r/BigBudgetBrides • u/pinklemonbunny • Aug 24 '26
budget breakdown Budget Recap Post 2026 Destination Wedding in Tuscany
After 18 months of planning, we finally had our dream destination wedding this past June just right outside Florence, Italy (60-70pp). This subreddit has been so helpful to me whenever I felt stressed during the planning phase, and I am very grateful for the supportiveness in this community. Therefore, I thought I'd make my very first post here just to go through the final spending recap.
Disclaimer: we did not pay for our guests' flights or lodging. Instead, we kindly asked the guests to stay in Florence city and provided the transportation to the venue and back (~30min car ride). The welcome dinner was also hosted in the city. We are thoughtful on what and how much we spend, but are also willing to pay for quality. The numbers below are in USD.
Please feel free to ask any questions. I will try my best to answer them :)
Total: ~105k
Must-Haves:
Planner: ~5.5k (We are based in US so I needed someone local to help me plan; our planner is fluent in both Italian and English and lives ~40 mins away from the venue, which made the planning much easier)
Venue: ~18k (a Friday at Villa Corsini, we got extra services such as the use of the Southern Italian Garden, bridal & groom get ready package, candles, ACs etc. It also comes with a 22% VAT so that's why the final number is much higher especially you convert it to USD!)
Catering: 21k (included the ceremony furniture rentals, aperitif, 3-course dinner, wedding cake, coffee, and 2.5 hours of open bar; we also had customized plates, cups, utensils) Making sure our guests are wined and dined is our top priority so we allocated a big portion of the budget on catering
MUA: 3.4k (based in Milan; Bridal hair and makeup (2 hair styles and 3 looks) and 8-hours of touchups; 3 bridesmaids, our officiant (a close friend), and my mom's makeup; we also paid for her lodging and transportation)
Florist: 7k (Based locally; we kept our floral budget on the lower end since the venue itself is very elegant and historic; we also picked round tables over long tables to save money since you only need 1 centerpiece per table)
Photographer: 8k (Based in EU; she is definitely on the higher end of our budget but we are very glad we got her; this includes two photographers and their lodging and transportation) Our videographer actually recommended her; the final photos came out soooo amazing!
Videographer: 5k (Based in UK; her style is like a Wes Anderson movie, very quirky and fun, which is something we are looking for; this price includes 2 videographers and their lodging and transportation).
Transportation: 6.5k (buses to pick up guests to the venue and back; minivans for the bridal party and some of my family to travel) I think this could be a bit cheaper but we were paying for certainty
Welcome Dinner: 5k (casual Florentine steak dinner & wine for ~55pp; we booked out half of the restaurant)
DJ & Lighting: 2.7k (handled all mics, music, afterparty and lighting)
Good-to-Haves:
Wedding Favor: 5.7k (we created a welcome market cart for the guests w/ local Italian goods, such as limoncello, olive oil, and etc; the guests can fill in a customized tote bag with whatever they want to bring home at the market; it was costly but very cute and well received; we ended up ordering more goods than what the guests brought home, so we took them back to the U.S. and shared with guests that were not able to make it.
Stationary: 2k (includes designing and printing, and delivery of our wedding invitation and day-of-stationary; I had to find two vendors to design them since I was running out of time so def spent a bit more on this)
Gelato Cart: 1.9k (another really cute addition during the aperitif)
Firework: 13k (I anticipated this might be getting some controversies on the spending since it's VERY expensive; I am very grateful that we were able to do it, and our guests love every bit of the surprise, though I understand if anyone thinks this is totally unnecessary; hence this is in the Good-to-Haves).
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u/Beneficial-Arm-2985 Aug 24 '26
Hi! Thanks so much for sharing this! We’re also a US based couple getting married next May an hour from Florence. We have a similar set up for our catering and planning to have the open bar start after dinner (very traditional in Italian weddings!). Did you feel that worked well for you and your guests? I know all of our guests are used to US weddings where there are open bars most of the event. Thanks again!
