How to Create A Wedding Budget For Richer, For Poorer?

Your wedding day is likely to be one of the biggest celebrations of your life. It’s a day you want to look back on and smile at all the good memories for years to come. While they can be fun, weddings can also be expensive.

From the engagement ring to the dress to the food and drink at the reception, the cost of a wedding can escalate quickly. That’s why the bride and the groom and their parents if they are sharing in the costs, should commit to setting and sticking to a budget for the wedding.

According to the Knot the average cost of a wedding in 2021 was $28,000. That’s the total from engagement ring through the end of the reception. That number does not include the cost of the honeymoon. Whether you want to spend less than that or you are okay spending more it is still a good idea to create a wedding budget. Building a budget gives you a framework that eliminates surprises after the honeymoon when the bills are all tallied up.

How Do You Begin To Create a Wedding Budget?

Before you can put together a budget you have to decide what parts of the wedding and the celebration are the most important to you. That’s how you can get to the place where you can calculate spending more in one area and less in another. And before all this you, of course need to save money, that you will use to cover the wedding costs.

Now, let’s go back to the wedding planning. Maybe a big and flashy diamond is important to you. Maybe in order to say yes to the dress, it has to have a designer label inside. Maybe your Mom refuses to eat buffet food and is insisting on a plated dinner. You can create three columns ranking different parts of the process as “most important”, kind of important” and “least important”. That will help you allocate resources when you create a wedding budget.

How Much Money Will You Spend?

Everyone who is involved in sharing the costs of the wedding needs to decide how much they can comfortably spend. Total up the contributions and then back down a bit to find the top line for your wedding budget. It’s a good idea while creating a budget to leave a cushion for unexpected expenses. Or to fund a honeymoon.

Ideally, the money to pay for the wedding is coming out of some sort of savings and is not heavily dependent on each paycheck from engagement through reception.

Now that you have a real number to work with it’s time to sort your priorities. Take a look at the traditional big-ticket items like reception food, reception beverages, ring, and dress and see where they rank on your personal scale of importance. This is where you start to see where you want to spend and where you want to save.

Download our wedding budget spreadsheet and estimate your expenses easily. Here´s the free Excel (xlsx) template:

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Should We Hire a Wedding Planner?

After you create a wedding budget you may want to hire a wedding planner to help you stick to it. While a wedding planner is an extra cost associated with the wedding, it is also a strategy to keep spending in line. Once you tell a wedding planner the dollar amount you intend to spend on the reception venue, the planner can eliminate options that are out of your price range. A wedding planner will have the experience to know the average costs of things in your market like flowers and wedding cakes. A wedding planner may also have preferred vendor partners that will discount or bundle costs.

What Do We Include When We Create a Wedding Budget?

Whether you are getting married on horseback on your family farm or going full-out Kardashian with an epic party, there will be costs associated with the wedding. Here are some of the things to include in your wedding budget:

The Ring

The majority of couples choose an engagement ring as a symbol to the world that they are going to be married. A 3-carat pear-shaped diamond set in platinum is going to cost a lot more than the ring the prospective groom had handed down to him by his grandmother. The budget for the ring should be a comfortable starting point for the process.

Guest list

Some couples decide they want to invite everyone they have known since elementary school to the wedding and others decide on more intimate ceremonies with family members and only the closest friends on hand.

The Knot reports that the average guest list in 2021 was 105 people. The number of guests is so important because it determines the size of the venue needed for the wedding and for the reception. Also, many caterers tabulate the cost of the food on a per-person basis and you will usually pay for alcoholic beverages by the drink.

Guest lists can get sticky because the parents of the bride and the groom will also have their own ideas about who should be invited. This is the time to really focus on your vision for your wedding. Controlling the guest list often requires a lot of compromises.

The Venue

If you are getting married in your home church it might not be “free”. Even if you don’t pay a rental fee for it you might have to factor in the costs of cleaning it or using a staff member as a coordinator the day of the wedding. Even if the church doesn’t charge, you may want to consider making a donation.

You may decide you want to use a public space like a beach or a park as the site of the ceremony. Investigate whether or not you need permission and if you can ensure the field or ocean pavilion won’t be double-booked at the wedding time. Some municipalities will charge a rental fee for public locations and require the purchase of a permit in advance.

Some couples choose to rent one venue that will serve as the site for both the wedding and reception. That could mean using the gardens for the ceremony and moving into a ballroom for dinner. The venue might see that as one charge or two.

Find out from your venue what you’re renting and what they’re providing. If you’re getting married in your backyard beside the pool you’ll need to rent everything from chairs to tables to tents. A hotel is likely to have all the furniture but may require you to rent their linens.

The Officiant

When you create a wedding budget factor in payment for the officiant. The person you choose to oversee the ceremony may charge a fee for the service, might request a personal love offering from you or suggest a donation.

Invitations

Invitations set the tone for the ceremony and reception as formal, informal or somewhere in-between. You can order them from an elegant paperie or you can purchase your own decorative paper and run them through your home printer. When you create a wedding budget remember that layered cards with lots of enclosures are heavier and cost more to mail than standard letters.

Invitations that fit in square envelopes also cost more to mail. At 55 cents each, budget in how many stamps you are putting inside the invitation on the RSVP cards. The most budget-friendly invitations fit inside standard A2 envelopes and direct guests to an online resource for information about hotels and other arrangements.

