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 to commemorate their love for each other.

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.

As, An Event Lady Production couple, we work with you to stay on track and we have tools in place to keep you on track. One question, I like to discuss with my couples are the different between your “wants” and “needs”. Are there ways to get both? Can we change few things to give you the same experience and your dream day.

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 a budget worksheet on our website 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.

If you find yourself worrying about how to spend money effectively, use these tips above to start building the wedding of your dreams today. Please book a consultation with us today!!!

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