Budget

Before you get too ahead of yourself in planning your wedding, you should first sit down with your fiance and discuss what you both want in your wedding. After you determine what you want then you can start discussing your budget. Obviously, if you are going to pay for everything yourself and only have a few thousand dollars in the bank you probably aren’t going to be able to invite 500 guests and have a feast that rivals Thanksgiving. But it is important to keep in mind what you both want and what you’d be willing to give up or compromise on to stay within your budget. It is really important right away to decide at least, in the ballpark, of how much money you want to spend. By talking about money up front first you should hopefully be able to avoid some hard times in the future when you actually start placing deposits and start purchasing items.

Even if you are going to get help from either your parents or your fiance’s it is still important to discuss with each other your wedding plans based upon a budget. This is not only important for the wedding planning itself but it can be a real insight into how each of you view money. If you are getting outside help, you should discuss your wedding plans and budget with whoever is going to be helping you financially.

Keep in mind that your budget doesn’t have to be an accurate measure of how much you plan to spend where and on what. You both have to understand that on some items you will probably spend more and on others you will probably spend less. Also, once you start actually putting pieces of your wedding together you might change your mind about a lot of things you both wanted. The budget is just meant to guide you and to make sure you don’t get in over your head.

Budget Outline

Depending where you live items will cost more or less than what is listed below but this is a good outline of what the average wedding costs. The prices below only show a rough estimate of how much you should expect to spend depending on if you use tips to save money or if you want higher end products. Also, prices could change depending on the size of your wedding party and the number of guests you invite. It also lists items they may have slipped your mind to think of when making your own budget.

Total $25,925