Wedding Budget
The wonderful thing about having a wedding is having the one that you want. It delivers on all your expectations and your guests ( or just the two of you!!) walk away with a lifetime of memories.
The sometimes daunting thing about a wedding is trying to achieve your goals without putting yourselves into a mountain of debt or setting yourselves up for massive disappointment.
While setting a wedding budget may seem huge, there are some easy steps to help make this task one of the fun parts of planning your wedding.
As part of our first chat with our clients, we always broach the subject of the wedding budget early on. We encourage this to be set sooner rather than later in the planning process. This sets the necessary, practical foundation for planning a celebration that everyone is going to enjoy.
There are no hard or fast rules about how much a wedding is going to cost, and where to spend your dollars to get the most bang for your buck. There are, however, a couple of guidelines that are helpful when setting the wedding budget. Try these on for size …
- Always be clear on who is paying for what
This is super easy if it is you and your chequebook (showing my age!!) that is footing the overall bill. The beauty of this arrangement is that you have complete control, and it’s up to you to set your limit and have the last say on the table arrangements.
If you are super lucky to have a family or friend offering to foot the whole or some of the bill, it is like having a wedding business partner in on the deal, and they need to be included on the decision making. Like all good business partners, and when dollars are involved, they are going to want to have an influence on where their money is being spent.
A great way to working this wedding business relationship is having these kind souls take care of a section of the bill and have them responsible for say, the florist or the caterers. The invoice from these suppliers can go directly to the wedding business partner. This gives them a sense of contributing and provides one thing less for your to-do list.
- How are you paying for your celebration
I love the wedding scene in “The Godfather” of Connie’s wedding. There are envelopes of cash being handed out to pay the wedding singer, the catering company and the Godfather himself.
While I am not recommending that you have the undercurrents of the mafia going on at your wedding, it is really important to figure out well in advance how you are going to pay all of your vendors.
As some will expect payment on the day, like the musicians, others will want payment either before or after the big day. Be clear in your planning when these payments are happening, and have auto payments set up.
On the day have a trusted relative or friend be in-charge of paying the band on the night. There is nothing more uncomfortable for a bandleader to come and find their payment on the night, it’s a big buzz kill.
- Know your wedding budget reality
Don’t take me wrong here, I LOVE Pinterest. It an amazing tool, and it has helped me visually communicate with our clients. However, it has also mucked with the heads of many a bride or groom.
There are so many amazing weddings boards on Pinterest that give stacks of incredible ideas. The only problem is they do not reveal the reality of costs. In short, it all costs money. It is up to you to decide on how best to spend your hard-earned cash, how to celebrate the start of your married life together.
Be inspired, and yes, make sure that you do create the environment that is going to reflect you as a couple. Just keep in mind that this is the start of a beautiful thing. Tomorrow you will be married, and may well not even remember that elaborate escort card stand with the gold embossed, double punched font…
Speaking from experience, if you are not honouring your wedding budget, you are not honouring your relationship. Think of the real reason why you have chosen to head down this wonderful life path together. By sticking your head in the sand, and avoiding the setting of, and sticking to, your wedding budget, you are creating that dreaded stress that no wedding should have as a guest.
To get valuable advice on how best to set your wedding budget, send us an email. We have lots of great ideas on tips to save you dollars and get the wedding you have been dreaming of.
Happy Days x
Photo by Fabian Blank on Unsplash
