Creating a budget for your wedding is a MUST DO and something our L Prestigious Team sees many couples struggling with.
Whether you are planning a New York wedding or a wedding anywhere else around the world, the fundamentals are all the same. Here are some basics of effective wedding budgeting to help navigate wedding planning.
What Do You Want?
Prioritizing what parts of your wedding are important to each of you is an essential first step. You might each have an idea of what is important to you – but have you talked about what you as a newly engaged couple want for your wedding? For one of you, it might be your wedding attire, and for the other amazing music.
Your first couple’s exercise might be for each of you to make a list of the top five things for you. We’d be willing to be that your lists will not be the same.
That means your second couple’s exercise will probably be compromising! Talk about the list and merge the two lists into top-five items for you as a couple and budget for them accordingly.
1+1+1+1 = $$$
One reality for every wedding planner and every couple is that the more wedding guests you have, the more the budget grows. Some couples only look at the catering cost per person and base their guest list on that.
Realistically, the food and beverage portion of your wedding make up 48-52% of your wedding budget. This depends on how far up your list of priorities this item falls.
But, each guest also accounts for a portion of your wedding cake. Each guest, couple, or family also adds another save the date, invitation, program, and menu card. Every 8-10 guests add another linen, place setting, centerpiece, and the list goes on.
Creating a working budget and diving straight into making a guest list is absolutely the next step.
Reasonable Expectations
Our L Prestigious Events team once heard a seasoned wedding planner label the other fifty percent of the wedding as ‘Reasonable Expectations.’ That fifty percent might break down into fourteen or fifteen different areas.
While you’ve budgeted for the important areas for each of you, sometimes things can get a little out of hand. As wedding planners, we can work with you on budgeting and connect you with the top wedding professionals for your budget. However, you can still break your budget by adding items that you hadn’t initially accounted for.
Going a little over budget in one or two areas might be okay, but going over budget in too many areas really blows the budget. So, you have to have reasonable expectations about what is realistic for you.
Start wedding planning by prioritizing what is important to you as a couple. Follow that by creating a working budget that reflects those priorities. Having a guest list that works for your budget are all the first steps to low-stress wedding planning.
Our L Prestigious Events team is here to walk you through that planning process and help you create the wedding of your dreams. We can’t wait to talk with you about your vision for your wedding and how we can help the vision become a reality.