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What is a Budget? A budget is like a road map. Just as you won't start driving to an unfamiliar location without looking at a map, you shouldn't start planning a wedding without a budget. If you want to end up at a specific place... If you want to spend a specific amount of money... you will need a map, and your written budget is the map of your wedding. Creating Your Budget What does a wedding cost? Quite literally, the sky is the limit. So every bride needs to understand that there always will be some brides who can spend more money on their weddings than others. Fortunately, how much money one spends has no relationship to how happy the marriage will be or even how long it will last. The truth is, the amount of money that is spent doesn't even have an effect on the beauty of the wedding or the way the guests feel about being there. Weddings can be beautiful and meaningful on very limited budgets. Determining what a wedding costs requires a great deal of research. If the bride is going to work with a bridal consultant, this already has been done for her, and the consultant usually can give her a budget form listing the appropriate ranges of prices for every item on a typical wedding budget. This gives the bride enough background information to determine how much she wants to spend on that item. Deciding to spend $150 on a five-piece band without knowing that the five-piece bands in town charge $1,500 will lead to frustration when she can't find a band on her budget. When there is no bridal consultant, the bride needs to get on the phone and call about three vendors in each category on her budget to determine a range of prices for each category. While we are discussing costs, it is important to know that weddings should be budgeted per person. The easiest way to keep your budget accurate is to control the number of people who will attend. If you send out 100 invitations, you are inviting nearly 200 guests since most invitations are sent to a couple. (Be careful here. If you tell the stationer your people count instead of your invitation count, you will have too many invitations.) Everyone understands that food is ordered per person; what they don't realize is that for every 10 people at a sit-down dinner, there will be another table that has a tablecloth, napkins, a centrepiece and maybe even chair covers. (If you assign only eight people to a table that seats 10, you have increased the price of the flowers and linen and maybe even the wait staff by 20 percent!) If you have 100 to 130 guests, a four-piece band will probably be fine, but if your group is larger than that, you will need an additional musician. What needs to be included in the budget? Everything that is specifically "wedding" needs to be included in your wedding budget. That means everything that you would not be purchasing if you weren't getting married. This includes your gown, veil, makeup, shoes, slip, alterations, invitations and postage, food, ceremony music, band or disc jockey, wedding bands, bridesmaid and groomsmen gifts, limousine, photography and videography, flowers, and linen. You also will want to offer food to those vendors who stay throughout the event (the band, photographer and videographer), and this should be in the budget as well. When the bride and groom are paying for the wedding themselves, they may wish to include the engagement ring and honeymoon since everything will come out of the same. Where is the money coming from? There are some very specific steps in creating your budget. You will need to know who is paying for the event. While that sounds like a simple question, today the money for a wedding can come from a variety of sources. The bride's family may pay for all of it, or just a part; the bride and groom may choose to pay for the whole wedding, or just certain items, and sometimes even the groom's family contributes to the event. Occasionally a bride will tell me her gown was a gift from a grandmother or special aunt, so it is not really part of the wedding budget. How much do you have to spend? Once you know who is paying for the wedding, the next question is how much money do you actually have to spend on the event? See 'Budgeting' P.# Con't from P.# Ideally, you will have all the money in one place, like one chequing account or one credit card, so only one person is "in control". This way you can be sure that deposits are paid on time, and there is a cancelled cheque or statement for your records. Whether you are able to arrange this or not, and most people are not, keeping good records is essential to your budgeting. Sharpen your pencil, take out your calculator and get started! Sticking to Your Budget Writing it down The most important thing to know about your wedding budget is that it needs to be written down. No one is capable of remembering everything on it, and how much you have paid for each item. I normally recommend that you use a sheet of notebook paper that is divided into four columns. The one on the left is the widest, and it lists all the things that you plan to purchase for the wedding. The next column to the right lists what you plan to spend on this item; next is the quotes you received, and the fourth column indicates what you actually contracted to spend on that item. As you move through the planning process, you will need a good eraser as you change your mind and find you are spending more or less on one category than you originally planned to spend. A great copy of a wedding budget worksheet can be located in my book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Budgeting For Your Wedding, pages 162 to 166. This budget worksheet lists everything you could possibly purchase for your wedding. You won't need it all, but if everything is listed, you won't forget anything. Determining Your Priorities Nearly everything you will see in the planning of your wedding is beautiful and romantic, and most of us want it all. That's the other reason writing down your budget is so important. The reality is that we have to prioritize the purchases for this event. Everything cannot be the most important thing. Some things have to be less important to you. Determine those three to five items that are the most important to you, and plan to spend the most money getting exactly what you want in those areas. Then divide the remaining monies between the remaining items in an equitable manner. If you think the music makes the wedding fun, you'll want to put the largest chunk of your money into getting the band you want, even if they charge a little more than you had planned to spend. You can take that money from the invitations if they are less important to you. As long as you keep writing down what you have spent and subtracting this amount from the total, you won't go over budget. Budgeting Tips I am always asked for money-saving tips, and these may surprise you... 1. Be a little ruthless with your guest list. Every single friend should not expect to bring a guest or an escort. You should not have to have strangers at your wedding. Naturally, if someone is married or engaged, it is necessary to invite their other half, but I actually have friends who met the person they married while attending a wedding solo. You want your friends to have a good time, but when you total the dollars this just may not be possible! 2. Brides always are surprised to learn that a beer and wine reception is actually more expensive than an open bar. The beer and wine cost less per serving, but so much more of it is consumed that you end up spending much more than you planned. Consider an open bar on consumption if you believed you are inviting guests who drink very little. If you think your crowd will consume too much, ask for a liquor package and you may find that you can lock in your beverage total much more reasonably than you expected. 3. Buffet dinner receptions and seated dinner receptions do not differ in cost. The money is just divided differently. In one, you have much more money in food, while in the other, the portions are equal, and the money goes into staff to serve. However, both make lovely receptions.
