Planning a budget can be a bit difficult. You may be thinking you want a certain kind of wedding but what you may not know is how expensive that idea might be. In the United States of America, the average wedding budget (ceremony and reception and everything in between) is $27,000. Yes, I said $27K. Now you may be thinking, "Wow only 27K?" or you may be thinking, "That is a down payment for a house!" No matter how you see it, weddings are not just a few hundred dollars. On this post I will be giving you a guide to figuring out what budget you want to set.
A Brief Personal Experience Story:
If you have read my post already about "How to choose your wedding date" then you know that I planned my wedding in 8 months and also that I grew up watching just about every wedding related TV show or Movie. After setting the date I knew the next thing was to figure out what my budget should be. I knew that the average wedding was over $20,000 and for myself and my fiance, we knew that even if we had that kind of money just off hand, it would be used for a down payment on a house. Realizing this, I took to the internet and found a few stories of having a wedding on a budget. Out of curiosity I asked a few of my friends who had recently gotten married, how much their budget was and what the actual cost turned out to be. Most of the ones who replied said they only spent $15,000. Now while that is definitely less than the average, it was still not quite what I wanted to hear. That is when another friend told me her budget was just to keep it under $10,000 and wound up only spending around $7000, give or take a few hundred dollars, I thought that that sounded amazing. So as a guide I decided to set my budget at $7000 and we are now 2 months away from the wedding, and the budget still has some wiggle room! I will let you know the final overall cost once everything is said and done.
Budget guide:
Now this is not to say that your wedding cannot be at lower budget. I have seen many videos and blogs about brides having weddings under $3000. All this really means is that you need to keep an open mind as to where you want to get married and what all the event might include. For instance, do you or someone you know own property with a beautiful backyard? Or, do they at least have a decently sized back yard? Do they own a barn (if you are okay with a rustic theme)? If the answer is no, you can also choose to have your wedding in a park. Parks will come with fees and permits and at the end of the day may cost around $600. Maybe having a private ceremony in a courthouse, and then having a big party at your place is more your style. Or, are you willing to spend a good portion on a venue and maybe go on the cheaper end with everything else?
What I am getting at is that the venue(s) you choose to have the ceremony and reception at range from a lot of different price points with most of them in the thousands so this is where a good percentage of your wedding will go to. In fact there are 3 main areas where your budget will be spent, these are: Venue(s), The wedding gown, and food and beverage (f&b). Now while all three of these will eat your budget it is really up to you which order they go in. I.e do you care more about how much your dress costs versus the rest, or do you care most about the food and beverage, or do you care more about where you get married.
Note: Some reception venues will actually include the price of food and drink in their overall price. They may even have packages for you to choose from. Some of these venues may even include your decor. We call these venues "All inclusive" to where the only things you pay for outside of this are things like your attire, the rings, the cake, the wedding favors, transportation, and other miscellaneous things. These "all inclusive" packages are great but they will take about 50% of your budget or more.
If you have Microsoft excel, it is actually pretty easy to use their Wedding Budget template. What I chose to do was print out a lovely budget chart that was pretty simple. It all really depends on whether or not you want to know down to the "T" on what everything costed you.
As for me I found a chart online with different sections (Ceremony, Reception, Attire and Beauty, Rings and Gifts, Stationary, and Miscellaneous.) In each section listed the different things and had an area to write the estimated amount and then the actual amount. This chart has really come in handy because I physically have it with me and not just on my computer. It also allows me to see where my budget is at all times and I am able to make adjustments to things where I can.
There are still some things that are little hidden from the cost of the overall wedding that are a tad unexpected. Such as:
- How much postage will actually cost
- How much your wedding favors might actually cost (What we originally wanted would have costed us about $300 when I had originally budgeted for $160 😐)
- The random unexpected things that you may want to rent. (We needed to rent drink dispensers and they were $27 each just to rent!)
Whether you are thinking of a big wedding or a small wedding and whatever budget you decide on, make sure you talk with whoever is paying for the wedding. If it is yourself, sit down and do some research on what certain things cost. Look at pie charts (...read a blog) to get an idea of what you might be spending. If it is your parents who are paying for most of it if not all of it, make sure you sit down and talk to them about how much you were thinking of spending. I know this one is kind of hard but it will be less of a headache later on. To help ease it, explain how much an average wedding costs and break it down such as "The venues I was looking at are in the $(xxxx) range. Wedding gowns can cost up to $5000" so on and so forth. Be real with them and ask them where they are comfortable spending. If they would like to spend less on these things, try not to argue with them, it is YOUR day but it is THEIR money. (I asked my mom what our budget was for my dress and I was pleasantly surprised with her answer and we got the dress right on budget.)
At the end of the day getting your budget set and in WRITING before putting down any down payments on venues is going to keep you on track and on budget.
Thanks so much for reading and have a fantastic day!
No comments:
Post a Comment