Wedding Budget Advice

I have gone to a few wedding planning budget tools online and have been shocked at the results when I put in my ACTUAL wedding dollars spent for my ACTUAL number of wedding guests. These national wedding websites are great in many ways but when it comes to wedding budgets they leave a lot to be desired. My critique of most wedding budget advice and budget checklists include:

budgets don't reflect the costs in my city
budgets don't reflect my values on what is important to me
budgets don't reflect my unique contributions to the wedding (in my case we ended up having the entire wedding and reception in my church which, as a member, was free (minus the $75 janitor fee.)
budgets don't tell you what you will get for the dollar amount (this is why a lot of weddings go over budget... your alloted 3% of the budget to invitations doesn't really tell you if you'll have to make invitations on your computer or can afford really attractive wedding invitations that reflect your theme or style

Wedding budgets are also difficult because, by their very nature, weddings are planned by couples who have never had a wedding (with obvious exceptions like second time marrieds but even then weddings tend to be smaller if they even have a wedding.) Then add in the fact that regional prices play a huge role in what money can buy you, a couples own quirks - family size, culture, and the emotional baggage everyone brings to the wedding planning table, and you're set up for a lot of stress!

Deprivation Model of Wedding Budgets

One important element of wedding budget advice I hate is what I call the DEPRIVATION model. The idea is that to be on a budget you must chose things that you wouldn't normally think of or want for your wedding. To "have the wedding of your dreams" on a budget , they say, you should really have a Friday or Sunday wedding, have an afternoon wedding or spend a lot of time on "DIY" wedding elements to save money. This advice can be quite unhelpful if there is no way you're going to make people take time off work to travel for a Friday wedding (or a Sunday wedding when they would have to travel on a Monday.) It also means you have to take more time off work yourself and in the case of DIY projects you could spend a lot more TIME then you have doing things that for a few dollars take no time. And if weddings to you are a big dancing party you would not likely get the same feel at a 2pm afternoon wedding as you would an evening wedding!

So we will walk you through our recommendations on setting a wedding budget and then give you some creative ways to think about weddings that do NOT INVOLVE DEPRIVING YOURSELF of this big "Cinderella day."

Step one in creating a wedding budget

The place we suggest starting with is to gather data and gather stories. What you need is a very rough guide to what money will get you in the various wedding categories in your area since regional differences are huge when it comes to the price of things. There is rarely the range of what you can spend and what you get for the money in wedding advice land. Without this data you or your parents notions of propriety, etiquette and wedding expectations can smack up against the cost of weddings today.

Find out the money your friends spent on their weddings, or your parents can ask their friends how much their adult childrens weddings cost and what they got for their money. Ask around on local bridal message boards to ask what peoples budgets are and where they are putting their money. This will give you a good sense of what you COULD pay per person for food in your area as well as prices of other big elements of your local wedding. In some cities $50/person will give you gourmet steaks and a 5 course meal while other cities you are going to get pretty low end food for that rate. In some towns $1,000 is a reasonable amount to pay a photographer and in other areas you would get laughed at for spending that little on wedding photography. Other brides and parents have wisdom to share with you!! Local and national wedding websites can not compare to their input, on the ground, in real settings (not magazine quality perfect weddings.)

We've all heard of the parents who think long and hard and come up with a dollar amount they'll spend. When the wedding planning begins they are horrified at the costs of things and realize what THEY want as the parent of the bride or groom is going to cost a lot more than they realized! On the flip side you may see how outrageous certain things are and quickly put family to use - an aunt who can make a wedding cake ($400 savings, perhaps), and uncle who is actually really good at photography ($1,000-$5,000 savings). In other words, sometimes just seeing the price of an item will immediately change your value around its importance. This in turn will make you freak out just a little bit less when you tally up the money you have for the wedding budget, knowing areas that you've already decided you don't have to allot money towards.

This data is important for the next step which is figuring out how much money is available.

Step three in creating a wedding budget

Next you want to figure out how much money is potentially available in your own budget and in your parents budget if they're willing to contribute. For many of us this number is not a set in stone amount of money but more of a ballpark or desired amount of money to spend. This number may change radically if you haven't either done your homework on costs in your region or if you haven't assessed what you REALLY want out of your wedding and the "cost" of your wants and needs. This is why the steps above will give you a much more concrete discussion and give your parents a much needed awakening that while they had a very high end wedding for $3,000 (30 years ago), you are going to need ten times that amount for a fairly modest wedding.

Step four in creating a wedding budget

Here's where money meets the road. What do you want in your wedding? What are your values and priorities? We have a information and a conversation design to help start these important discussions with your fiance. There are many traps involved in priority setting with your fiance, especially if that person is not very interested in the wedding. Take Back Your Wedding, will help spur some conversations and prodding to ensure the lines of communication and expectations are set early on before the fighting and stress can even begin.

Example of a wedding budget approach

It's common to hear of brides who only have $5,000 to spend on their wedding. Here is what we recommend.

Priority One: do you have a "must have" at your wedding? This is either going to be some logistical thing or it's going to be about having a certain guest list size. Either way, if this is your non-negotiable, you can either work backwards in your wedding budget from the cost of that "must have", or work the opposite - find everything else as cheaply as you can so you can splurge with the rest of the money on that "must have."

One helpful way to think about weddings is there is NOTHING REQUIRED but what you "think" is required. The sky is the limit. If you are feeling deprived with such a small budget, think about what you absolutely love. Maybe the two of you absolutely LOVE ice cream. Find the most expensive, most delicious ice cream possible and design your wedding around that! Yes, it may have to be in the afternoon, at a park, no fancy invitations, no wedding favors, no limo, a dress that fits a more casual atmosphere, but if you love ice cream and you are thrilled at the idea of having this huge, unique splurge, all those other things will not feel nearly so important to your wedding day. Or maybe you have an 8 or 9pm wedding, way past having to serve anything but this fancy ice cream (and maybe wedding cake!).

A way to think about your wedding budget is like this. Imagine you are in your wedding dress, at your wedding reception, eating the most delicious steak, fish, pasta or whatever food you love. All the "stuff" is perfect - the right band, the best photographer, gorgeous wedding reception location. But now you look up from your meal and you don't see some people who are important to you. You stop and realize that a lot of people that you value and wish to see aren't there. Do you think to yourself, "oh well, I'll show them the photos later!" or do you think, "wow, all this stuff isn't nearly as attractive right now since I am not able to share it with the people who really matter to me."

There is no right or wrong answer. But the tension almost always lies in the number of guests, money available, and what you can buy to create the wedding of your dreams. Fewer people releases more money for more beauty. But is beauty about the stuff or the people?

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