How to Start a Wedding Budget

You're engaged! Now it is time planning a wedding of your dreams, but before you start picking out the florists, interviewing the caterers or even purchasing the dress, you need to sit down and create a wedding budget. A wedding budget will give you a breakdown of how much you can spend on the food, the decorations and of course, the dress.

Who is Paying?

While tradition states the parents of the bride pay for the wedding, in today’s economy that is not always the case. Sit down with parents of both the bride and groom and find out exactly who is paying and how much they are paying. Get specific amounts rather than just a ballpark figure.

The average wedding costs $25,000; therefore, if the parents are not covering the entire average, the couple needs to sit down and decide how much they can afford to pay toward the wedding themselves.

What do You Really Need?
Sure you want doves to fly away at the wedding after you exchange the vows, but do you really need that? Make a list of the bare essentials for the wedding. These are the things you absolutely need in order for the wedding to happen.

Some examples of must-haves at a wedding are a venue (or place to get married), officiant, wedding dress and tuxedo.

What is Most Important?

Some couples have certain aspects of the wedding that are more important to them than others. Ask yourself and your groom what items are “musts” in the wedding. Only select two or three musts such as a gorgeous wedding dress, a certain caterer or a specific venue. Sit down with the groom and create the must list, but be realistic.

Set Limits on Items

Give the most money to the “musts” of the wedding or reserve enough funds to be flexible with them. The rest of the items in the wedding need to have some sort of monetary amount listed by them so that while shopping, you are aware of just how much you can spend on each item.

Not sure how to prioritize? Use Crafty Brides Wedding Planning Questionnaire to prioritize.