Build Your Budget Before You Start Planning
Building your budget is the first and most important step you can take in wedding planning. It helps you to set realistic guest count expectations and design goals. If you have an extremely tight budget, there may be some pieces of your vision you have to give up, create a DIY option, or possibly find a vendor that meets your overall budget needs but doesn’t come with all of the bells and whistles.
Discuss Budget Expectations
Typical Budget Contributors
Gone are the days of tradition when it comes to wedding planning. With lots of fun vendors and a growing expectation to feed and booze up all of your guests, it has become a team effort to make sure priorities are hit! With that, we see a range of budget contributors now days. This typically include the brides parents, grooms parents, and the couple. We also see some god parents and extended family. Depending on how this has worked in your family in the recent past, that could be a good starting point for guessing who might be a willing contributor for your big day!
How to Approach the conversation
For some couples, they are the first in their family to get married in a long time. They don’t have recent history to look back on and no one has stepped up to say they are contributing. Our usual advice for this is that, while this may be a hard conversation it is much easier to have BEFORE the money is spent. If you think parents or in-laws would like to contribute, approach them about it. Make sure you are in a neutral head space and just ask them what they are willing to contribute towards your wedding. Sometimes it helps to go in with backed research on what the average cost of a wedding is (remember to look this up per person in your area, because a 50 person wedding does not cost the same as a 500 person wedding!)
Options For What Contributing Can Look Like
Remember that contributing can look different for everyone. Sometimes people volunteer to pay for certain vendors, or offer up a certain amount. No matter what the contribution looks like, remember that noone is obligated to contribute and every penny helps to get you closer to your goal!
What is Included in Your Budget
This is also something I talk through with couples from the very start. Sometimes they don’t want to put a limit on the cost of their dress, wedding bands or honeymoon because that will come from somewhere separate. Sometimes a groom has already bought a tux from being in other events and doesn’t feel the need to add one in the budget. Sometimes a vendor friend has offered a service to you as a gift for your wedding day. But we always try to include:
- Venues
- Paper Goods
- Hair & Makeup
- Photo & Video
- Entertainment for ceremony & reception
- Caterers & Bar staff
- Bartenders & Alcohol
- Florals
- Linens & rentals
- Officiant
- Transportation for guests & the couple
- Tips
- A small misc account for something special
Research Average Vendor Costs & Rank Vendors By Priority
Local Vendor Costs
All of the nationwide vendor costs you see are extremely inaccurate. Not only that, many vendors costs are affected by your head count, so these averages are not accurate! Always research local vendors costs to set realistic budgets and expectations for the type of event you can host.
Vendor Ranking Process
Rank your vendors in order of importance to you as a couple! If you can’t live without a dance floor we need to know that from the very start. If video is just a way to see your favorite people down the road but you don’t care about drone footage or voiceovers, that may be a lesser priority for you! All of these things help to build a realistic budget for your wedding day!
Ask Your Vendors for Help + Advice
Vendor Referrals
Ask your vendors for help! I don’t care what vendor you are working with, they will have a preferred list if they are doing their job right. It will include a group of people they work well with and that they most likely know a budget estimate for! No matter what package our brides book with us, we are always able to tell brides a vendor that may fit their budget range and what sacrifices they may have to make to hit it.
Update Your Budget Regularly
Keep Your Team on Track
There is no way to stay on track and in budget if your budget isn’t updated regularly! Always make sure to keep it up to date and refer back to it regularly while sourcing and booking vendors to make sure you host the wedding of your dreams, without going into unnecessary debt!