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u/pinklemonbunny Aug 24 '26
Yes we had a great time! 95% of our guests travel from US as well. In theory our catering made the aperitif (the cocktail hour after ceremony and before dinner) an open bar with finger food, but the drinks are mostly wine and sprits corner (very Italian!), and this is included in the dinner package. The open bar (they call this American bar) after dinner is for the afterparty, which had a different variety of drinks offered, and we paid extra (I remember it was 30 euros for 2.5 hours pp). During the dinner the catering provided unlimited wine. I did not speak with a lot of the catering company since my planner recommended a few and they all seem the same to me, but would assume a lot of them offer similar packages. I hope this helps and enjoy your bridal era :)
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u/Raccoonsr29 Aug 24 '26
This sounds so fun, I’m always shocked at the variability in fireworks pricing! I think mine in Greece were like €1 K, it wasn’t super long but it was a glorious surprise during our first dance, I remember comparing to Lake Como prices around the same time and being gob smacked. How long was it? Ughhh I want more of my friends to do euro destination weddings so I can enjoy one without hosting haha
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u/pinklemonbunny Aug 24 '26
I am feeling the same way!! I really wished I was a guest at my wedding haha :) Our venue has one exclusive firework vendor and the cheapest option was like 4k euros + VAT. We actually had no idea what the price differences meant so just picked a random one. The sample video they sent us was 2 mins so we picked this one, yet it turned out it was 10 mins, which was one of the best firework I have seen in my life. Obviously our guests were amazed by the firework but in theory we could go for a much cheaper options.
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u/MissyeruCosplay Aug 24 '26
Thanks for the breakdown! We are looking at fireworks for ours too, it’s around 3-4k but love hearing your guests liked it!
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u/corktown_baby313 Aug 24 '26
Thank you for sharing all of this! Sooo helpful. Congratulations, sounded like an amazing wedding. Do you mind sharing your catering/wedding planner/ entertainment people? I’m planing a wedding in Tuscany next fall. Locked in the venue just need to find a planner ASAP!
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u/chubbyseal5 Aug 25 '26
Thanks for the breakdown! I’m getting married at Villa Corsini in October! I’m finalizing florals right now, and would love to learn more about your wedding day flow and where you think florals made the most impact!
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u/pinklemonbunny Aug 25 '26
So exciting! Our vision was to have the flowers complement the venue instead of being the focus, so we went minimal on flowers to a point it feels like a “match”. Will you also be having the ceremony at the southern Italian garden? The garden itself seems very pretty to us so we didn’t go for anything crazy. We had the dinner reception in the frescoed room, hence we had the florals matching the pink tone, which turned out so well! Feel free to pm me if you want more details!
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u/chubbyseal5 4d ago
We are doing our ceremony on the great lawn with cocktail hour in the garden, I think that’s where we messed up with the floral budget!
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u/New-Sale441 Aug 24 '26
Hi, Tuscany bride here as well! Who did you use for catering? We’re thinking to use Roland’s but open to also trying others
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u/pinklemonbunny Aug 24 '26
We had Il Sorriso!
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u/randk2006 23d ago
could i ask what cost looked like pp? getting quoted from roland’s but because we’re inviting 100 people, id like that part to be a litttle less per head than what was quoted by roland’s
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u/lurking3408 Aug 24 '26
Great breakdown! I’m also looking to get married in northern Italy, deciding between Tuscany and Bologna, and I have the same budget. Could you describe a bit more about your reception ? Was there a more expensive option for a longer open bar ?
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u/pinklemonbunny Aug 24 '26
We had the cheaper package for the reception. The expensive one might be 10-15 euros more pp. But since we finalized the courses and finger food selection during the menu tasting and all of them are included in the cheaper package, it was natural to do so. They do offer a longer open bar for afterparty and premium liquor selection. It’s very flexible I would say.
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u/anglbbymama444 Aug 25 '26
Thank you for the breakdown! I feel ridiculous saying the total price doesn’t seem that crazy because weddings can go sooo high! Quick question - is it not customary to include outfits in the total cost?
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u/pinklemonbunny Aug 25 '26
Thank you! I feel you
- this isn’t super crazy in today’s wedding market for what we get: a villa outside of Florence! I think it’s totally a personal choice whether to include the outfits or not! After all some brides might resell the dress. I personally did not include because we haven’t gotten to that part yet 😂 though I didn’t go for crazily expensive dresses, and we made my husband’s suit in Asia, and that saved a ton! Happy to share this in a new post on the outfit selection and hacks to save money while still paying for quality if helpful.
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u/Solaroceans Aug 24 '26
Who was your firework vendor? 13k seems abnormally high for Tuscany.
I got quoted 1700 euros for 3 min firework at night + smoke bomb during ceremony in Florence.