Since we were young, many of us have dreamed of what our ideal wedding will look like and feel like! We think about the attire we are going to wear, the food we are going to eat, and of course picture our perfect person dancing the night away with us! One thing we don’t typically dream about is how much everything is going to cost! Though it may not be the most glamorous thing to think about, if you are having a wedding that is on a budget it is very important to create that budget before you begin booking vendors and buying items for your big day. Before creating your budget you’ll want to check out our video and blog post covering the top 5 decisions that will affect your wedding budget! 

Now that you know what decisions will affect your total wedding costs you are ready to create your custom budget! As we want every couple to have their dream wedding without having to live in debt during their marriage, we are sharing how you can create your ideal wedding budget in three steps!

Some things to consider before creating your budget

• If you start hiring vendors or buying items before you determine your budget, you will be allowing the vendors and your purchases to dictate the amount of money you will be spending on your wedding. By creating your budget prior to booking vendors and making purchases you will remain as the one in control of your wedding costs.

• Always communicate with each other! As monetary issues are known to be a major stressor in many marriages, ensuring that you’re both transparent about the wedding expenses and communicate openly about the costs will hopefully decrease the chance of an argument pertaining to your wedding budget.

• Select a dollar amount that’s comfortable to you so that you won’t have to spend the days leading up to your wedding eating only instant ramen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No one attending your wedding would want you to struggle in order for you to get them a fancy favor, so make sure you decide on a budget amount that is for you and not what you think it should be for others.

• Gratuities for your vendors can add up so we highly recommend including this amount in your overall budget so that you don’t get stuck in a position where tipping a vendor affects another area of your budget OR you’re not able to provide the gratuity that you want to give.

• Having a section that’s 10% of your budget dedicated to “incidentals” will allow you with a cushion to take care of costs that arise or ones that you may not think of. An example of this type of expense is postage for your Save the Dates, Invitations, and RSVP cards. Having an area dedicated to these often overlooked costs will add some much needed wiggle room to your budget.

• Your headcount will play one of the biggest factors in your wedding as typically when the number of your guests increase so does the number on your budget! Prior to creating your budget it’ll be very helpful to know the maximum size of your guest count.

• Only plan off of funds that you actually have. We’ve seen many instances where family/friends will tell the bride & groom that they’ll pay for something but later no longer be able to pay for it. As these couples now need to decide if the vendor/item is something that they have to remove from their wedding or if they’ll have to expand their budget to cover the cost, ensuring that you’re only allocating the money that you have will help you to avoid this stressful situation. One way to organize these funds is by creating an account that holds the money strictly dedicated for your wedding so you can clearly see the dollar amount that you shouldn’t exceed. 

Alright, now with all of the above in mind it’s time to create your ideal wedding budget! So grab that paper and pencil OR your laptop and open that excel sheet, as we get into creating this budget!

Step One: List all of the various vendors and items you will need to hire or purchase for your wedding

For now, don’t focus on putting this list in a specific order yet, the current focus is to just list everything that you will need to allocate money towards.

If you’re not sure where to start, below is a list of the most commonly hired vendors, but of course don’t feel limited to just these vendors!

List of Commonly Hired Vendors 

• Favors

• Beauty

• Caterer

• Attire

• Transportation

• Photo Booth

• Decor

• Rentals

• Invitations

• Officiant

• Ceremony Venue

• Reception Venue

• Photographer

• Videographer

• Florist

• Ceremony Music

• Reception Music

• DJ

• MC

• Wedding Cake

Step Two: Prioritize your list so the vendors and items are listed in order of most important to least important

Now that you’ve got your list it’s time to organize it! If you need tips on prioritizing these items check out our blog post on creating your wedding priorities list. If you and your other half are not able to agree on the vendor or item that should be the number one priority on your list, determine which one is the highest priority for each of you and keep in mind that a good portion of the budget will go to these two areas.

Step Three: Break apart your budget to assign a dollar amount to each vendor or item

Regardless of what type of vendor or item is at the top of your list, it’s important to make sure that the preceding vendor or item must have more money allocated than the next. The dollar amount that you choose to assign should be the maximum amount that you feel comfortable spending on that specific vendor or item.

With each vendor or item now having an amount attached to it, you should be able to see an estimated total of what your wedding may cost!

 We hope that these three steps helped you create your ideal wedding budget! But we’re not done talking about budgets yet! Stay tuned for a future blog post that will show you how to use this information to stay in control of your budget at all times!

XOXOXO

Happy Planning!

(A Perfect Day)