What our $3,700 California wedding looks like: a budget breakdown

It is the early morning exactly one year ago. I’m standing up front, surrounded by magnificent and giant redwood trees that have been living here for thousands of years. On my left side, I see close friends and family members. On my right side, our wedding officiant is reminding everyone to be present and absorb the energy of such a unique nature setting in this very special moment. Holding my hands and standing in front of me is the love of my life (Mrs. Nomad Numbers). She is wearing a stunning dress that is competing with the early sunlight that is illuminating the entire grove we are gathered in. As I look into her eyes, I can feel the love radiating around her. This was one of the highlights on the best day of my life that took place exactly one year ago.

As today marks our one year wedding anniversary, we decided to share this special day and show that you can have a beautiful, memorable wedding without spending a fortune –  even if you live in a high cost of living area. In this special blog post, we share the thinking behind our wedding, how much time we spent to plan it, our line by line budget spreadsheet and how we managed to keep it under $4,000 when $40,000 is the average cost of a California wedding.

How did we design our wedding?

We started with being thoughtful about why we wanted this day and what we wanted it to be about. We would then figure out the how later. We first and foremost wanted it to be about us, our love and to make it a day filled with elements that brought us joy. We also wanted it to be a gathering of our loved one where we could have their presence and support to help us transition into this next big chapter of our lives as Mr. and Mrs. We approached our wedding planning with many of the values that we apply on our nomadic journey: less is more, love nature and create joyful memories The clear understanding of what we wanted guided the hundreds of decisions involved in wedding planning  and from there we spent the next 4.5 months to design our very own day.

Here is how we wanted to design this day

• Uniquely Us: we didn’t want to follow any scripts or traditions for the sake of them, we wanted to include elements that were important to us and be a celebration about us. For example, we only wanted to invite close friends and family and keep it very intimate. This was hard for some family members and friends to understand but deciding that upfront made it easier to follow through on it.
• Budget: we did not have a strict budget or predetermined limit on what we would spend. We trusted that we would make good decisions and would apply our tendencies to optimize costs. We did not mind being hands on and some DIY but we were also ok to outsource what made sense.
• The venue: as nature lovers, we wanted to be outside and that was a fairly easy decision. After numerous weekend hikes around San Francisco, the Redwoods had a special place in our hearts..
• The ceremony: we knew for sure that we did not want a traditional ceremony. We wanted it to include spiritual elements and embrace our environment.
• New nomadic life: we sold everything and gave notice to our apartment in San Francisco to embark on a nomadic journey in the month following our wedding. This later put us on a path to cut our cost of living in half, reduced our stress level, increases our happiness, well being and let us fully embraced slow travel.

How much did we spend?

Overall we spent $3,700 on our Californian wedding. This includes every single expense that we put towards it, including 4 roundtrip tickets from France to fly in my family members that we pay for entirely thanks to travel rewards. We paid for everything and did not receive any help from family members so there are no hidden costs here.

We had 32 guests at our wedding (including 8 kids) so the average cost per adult was about $150.

Category	Total
Food & Drinks	$1,345.23
Reception	$841.45
Ceremony	$387.46
Wedding outfit – Her	$345.54
Photos	$300.00
Music	$291.60
Wedding outfit – His	$173.60
Miscellaneous	$15.49
International Flights	$0.00
Grand Total	$3,700.37

If you are interested to review each of our budget line item, please provide us with your email and we will send you our spreadsheet.

Let’s now examine each category one by one to dig into our specific wedding expenses

International Flights

We flew my parents, brother and her wife from France to San Francisco for free thanks to our travel rewards tips. By using 230,000 Ultimate Chase Rewards points we save about $5,000 in plane tickets.

Food & Drinks

Food	$932.34
Drinks	$231.38
Cake	$181.51
Total	$1,345.23

The “Food & Drinks” category was by far the most expensive category for our wedding with a total of $1,345 but still way below average.

