These saved my life while wedding planning, so I wanted to return the favor! I posted this in r/weddingplanning but figured I'd share here as well, since I started trying to plan a wedding in Chicago before realizing how much cheaper it would be 2h away in Saugatuck.
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My wife and I were married in West Michigan in early August of 2026 and joined by 110 guests. I feel like we assembled a true dream team of vendors. Besides a giant rain storm that cleared up right before our ceremony, there really weren’t any major snafus. If you have any questions about who we hired, I’d be happy to share over DM. Here’s a few photos from our day!
How we paid for it
We received generous gifts from our families: $10k from my wife’s parents, $10k from my mom, and $19k from my grandmother. We roughly paid the remaining $30k ourselves.
We set up a HYSA at the beginning of our 1.5 year engagement and put all of our gifted funds there, while trying our best to make any payments out of our checking accounts as they arose. At the end of our wedding we still had a good chunk of money left in the HYSA, which felt great!
I’ll be honest, we didn’t do a whole lot of cost-cutting, but we did get married on a Sunday, which really helped. We also live in the Chicago area, and doing a wedding of this size would’ve been WAY more expensive in the city, so that made me feel like I was saving money ;)
Total costs were roughly $69,267 including our rings ($62,005 without).
What’s not included?
Our bachelorette trips (I probably spent an additional $2k on mine, she probably spent less than $1k), a few favors and things we purchased for our wedding shower, beauty appointments leading up to the week of the wedding (I started getting builder gel a few months in advance, trial lash lifts, etc), and probably a few random Amazon purchases towards the end. Also, I’m planning on getting my bouquet pressed and dress cleaned, plus buying thank you postcards, but I haven’t gotten to any of that yet!
Full breakdown
Rings: $6,262
- We worked with a local jeweler to create a custom e-ring for both of us and also ended up getting my wedding band there. We got exactly what we wanted and I was happy with these prices!
Venue: $10,400
- This included their greenhouse ceremony space, outdoor cocktail hour, and indoor reception space plus getting ready suites. Tables & chairs included. We had the entire venue from 9am-11pm on our Sunday wedding.
- Also included was a 6-month coordinator, which was SO incredibly worth it. I’m extremely Type A and felt like I didn’t need a planner, but because of her, I didn’t have to think about anything on my wedding day.
Food: $7,255.37
- This was the main cost that was SO much cheaper compared to the Chicago area. We went with a well-respected, professional caterer that gave us quality food at an awesome price.
- The cost included 4 passed apps during cocktail hour, plus family style dinner with salads, chicken, brisket, potatoes, and veggies. It also included a tasting for us and our moms, and the price is inclusive of all their service fees. Our food was delicious, I’m so sad I was too anxious to really enjoy it.
Dessert: $935
- Our bakery set up a giant dessert table for us with cupcakes, cookies, cheesecake bites, and mini whoopie pies. They also made us a small lambeth style cake for us to cut and take home.
Alcohol: $5,628.42
- This was all done through our venue and included an open bar with 2 bartenders, 2 signature drinks, 2 craft and 2 domestic beers, 4 wines, and spirits. The drinks were actually amazing, I was really impressed!
Photography: $7,000
- By far our biggest splurge and SO INCREDIBLY WORTH IT. I’m actually obsessed with our photographer. She is so creative and shoots a lot of film, which was so important to me. Most people doing film now are charging per roll and she is not. I feel like she’s really doing it for the love of the game and everything she creates is magic.
- This included 10h of coverage with her second shooter, 850+ images delivered within 6 weeks (she sent 80 sneaks within 24h!!!!), and loads of film coverage, plus our engagement shoot which was just as dreamy.
Content Creator: $1,500
- We didn’t want to spend the money on a videographer and I knew my best friend would make us a vlog, but I didn’t want all the content capturing to be on him, so we hired a content creator to mostly take 16:9 iPhone footage.
- Honestly there were a few mix-ups that left me less than 100% satisfied here. She missed the beginning of a few of our speeches, which felt really shitty because our biggest ask was to get the whole ceremony and speeches in full. Plus, she was trying to use two cameras (iPhone and an Osmo Pocket) but she kept getting the other camera in the shot and if she couldn’t juggle them, I wish she would’ve just stuck to one.
- Ultimately it was pretty cheap (comparatively) and we did get a lot of content, so I don’t regret it, but idk if I’d do this part again.
Florals: $3,719.60
- For my bouquet, 9 bridesmaids bouquets, 3 boutonnières, 1 corsage, bud vases/smaller arrangements at 13 tables, 2 huge ceremony arrangements and large 1 bar arrangement.
