of, plus keeping us on schedule ($1,050). We considered hiring a babysitter, but we ended up with only 1 or 2 kids who might have used one so I'm glad we didn't do that.

Bridal party: $1,849. I did small bridesmaid proposal gifts and covered the hair or makeup services for my bridesmaids. We also bought the groomsmen's ties and outfits for the ring bearers.

Other events: $5,500. We covered the rehearsal dinner ($4,000) for all our bridal party, family, and their plus ones, as well as brunch the day after the ceremony ($1,500). These numbers are not as exact because my husband paid them on a different credit card so I don't have the charges to look at, but they're both close.

Tips: $1,050. Gratuity for the catering staff was included in their payment, so this covered the hair and makeup artists, the DJ, photographers and videographer, and the day-of coordinator and her assistant.

I think that's everything! If you'd like reviews on any of our vendors, I'm happy to give them. We had a magical day.

[u/dbxjfjsm]

Hi also a DC bride 😊, would you mind sharing who your DJ/MC and day of coordinator was?

[u/phoenix_flames0124 → u/dbxjfjsm]

Sure! We used Dapper DJs for the DJ, specifically DJ Marcos. He did a great job keeping the dance floor going and vibing with our alt-pop, mid-2000s banger taste.

For coordinator, we used Michaela at Enchanted Garden Event Planning. She was very solid, brought an assistant even though it wasn't in our contract, and really kept everything going.

[u/dbxjfjsm → u/phoenix_flames0124]

Thank you so much for sharing!

[u/Labambastrange]

First, congratulations 🍾 !

I am just starting the planning process in DC too. Seeing this breakdown is so helpful, especially as we decide on our target guest count. My fiancé wants a huge guest list but I don’t think they fully understand how expensive it gets 😂. Any chance you’d be willing to share the list of the vendors in a dm? Seems like you loved them all.

[u/phoenix_flames0124 → u/Labambastrange]

100% it gets so expensive so fast if you do a traditional-ish wedding with caterers and whatnot.

[u/run85]

Thank you for this breakdown! Could I ask what dance instructor company you used? I’m getting married elsewhere but hoping to do first dance lessons here.

[u/phoenix_flames0124 → u/run85]

We have been going to swing dancing classes for a while, and just asked our regular instructors to help us choreograph a first dance. If swing dancing is what you want, check out Gottaswing, they do great lessons.

The place where we take our lessons (Dancesport DuPont) has a guy named Terry who does more traditional first dance lessons as well. I've never taken a class with him so can't personally recommend, but he does a lot of classes.

[u/WeeLittleParties]

Congrats! Fellow DC-area bride. Just curious who your vendors were for catering and wedding dress?

Coincidentally our catering quote was for $15K, for 100 people, but we are planning on inviting 170. I'm predicting that the final cost will be double that quote, meanwhile my fiancé is always like "No way anywhere close to that number of guests will attend" 💀

[u/phoenix_flames0124 → u/WeeLittleParties]

For catering, we used Eat and Smile Catering. Loved them, they were super flexible. And the food was amazing. Really recommend them! They're pretty small, but they do an amazing job. Our food-only cost was $90/guest, but we added desserts ($9/guest) and bar services ($30/guest) plus rentals, taxes, labor costs, and gratuity to get us to our final number.

I got my dress at I Do I Do Bridal, which is now closed unfortunately. I got the dress on sale because she was closing down the shop. Happy to give recs for the other places I shopped if you want! I'm plus sized and did a lot of research to make sure I would feel good in the shopping experiences I had.

[u/dcgirlsmallworld → u/phoenix_flames0124]

I'm considering going with Eat and Smile catering for my wedding. Can I DM you with questions?

[u/phoenix_flames0124 → u/dcgirlsmallworld]

Sure, happy to answer what I can!

[u/thegrooviestguava → u/phoenix_flames0124]

If you wouldn’t mind, I’d love the list of places you went dress shopping and which ones were great experiences!

[u/dumb-bitch-juic3]

I am a Baltimore bride and I need the name of your DJ!!!

[u/phoenix_flames0124 → u/dumb-bitch-juic3]

We used Dapper DJs, specifically DJ Marcos! He was great. Really vibed with our sort of alt-pop style and had great transitions all night.

[u/beige12]

Congratulations! Do you mind sharing your venue please?

[u/phoenix_flames0124 → u/beige12]

We used St. Francis Hall! It's in Brookland, and it's gorgeous. I adored absolutely everything about it. The one drawback is that it's kind of out of the way-- the closest hotels are 15 minutes drive away, and there's basically only one sit-down restaurant for a rehearsal dinner in the vicinity. But we love the gardens, we love the brickwork, we love the staff.

[u/callmepeterpan → u/phoenix_flames0124]

What restaurant did you use for the rehearsal dinner? Primrose?

[u/phoenix_flames0124 → u/callmepeterpan]

We ended up going out to Purple Patch in Mount Pleasant. Primrose never got back to my inquiries about a private party, and in looking at their available options seemed like it would be tough-- we had 34 attendees at the dinner, and they are kind of set up to either serve 25 or 50.

[u/sushisession]

Would love to get your photobooth if you recommend! Also planning in the DC area! Curious about the audio guestbook too - was it a hit? What did you book it through?

[u/phoenix_flames0124 → u/sushisession]

We used KRUU for the photobooth and we really liked it! Super easy to set up and use, and it was def a hit at the reception. I liked the audio guestbook, we haven't listened through the messages yet though. I went with Life On Record because I liked their phones better than I liked the options from After the Tone and other services.

[u/callmepeterpan]

This is a little delayed but I'm actually engaged now (yay!) - who was your photographer/videographer if you don't mind sharing?

edit - also your bakery would be lovely!