The Dress

A wedding dress can be a huge part of the wedding budget. Some brides want a high-end designer dress from a boutique and are willing to spend thousands of dollars to get that.

Consider Borrowing

Other brides shop sample sales and bridal warehouses looking for a bargain. Some will prefer the inventory at a local department store which many include many dresses suitable for a wedding. Others will get married in a cherished family heirloom. When you create a wedding budget factor in what you’re comfortable paying for the wedding dress and don’t forget that the alterations on the dress may come at an extra charge.

Hair and makeup

Many brides want to pamper themselves and their attendants on the wedding day with hair and makeup services. That means budgeting for a hairstylist and/or makeup artist and multiplying the cost by the size of the wedding party. Don’t forget the tip. And if you are going to purchase coordinating robes that say “Bride” and “Bridesmaid” for the hair and makeup session, don’t forget to add those to the budget, too.

Flowers

Flowers make a beautiful statement at every wedding. Whether the bride holds a single sunflower stem in her backyard or a bouquet bursting with fifty white roses at ghe altar, you need to create a wedding budget for flowers. Some couples will choose a full-service florist who will deliver and set-up. Other couples lessen the floral budget by working with the floral department of a local grocery store.

Think Wisely about the Overall Number of Flowers

The number of flowers needed really impacts this part of the budget. Will each attendant have a bouquet? Will all of the groomsmen wear boutonnieres? What about corsages for moms and grandmoms? Petals for the flower girl? Sprays for the end of each pew or row of chairs?

Food and service

Many couples prioritize the reception as the largest piece of the wedding budget and the food you select drives the cost of the reception. A buffet of heavy appetizers usually costs less than a sit-down plated meal. You might select stations for pasta or for carved meats but you’ll also be paying extra for the attendant at the station.

Plan the time of the wedding so that your guests will either be expecting a snack or a full meal, depending on what you decide when you create a wedding budget. Talk to your caterer about the gratuities for the servers at the wedding. Will you pay it as an add-on based on the final total or are you going to be handing out cash at the end of the reception?

Beverages and bartenders

92 percent of couples serve alcoholic beverages at their wedding receptions. When you create a wedding budget decide whether you are going with the more expensive option of an open bar or if you are serving a limited selection of wine and beer. What does your reception venue charge for each drink? Are you allowed to shop at your favorite wholesale club and bring in your own alcohol? How many bartenders will be provided, what does each one of them cost and do they receive tips?

Desserts

Cutting the wedding cake is a pivotal moment in each reception and the options for cake are as varied as each couple. You can create a wedding budget that calls for a multi-tiered confection from a bakery. You could choose to work with a local grocery store to create a custom cake or stack layers of sheet cakes. You can cut one smaller, decorated cake and then plate pieces of other cakes for the guests. You can choose an intricate fondant design of flowers tumbling down six layers of cake or you can purchase a few more live flowers from your floral designer and top the cake with that.

Some couples serve another dessert in addition to the cake or set out a dessert buffet and coffee after the cake is cut. Another popular option is a “Candy Bar” featuring jars full of candies and individual bags for the guests to scoop their favorites into.

Photo and video

Every couple wants to look back on their special day through photos or videos. Your wedding budget should include the costs associated with those professionals, including the amount of time they spend at the wedding or the reception and what it will cost to own the digital images or purchase the prints.

Reception extras

You might create a wedding budget that calls for entertainment at the reception. There can be music from a disc jockey or a band. Maybe a string quartet plays during the cocktail time before the meal begins. Many receptions now feature photo booths and props. But there are some other receptions details to remember when you create a wedding budget.

You may need signs that direct guests to coat check or the dining room or the dance floor. You might need to order numbers for tables if you have assigned seating for your guests. Is the venue providing centerpieces for the tables or do you need to bring them? What about any additional décor? Is the room already perfect or will you have to bring in your own touches like flowers and fairy light? Don’t forget about a guest book and a pen so you’ll have all those special signatures. Will you be sending your guests home with favor from your big day or will you let them know you are making a donation to charity instead?

As the party comes to an end you may want to budget for a “sober up” course of doughnuts or breakfast biscuits and coffee and hot tea. You may want your guests to send you off in a special way with sparklers, glow sticks, confetti, pom poms or even paper airplanes. Those are all props that need to be included in the budget. And will the bride leave the party in her wedding dress or will she change into a brand new outfit?

Conclusion

A wedding can be a simple and intimate affair or it can be a raucous party with guests dancing and singing until the wee hours of the morning. No matter the style, the best way to control wedding expenses is to create a wedding budget. The budget process begins with an honest assessment from all parties involved of how much money there is to spend and how much money they are all comfortable spending. This is where prioritizing comes into play.

Each couple has to evaluate what is the most meaningful to them and deserves the largest part of the budget. One couple may decide that they can’t get married unless the reception includes a lobster dinner so they will budget a large amount of money for the food and choose fewer flowers. Another couple may increase the beverage budget to serve a signature cocktail to all the costs but buy a less expensive cake.

A budget gives you a clear picture of what you want to spend and what you are actually spending in each area. A budget allows you to be flexible and adapt if one category is going to require more money than anticipated. You can easily see where you might pull those resources from.

And best of all creating and executing a wedding budget creates a good financial habit that should carry over into your newly married life.