Planning Your Wedding Budget

Money

Weddings cost money. Even if you’re only going to get married by a notary public, you have to buy a marriage license and pay the notary a fee. Few couples go that route because most want some kind of ceremony to commemorate their union as man and wife.  Weddings can be very expensive or not so expensive.  Also wedding planning and the cost of a wedding can also quickly get out of hand if you and your bride haven’t agreed to a budget before striking out on your journey to the altar.  But weddings also have financial ramifications for your parents and occasionally for other relatives as well.  This is because traditionally parents of one side or the other pay for certain wedding activities.  A critical aspect of getting married is deciding on how much you want to spend, or can spend, before you spend the first nickel.  You will have to do some research, organization and prioritization to accomplish this well.  But you must do it, regardless, unless you want to start married life heavily in debt or create financial strain for your parents.  And that would be a huge mistake, because marriage already, and under the best of circumstances, requires enough strenuous adjustments for the bride and groom relationally, and adding a pointless debt burden to those adjustments is only asking for trouble.

For assistance in putting your wedding budget together, see our helpful Wedding Budget Planner and Checklist. It will guide you through the various decisions you have to make money-wise and keep track of planned expenditures and actual costs.

Guests

Whom do you want to invite to your wedding to join in the celebration of your union with the bride? Whom does she want to invite? Whom do both of you have to invite so as not to ruffle any family, employer or friendship feathers? The total number of guests has financial implications and so the first decision you must make in this regard is how many total guests will you have. After that number is established, brides and grooms usually go “halvesies” from there. Say, for example, you agree together on a figure of 100 guests, and you and the bride each then invite fifty guests apiece.

It’s easier to make this decision if you’ve already decided on the kind of rehersal dinner and reception you will have. Caterers and party/wedding planners can supply you with a cost “per head” for invitees, depending on and varying widely according to how lavish the rehersal dinner and reception are. There are many options, ranging from the modest to the extravagant.  Once you’ve got that figure you can more easily figure out the optimum “head count” for guests within your budget.  But the two are intertwined, like so many of the elements of the wedding, and you may decide to reduce the expenditure per guest in order to be able to increase the total number of guests you can invite and still remain within your budget. As with everything involved in weddings, there are always trade-offs and compromises attached.