Money chat can be incredibly awkward but this is where you need to put all of that aside and have some open and honest conversations with your other half around what you are willing to spend on the wedding and most importantly what you can afford to spend because these two numbers can often be quite different! Here are some things to do to help you start creating your budget.
Take an honest look at your finances
Look at your finances together and work out how much you can use from savings or how much you can put aside each pay to go towards the wedding. If you know your wedding date then you can work out how much money you will have put aside by the date and this is your total budget. If you haven’t set a date you can work out how much you’re willing to spend on the wedding and work out the date you will have this amount saved by, this way you know if you set the date for after then you will have enough money by the time it rolls around.
Talk to anyone who is also contributing financially
It might be a parent is offering to pay for a certain aspect of the wedding (eg the dress) or they want to contribute to a percentage overall, now is a great time to talk to them and establish what they are gifting. It is also handy to find out if there are any strings attached, they might want to invite a couple of friends in exchange for their gift. You need to work out if you are willing to accept the help along with the strings and it is best to get this sorted at the start of the planning process!
Work out the important parts of the day
Having these three categories makes it easy to say no to more extravagant purchases further down the track if they don’t align with your budget. If you don’t agree on all three it is best to have one each and then a joint one. These three aspects will be different for all couples as everyone has a different image of what they want out of their wedding. For example, we had food, music and photographer as our three most important sections of our budget, my husband couldn’t care less about having a decent photographer (or any actually!) but I wanted magical images for our wall. He wanted to have amazing food so when it came time to choose the menu he happily went with the more expensive venison option for our mains. And we both agreed on music! Everything else we had to compromise on if we needed to.
Start putting together your budget
This is where the fun begins, and it can be quite hard because example budgets online might not fit into what your dream wedding would be. They can also differ depending on where your wedding will be and your requirements. Start with writing down everything that will have a cost to it from the obvious items such as venue and catering to the smaller details like clothing alterations and wait staff. Put all of these into a spreadsheet as this is the easiest format for looking at figures and having accurate totals.
Pop in what you are willing to spend for your three important aspects, then add in your marriage licence costs and celebrant as these are the two things that you actually MUST have to get officially married. From here, put in either the cost of items from quotes you have sourced or you can estimate for each section.
Tweak it until it sits right!
Once everything has been plugged into the spreadsheet have a look at the total and try not to faint! more often than not this number is a lot higher than what you were expecting and that’s because all of the little things truly do add up. If this figure does not sit well with you and your partner just tweak your budget. This is where you can look at everything individually and decide which aspects of the day you can save on, what parts need to stay and the certain sections that can go altogether. Remember every wedding is different, every couple is different and you need to have the day that you both want, not someone else.
Add in the actual costs
The grand total for your budget should never change, this way you won’t spend more than you can afford or what you actually want to. However the sections within the budget and the money allocated to them might go up or down depending on where else you can save money and areas you can compromise on. For example, you might decide you don’t actually need to hire transport to the venue because of the way your ceremony area is set up so no one will see you and you don’t feel this is important to your day. You can then allocate this money to somewhere else or you can downsize your entire budget and end up spending less than you thought.
When you lock in costs with vendors, pay deposits and make purchases don’t forget to add this into your budget so you know how much you have spent already. In your budget column you can change your budget estimate to be the actual cost as quoted. next to this column you will want to creat and spent column where you can put all of the costs already paid for such as deposits and split payments. It will make it easier to see where you are sitting financially as you get closer to the big day.
TIP: Although a lot of vendors will require a deposit at the time of booking and final payment due the week of, you can pay off your balance sooner than this if you want to. It will mean ticking more off your payment list and you won’t use the money for anything extra. You can also discuss with them a payment plan if this works better for you!
Don’t over spend on your allocated amount
Once you have your specific budget for each area don’t go over this amount, be super strict on this! If you do go over even by a little amount it will keep adding up until you realise you have overspent on the entire wedding by a lot more than you want to. You can however save money elsewhere to make up for the slight overspending just make sure you actually do this. Change it in your spreadsheet immediately, say you need to save $50 somewhere because you overspent on floral arrangements, and you decide to save it on your stationery, take it off the amount you have allocated for stationery straight away so you don’t forget.
Have contingency money in your budget
This is extra money that can be tapped into in case of emergencies. And I mean proper emergencies! Bar tabs that run over, contributions from relatives that don’t eventuate, groomsman pants that get left behind, these sorts of emergencies. Something always comes up so having this money set aside means that you won’t need to stress about finding a little bit extra to cover the cost.
The key things to remember is communication with your partner about costs and the budget and not getting caught up in the whirlwind of wedding planning! You don’t want to get halfway in and realise the wedding you are planning isn’t one that you and your partner actually want!
Enjoy and as usual, any questions just flick me an email!
Ash xx