Happy Valentines! In today’s post I am outlining a couple of ways on how to set a wedding budget. Pinterest weddings are seriously the best and worst thing EVER. I mean they are beautiful and it just shows you all these ideas but also exposes you to so much! Meaning that AMAZING flower wall, the huge lush centerpieces, the extravagant wedding gowns, and super detailed ceremony decor will be beautiful to look at but also will cost a pretty shiny dime!

So this is where your wedding budget comes in! As a new bride to be, it can be so overwhelming to set a “number” because how can you, when you have no idea what anything costs? So there are definitely a couple of ways to figure out how to figure out how to set this budget and different conversations you need to have before you can say, our wedding will cost no more than “25K”.

• RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH: Seriously! I actually found this amazing chart from The Knot that gives you a breakdown on the average wedding cost depending on city/state. So I’ll warn you when I first saw that number I was like uh WHOA. Then, I sort of stepped back and changed the perspective of even though this is just an average, is this the reality?! That’s when I started emailing several venues as my starting point to get “ideas” at what price ranges existed in what I was interested. So basically this was the approach I took to set our budget. For instance I researched what’s the average wedding dress cost and once I found out what it was I knew I was willing and could afford to pay a little more then I set my “number”. I did this for most of my vendors and went from there.
• Identify who is paying: This will play a huge factor in setting that number. There is nothing worse than having made assumptions/expectations that someone is going to contribute when they had no plans to. So sit down with whether it’s yours or fiances family and have that “talk” better early than later. Also make sure to have this conversation with your fiance. Maybe both of you are in a place financially where you can cover the majority of the costs, etc, this will help you have the conversation with your families and setting expectations early on.
• Make a non-negotiable list: Meaning write a list of 3-5 items that are non negotiable for you and your fiancé, these are must haves or you need the best of the best vendors out there. This can be hard because once you start planning you of course want the best of the best for everything but think about it cost wise. One of our top non-negotiables was our caterer, we knew we wanted a plated dinner instead of a buffet and we want an amazing meal that our guests will continue to talk about. My fiancé and love food so this was a given for us. Another non-negotiable was video/photography, I didn’t necessarily want to “skimp” on this because after all said is done, besides the memories, this is the only thing you will have left. We knew we wanted to invest in a great team but with such a great market, cost can be all over the place, so we just had to be realistic with our budget.

Check out a couple of the following resources I found to help you create and stay on track with your budget:

This awesome tool gives you the “Average wedding cost by Zip Code”–How neat is that?

The Knot’s Wedding Budget Calculator–Fun fact, there is an app for this as well.

Wedding Wire Budget Planner–Great way to stay on track with your payments towards your wedding.

*Last tidbit, Google Sheets! I used google sheets to create my budget spreadsheet. I am not always in front of a computer when I make a payment towards something, so I have the app on my phone to quickly update my spreadsheet and then it automatically syncs for whenever I am next at my computer.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks post! If you follow me on Instagram I posted on my IG Stories that I attended Bridal wars this past Sunday, next week I will be writing all about my experience and all the details so that you can also check it out! Til next time!