Hands down, weddings can be some of the most expensive events to host. It is true that you can’t put a price on love, but you can put a price on how much you and your significant other are willing to spend on a wedding.
“Expensive” and “stressful” are two words that many associate with wedding planning and wedding budgeting. Besides purchasing wedding attire, there are venues, vendors, designs, and flowers to consider and choose — all of which cost money. However, no couple should have to break the bank for their wedding day.
Creating a wedding budget is a tool you can use to stay on track to building the perfect day. Budgeting is simply a spending plan based on you and your future spouse’s income and expenses (or whoever is paying for the wedding). It may seem scary and too detail-oriented at first, but we’ll include a couple of tips in this blog post to help you get started.
How to Start
Getting started can be difficult when you don’t know where to start. Consider dividing your budget in terms of guest priorities and your must-haves. Dividing your needs based on the couple (you) and the guests helps you identify where funds need to go and why.
Many wedding planning and event businesses state that 40 to 50 percent of a wedding budget will go towards bigger items, such as the venue, catering, and rental costs. The rest goes toward photography, videographers, stationery, flowers, décor, transportation, and music.
A wedding planner could also be a well worth it part of this list and can help you with your budgeting needs. Shaded Spruce Events even offers a budgeting template for you and your boo to track all of your costs as they start to add up.
Budgeting is essential but it doesn't have to be stressful...
Here are a couple of ways to get started with budgeting for your wedding
Create a wedding budget breakdown. This budget breakdown will help you form a basic outline of where your expenses will go, giving you a visual for the 40% - 50% of the more extensive costs and the rest of the minor costs. An average wedding budget breakdown may look like this:
40% for venue and catering
15% for photography and videography
5% for wedding attire beauty (makeup, hairstylists, etc.)
10% for music and entertainment
10% for flowers
2% for favors and gifts
3% for transportation
3% for stationery
2% for a cake or other desserts
10% for décor
Create a spreadsheet or download a template. You can find downloadable PDFs on Canva and some wedding blogs. Or you can go the old-fashioned route and use Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel to build your own custom budget.
A spreadsheet offers you the simplicity of categorizing everything you need to budget. With Excel or Sheets, you have the space to fill columns or create charts that will sum up the spending. Budgeting the right way for your wedding doesn’t have to be a hassle.
For more information on wedding and event planning, check out Shaded Spruce Events' Blog or fill our our contact form! We love seeing couples have their dream day without the stress and headache that comes with wedding planning.