• For food, we had a French theme with hors d’oeuvres and both savory and sweet crepes that were made on demand thanks to the wonderful services of Crepes Queen Oakland (the owner is currently taking a break from her business ).  The food ended up being very challenging because private catering tends to be expensive, have a minimum spend or require electricity. There’s also the challenge of finding availability for your date. We were very happy with our find which was simple but charming and had a meaningful tie to my home country.

• For our wedding cake, we had two cakes. Mrs. Nomad Number is gluten/dairy/sugar free so she miraculously found a raw vegan carrot cake from the wonderful Nourish Cafe bakery. As for me, since I’m French, I wanted something close to home so I went for a yummy chocolate souffle cake from Tartine Bakery. Pure decadence. Since our cakes were not custom made, it was very affordable.

• For drinks, we had a mix of bubbly for both kids & adults, some wine (of course!) and plenty of water. All purchased from BevMo and Target.

Reception

Helper	$275.00
Table setting	$190.27
Venue	$150.00
Favors	$95.66
Flowers	$79.14
Decor	$51.38
Total	$841.45

The “Reception” category includes the venue, all the decoration that goes along with it (table settings, tree decorations, flowers etc) and the helper service cost. The total was $841.

The venue was probably the biggest bargain and area of savings for our wedding but it was exactly what we were looking for. We booked the Redwood grove at Old Mill Park in Mill Valley, California which is a private picnic area in a public park. It was the perfect size for our modest gathering (32 ppl total). The hourly rate for the venue was $30 which we booked for 5 hours for a total of $150! Most venues in the San Francisco Bay Area were easily over $10K, often required additional services and not our cup of tea.

We decided to rent chairs, the table settings and glassware to add some nicer dining touches in the woods – we wanted a nice composition of nature and elegance. We lucked out and got some beautiful flower bouquets for our table at Bi-Rite Market (an amazing grocery store in San Francisco). We were willing to take our chance on the flowers based on what was in season and available at the flower shop on the day before the wedding rather than getting them custom made. The result was quite stunning. Mrs. Nomad Number then ordered a few items on Etsy to decorate the table, make favors, and create the cake toppers.

Finally, to help with the setup and services through the day we hired a helper for a few hours – this was definitely needed!

Mrs. Nomad Numbers is a creative genius. She custom designed our favors for our guests. They were succulents from her mom’s garden that were put in a tea cup used as a pot, they had ‘double happiness Chinese symbol stickers on them along with the following message tag: “Let Love Grow”. Etsy was a big help in the custom touches.

Wedding outfit – His

Suit	$173.60
Total	$173.60

I rented my entire outfit (shirts, suit, shoes, tie) at The Black Tux. While I had a suit that I barely used, it needed to be adjusted so in the end renting was more efficient and also cost effective. We were quite impressed with how things turned out.

I was able to try out a few options at a store in SF and then ordered the right combination that got shipped home. Returning everything was really simple, we simply had to put everything back in the box and drop it at a shipment center.

Wedding outfit – Her

Hair/Makeup	$154.00
Dress	$115.00
Mani/Pedi	$44.00
Bridal bouquet	$32.54
Total	$345.54

Mrs. Nomad Numbers outfit was not as straightforward. The dress was important to her but she is also very practical and did not want to splurge on a dress that she would only wear for a few hours. She initially ordered a dress using ModCloth which had very affordable and lovely dresses but it didn’t fit quite well enough. So she returned it and had more luck with Rent the Runway which is a clothing rental service that she had used before. They don’t specifically rent wedding dresses but they offer a handful of white formal dresses that made great bridal dresses. This was definitely risky because of the inability to try it on in advance and choose the ‘perfect’ dress. Many brides probably could not compromise in this area but true to our values, Mrs. NN would much prefer to spend on a Himalayan trek than a dress.

She had her hair and makeup done through professional stylists found online using BeGlammed. The site offers different levels of service (expert, elite) and also have people specialized in bridal services that can come as early as 6am, which was great for us.

