Along with creating your wedding wishlist, one of the first things you are going to be doing in the wedding planning process is determining your wedding budget. Oftentimes, this is looked at as a restriction. However, every wedding has a wedding budget. Whether you’re planning to spend $10,000 or $80,000, there is a set amount of money that you have allotted to spend on your wedding. Wedding planning can get overwhelming so it’s important to understand this amount prior to booking your venue and vendors. Let’s look at how to plan a wedding budget that is customized to your wedding.
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Who is Contributing and How Much
In order to determine a wedding budget, you first have to know how much you have to work with. Traditionally, the bride’s family would pay for the whole wedding. However, today most couples are contributing the majority if not all funds to their wedding budget. If you do have others that would like to contribute, find out how much so that you can add this into your total wedding budget.
Be Realistic With Your Budget
One of the most common mistakes that we see couples make is their estimates of vendor category cost. It’s important to research the cost of each category prior to determining how much you will spend for that vendor. As an example, you may purchase a cake at the grocery store for $50 but when it comes to a wedding cake there is a lot more that goes into it which means there will be more cost involved. Remember you are planning a wedding, not a birthday party. Vendors put a lot of time into each of their services which is factored into those costs.
Also, the location you have your wedding will vary the cost of wedding vendor services. When you see the national average for weddings to be $33,900, this factors all the weddings across the country. Here in Central Florida, the average wedding costs around $25,000, whereas in New York City it is about $65,000. Researching the area you are getting married in will help you create a more realistic budget.
Regardless of where you have your wedding celebration, most couples find that a large portion of their wedding budget will go to their wedding venue and food. However, when you are looking at wedding venues always make note of what the rental cost includes. This is because wedding venue rental inclusions vary greatly. If you are renting a space that does not include any tables and chairs, you will have to factor in the rental cost of those items. This will especially be helpful to you when you are comparing another venue that does include these items.
Make Note of Your Top Priorities
If you’ve done research on wedding budgets, you’ve most likely seen a wedding budget breakdown. These breakdowns give you an estimate of what you should be paying percentage-wise for each category of your wedding. It’s important to note that these wedding budget breakdowns are just a guide. They are not rules. The reason is that these breakdowns don’t take into account your top wedding priorities.
One of the things we love most about weddings today is that no two weddings are the same. Each couple has a wedding vision that reflects them and not all couples want to include the same things at their wedding. As an example, one couple may be big foodies and want to incorporate different food stations. However, they are not really focused on having custom invitations made. In this case, they would take the money allotted for invitations to put towards their catering budget.
Your wedding budget should reflect your top priorities with consideration of accurate vendor estimates for your area. Creating a wedding wishlist with your top three priorities for you and your future spouse will help you determine a more accurate budget breakdown for your wedding.
Leave Some Wiggle Room
Even if you create a wedding budget with your priorities taking into account proper vendor estimates for your area, there will almost always be other hidden wedding costs that come up. Making space in your budget from the beginning for these expenses will make them a lot easier to manage as they come along. Expenses like postage, wedding party gifts, and/or cake cutting fees sometimes get left out of a wedding budget but can easily add up. You don’t want to be in a position where your wedding budget is being eaten up by these unplanned expenses.