planning our wedding: our itemized budget

i have a story in my head that there's an overarching issue in our society regarding the private nature of money. we tend to be very hush hush about it - me included! it's usually an "undiscussible." i wish we lived in a more disclosing manner, not hiding behind shame or guilt or pride or fear of judgement. i imagine we might be more open to disclosing what we have (or don't have) if we honestly believed money was an arbitrary gift, and therefore neither mine or yours, but rather, ours. it's a gift that comes and goes; money is simply part of a flow.

one thing i noticed when we were planning our wedding was that folks would be eager to share things like the minute-by-minute schedule, mile-long to do lists, budget categories and advice - lots of advice! (i do it now too. oh dear.) but no one ever voluntarily shared their itemized budget with us. i'm not sure i even asked because i didn't think it was okay to. "how much money they spent is their business. it would be too invasive to ask," i told myself. would it have been?

i think it would've been helpful to have a frame of reference to get a sense of how much things cost - for real, not just in my fantasy la-la head. 

anyway, in the spirit of greater transparency, i want to share ours. i hope it's of service to you. if you have any questions about it, i am more than happy to help in whatever way. you can email me at lizsong (at) gmail.com or leave comments below.

notes:

• thanks andrew for pointing out a glaring omission of our photographer! corrections made above! 
• we had approximately 100 adults & 20 kids in attendance.
• $5135 was the total we spent on gifts/thank you's and family care. this was much more than we expected to spend, but in the spirit of generosity, we wanted to make sure people knew we were extremely grateful for all the ways they supported us. 
• samuel's shoes cost $130 because we got his granddad's old shoes restored. they were beautifully done by the european cobblery. and then of course, we had to find the perfect belt to match, which also happened to cost $125. i've never paid that much for an accessory, but i learned that men's apparel is extremely particular! it all needs to match! now we have a suit fo life. (samuel just can't gain any weight.)
• i bought a shirt "i had to have" for the our saturday night family dinner. totally didn't need to have a new shirt for that evening. #emotionalconsumerism
• i also bought a slip to wear under my dress. it was high quality and the only one i found that actually worked. i don't regret buying it, but now i have this $90 slip i've only used once. it's very unlikely i'll use it again. what do you do with these one off purchases from a wedding? 
• a shift in perspective: when we were living in the bay area, we thought, "wow, we planned this wedding for a steal!" especially when we compared it to stories like, "we only spent $30k. that's pretty low." but now that we live in rural montana and see what some people live on, i feel like we spent quite a bit for our wedding. (and after reading this post from mr. money mustache, i'm like...whaaaht?) my perspective has definitely shifted!

anything strike you about our budget?