Photos

Photographer	$300.00
Total	$300.00

The wedding photography industry is pretty crazy! We really value photography but could not justify the standard cost of a wedding photographer. We were having a simple and small wedding but the standard pricing is definitely targeted at large high budget weddings. We looked on CraigsList and stumbled upon a family photographer that wanted to transition her business to wedding photography. She was looking for a few couples to get her basics right and build her portfolio and were offering her service for FREE. We were fortunate that she chose us to be one of those couples and happy to have her as our photographer.. Again we took a risk here and admittedly, things were not ‘perfect’ but we did get wonderful photos that captured our day.

Music

Violinist	$291.60
Total	$291.60

For music, we hired a violinist to play during the ceremony and the reception. The park did not allow amplified music to be played on premise and hiring a live musician was definitely optional but we wanted something special. We used GigSalad which connects individuals with people that are offering their talents. The site provided us profile information with the available talents along with a sample of their performance. This helped us to ensure we were booking the right person. Our violinist was able to play from our song list as well as music of her choice and she was wonderful.

Ceremony

Wedding officiant	$251.20
Marriage Licence	$104.00
Tip officiant	$25.00
Ceremony prop	$7.26
Total	$387.46

For the ceremony, we hired an wedding officiant online through Thumbtack. We had a free consultation with her and we immediately clicked. We knew pretty well how we wanted our ceremony to be so she helped us with the writing and guided us through the process. The ceremony was a big highlight of our wedding and she was a big part of it. This was money well spent.

If you are in the Bay Area and would like to use our wedding officiant, go check out Officially Hitched.

Here is an extract of our ceremony that we crafted with our wedding officiant:

And that brings them here. A time to pause, look back, and smile at all the moments that brought them here. And a time to look ahead at all the moments that are still to come.

I’m here — we’re all here — because we want those moments for you. We’re here to hope with you, to support you, to be proud of you, and to remind you that love isn’t one moment — not even this moment. It’s every moment. Big ones like saying “I love you,” moving in together, getting engaged — but mostly a million little ones that come in between the big moments. Falling asleep next to one another, making dinner together, visiting your families, going for long walks… These everyday moments fuse together into one big experience.

And even though this experience is so incredible, words fail us when we try and explain it. That’s just the way it is with love — it’s meant to be felt, not described or fabricated.

Our custom design wedding ceremony script (extract)

Anything else?

What about wedding rings? We decided to use a very unique ceremony where no ring was involved. Mrs. Nomad Number is not a big fan of jewelry so we decided not to exchange rings. (Side note: I do however wear the Oura ring, but it’s because I love measuring and it helps track my sleep pretty accurately)

What about a wedding planner? As we managed to design our wedding ourselves, we did not feel the need to hire a planner. Since our guest list was manageable, the only thing we needed was a helper to provide support when needed. We also gave small roles to our respective family members to include them as part of this day which was sufficient to ensure our day was going as per our plan.

What about our honeymoon? Well we told our guests that July 1st, 2018 was the date for our honeymoon where we were going to travel the world. This wasn’t your typicall 2-3 weeks honeymoon though. Instead it was our never ending honeymoon and slow living/travel was at the center of it. One year after our wedding anniversary we are still traveling the world slowly and we can see ourselves traveling for many years to come 🙂

Our bottom line

We believe that designing a beautiful and perfect wedding has to start with the why and the what before the how. Once your nail your why and what, the how will come pretty organically. A wedding should be uniquely defined by the two souls that decided to come together and there is not a shortcut to that. As we said as part of our ceremony: “love is meant to be felt, not to be described or fabricated”.

Like with our lives in general, we want to do the things that we love and not the things that others want or expect us to do. We believe that our wedding was actually the first great demonstration of our shared values since we started dating.

Could we have spend more money on our wedding? Sure! Would it have been better? Not sure. But since you read that far, let us know what you think!

Does this inspire you to thinking differently about what a wedding should be about? Did we cut corners too much and miss out on anything else?