Budget Question - Where to use $ we received as a gift

I would pay off whatever I could. So if you can pay off the photographer go ahead and do so and if there is still some left, put it towards the next biggest thing. Venue- possibly. That's what I would do.

Unless she stated what she wanted the money to be used for I think you have the freedom to use it how you want. Maybe towards more expensive vendors? Maybe towards your wedding dress so she would have kind of paid for your dress? That's kind of special. Maybe towards an upgrade of some kind? I think this is only something you guys can decide but either way it all goes towards the wedding so specifying which vendor doesn't matter in my opinion. I'd probably just put it towards whatever payments come next, or put it towards booking vendors you do not have locked down yet so that you know you have them.

It's really hard telling without knowing your balances or what you've paid already. If we were given $2300 at the beginning of planning, we would have used it for deposits to secure the vendors that we wanted. If it was given to us now, we would use it to pay off vendors, starting with the highest priority and working our way to the lowest. That's really what we've been doing anyway. We started with the venue, then photographer, etc. The only thing we can't pay until closer to the day is catering due to head count restrictions.

I like what the others said - i would def use it to pay off the largely vendors or larger items in my budget.

Honestly I would put it in a bank account that earns a high interest (like a money market acct) and let it earn interest until you needed to use it to pay a vendor.

We were very lucky to be gifted a lot of money for our wedding, here’s how we allocated it:
Money from my grandparents: venue, catering, and cake
Money from my mom: dress, flowers, veil, cocktail hour music
Money from my in-laws: rehearsal dinner, reception alcohol, and part of videography/photography (we paid the rest ourselves)

My mom was very specific about the things she wanted to pay for (she basically wanted to pay for my whole attire, which was great), my grandparents were very specific about what they DIDN'T want to pay for (things they didn't care about themselves--pretty much alcohol, photography...), and my in-laws wrote us a check and were like "here you go, enjoy!" and couldn't have cared less what we did with their money (they didn't even ask, haha).

Maybe ask her where she’d prefer to have it allocated? If she doesn’t have a preference, then it’s really up to you!

I'd pay off my photographer for $1000 remaining and put the $800 toward the rest of my venue fees.

Our parents are paying for our wedding, so I don't know if my answer is good for you. If she said it's for the wedding, then it's up to your and FH's discretion which vendors to put it towards. You can pay for the vendors as the contracts and deposits come up and use the money on whatever comes first, or you can decide that it's going to a specific vendor like the boutique for your dress or the most expensive vendor that you hire.

Also, do you plan on using the money gifts from other people to pay for your wedding as well, or putting them towards your honeymoon.

My FH and I have been keeping track of all money gifts as well as registry gifts on our gift tracker on Google Sheets. We put the name of the person, address, etc., and in the description column, we would put the amount of the gift (or registry item name). If you want to, you can add a description of the venue service that you decided to put the money towards. Sometimes people describe what they are using the gift for in their thank you notes. Keeping a record of where the money gifts go might be useful for this purpose as well as for your own records.

In our case, I think we are keeping our monetary gifts to open a joint bank account for our future.

I would pay off catering..or anything that was an larger outstanding bill...