Thank God my wife's mother helped us pay for our wedding in cash.  She helped with the wedding and my parents gave us a nice check as a gift.

I recently tied the knot and we planned about 14 months ahead of time. Planning is everything but for some reason i kept hearing suze orman voice telling me you cannot afford it. Denied.

I am anti wedding (not anti marriage). I think you should make decisions based on priorities and believe that blowing out several thousands on a wedding just because 'it is only 1 day and probably once in a lifetime' is a terrible way to start your new life. Priorities should be (IMO): Stable Job/Financial stability>Good Car>House>everything else.

If you must spend on a special day, do so after all priorities are fulfilled/paid for and after a certain amount of time has passed such as 5,+ years. I don't get why people spend 15K+ on a wedding with someone they probably haven't even lived with! First get to know eachother, live together, build your lives together and THEN think of a 'wedding'. By this time you probably will think that you rather spend the $10K on something that will bring yourselves happiness (instead of the guests) such as a long vacation that can serve as a honeymoon or escapade from the daily grind/routine and bring you closer to your SO.

I"m currently planning my wedding right now.  So far, we've spent about $5,000 and that isn't including a lot of stuff.  HOWEVER, we are not charging anything on credit cards.  I work A LOT of overtime to get the money for the wedding, and so does he.  The ONLY thing we have on a credit card is my engagement ring.  If she wants a $10k wedding, she should find a way to come up with it, imo.  My hubby-to-be was happy with whatever I wanted, and he is willing to help, but I'm not putting the financial burden on him to make it happen and to ruin our financial situation in the future.

We had ours the old fashioned way where the brides parents pay for pretty much everything and grooms take care of tuxes and rehersal (We are veryyyy blessed, and the fact my wifes the baby of her family so that helps haha)

My son and his wife, married April 22, 2012.  They had a small wedding, with 50 people.  I believe they spent about $12k
 They have a house, and paid for 75% of it themselves.

I meant that they already bought a house and paid for 75% of the wedding themselves.  Sheesh.

12k is a LOT for a wedding with 50 guests. Holy crappsss!

We got married last september.  My step mom and dad paid for catering and my dress (about 4k total), and my husband's parents paid for photographer and sent money to help with other little things.  My mother did our flowers (we wanted wild flowers, so she grew everything, made centerpieces, bouquets and boutoniers)

We got our wedding done under $7k.  We had about 140 people. 

In the end we only paid about $1500-2k out of pocket after what our parents helped with.  We DIY'd just about everything.

We also bought our home about 2 months before the wedding.