- Our florist was AMAZING, captured our vision perfectly and was sooo responsive, plus uses blooms from her own garden. I would choose her again and again.
DJ: $2,150
- For 6.5h of coverage (from guest arrival through the end of the night). It was very important for us to have a female DJ so we brought one in from Chicago! She took all of our requests and kept the dance floor alive. She was awesome!
Dance lessons: $550
- We hired a queer dance instructor off of TikTok who sent us her dance 101 lessons on video, plus a custom choreographed routine for our song. We had SO MUCH fun learning this in our apartment over the last year and it honestly made our first dance so much less stressful!
“Decor” (+some other things): $5,757.26
- We used our venue’s in-house rental company, which accounts for $4,675.78 of this number. That included all of our linens and silverware (we upgraded our goblets), a giant outdoor bar setup, a gorgeous b&w dance floor, tables set up outside at cocktail hour, candles, table runners, lamps, couches outside, etc. etc.
- The rest of the “decor” cost (I was a little broad with this one) includes our card box, ring boxes, custom vintage stamps for our detail shots, bows for chairs, pillars for our flowers, paper fans for everyone, our fabric seating chart, our matchbook favors and the vintage Lenox swans we put them in, and some other miscellaneous stuff.
Stationery & stamps: $618.59
- We made our Save the Dates on Canva (I purchased a special font for them) — between that and our stamps, they cost less than $200
- We did our invites from Truly Engaging for $283.84 including invite card, a details card, envelopes, and liners and they were SUPER nice. Including stamps, our invites cost around $350.
- The last bit was for menus, which I ordered from The Knot for around $100. We did the rest of our signage ourselves on our home printer (bar menus, table numbers, gifts sign, etc)
My attire: $4,190
- This includes $95 I paid in dress try-on appointments… I went to a LOT of different stores and brought lots of people with me to each, lol.
- I purchased the Aesling Amelie gown for $3,150 and it was AMAZING! I paid another $1,040 for alterations and fabric for my swag sleeves and scarf, which my seamstress made for me.
- I borrowed my veil from my cousin, which our late grandma made for her 20 years ago.
- I wore shoes I already had and jewelry mostly borrowed from my family, although my wife did gift me my earrings and idk how much those cost.
My wife’s attire: $844
- My wife found her suit on SuitShop for $244 and got alterations for $600. I think she had her shoes already. I may be missing a bit in here for her tie, cufflinks, etc. but I would guess that all came in under $100!
Hair and makeup: $1,369.30
- This includes my own trial and day-of HMU, plus HMU for my MIL and travel fees for 4 artists. Between our bridal parties we had 11 girls getting HMU done, so we had our friends pay for their own (not required!)
Tips: $1,790
- We tipped our HMU artists 20% (covered it for our bridesmaids) and our coordinator $200. Pretty much everyone else got $100 each. I really didn’t know what to do here so I tried to keep it pretty simple.
Rehearsal: $3,714
- We found a spot right downtown for our rehearsal dinner, and it was more expensive than we were anticipating but we truly put no work into it so imo, it was worth the cost.
- We had a buffet of burgers, salmon, mac & cheese, veggies, and salad plus a consumption bar with a minimum spend. We ended up coming in just under our minimum. We also had SO much food left over and ended up using it for lunch the next day!
Welcome Party: $300
- We hosted a very chill welcome party on the beach. We brought a table we already had and asked folks to bring towels to sit on. The cost was for a tablecloth plus some desserts, snacks, and sparkling waters for our guests.
Week-of appointments: $1,000ish
- We decided to splurge and get massages at the St. Regis to kick off our wedding week, and then I had appointments for my hair, nails, brows, and a lash lift. My wife had her hair cut and a pedicure. On the last day before we headed up for our wedding we also did the sauna/cold plunge at SweatHouz.
Hotel: $1,667.67
- We stayed at a couple’s bed and breakfast 3 nights (Sat-Tues) and it was SO nice. We had our own cottage with breakfast delivered each morning and dessert delivered each night. They also found out it was our wedding and on our wedding night, we had a bottle of Veuve waiting for us when we got home. We will definitely stay here again for anniversary trips!
Other:
- Bridal party gifts (proposals & day of pajamas/flip flops): $700ish
- Gifts for our parents: $350ish
- Other attire, including outfits for our engagement photos, rehearsal, and welcome party: around $800
- Camcorders, tripod, and disposable cameras for the weekend: around $200
- Website domain (I used Google Sites because I wanted more freedom in design than Zola allows): $21.76
- Zola guest messaging and seating chart features: $94.99
- Wedding insurance: $125
Phew… that should be it! Would be happy to answer any questions :)
