Weddings are massive events nowadays with brides and grooms spending easily over $50 000 to have a decent, upscale wedding. Usually the price is even more. If you are doing some wedding planning, you cannot start until you have a set budget in place. The worst mistake that you can make is just buying and spending with no budget in mind, because when you get your credit card bill you will be shocked and might not be able to pay it.
The best way to start your wedding budget is to set a realistic amount aside that you could afford to pay off each month and then work out your total wedding budget from there. If you do not use credit cards, you will need to have saved your wedding money away, or get a loan out that you can afford. Once you have worked with your bank and financial advisor to find the most suitable amount you can afford, then you can start allocating your budgets.
Many brides and grooms do not have any idea of what things cost, which is why a wedding planner is a great way to have a spectacular wedding for less, because they know many contractors and suppliers personally who give them great discounts. They can also turn your small budget into something that looks a lot more expensive, simply because they have years of experience in doing this. If you don’t want to use a wedding planner, who usually charges an hourly rate or a 15-20 % commission, then you can get some guide books and quotes from all the necessary areas to see the average price range that you are looking at. You will then have a better idea of what amount of the budget you can set aside for flowers, what portion will go towards décor, how much for entertainment, catering, venue, accommodation, clothing, cake and your rings.
It is very easy to go over budget which is why when you are doing wedding planning, you need to be very careful and start as early as possible so that nothing is left out and if something is, it will be quickly seen and corrected in plenty of time. When looking at the budget you can also make cuts and get discounts where you can, and then use the excess for things you have on a wish list or things that were previously un-planned. For example, if you use a venue and they offer you free linens with your booking, you can use the linens money to get a bigger cake, or put it towards some interesting lighting for the room.
Once you have a good idea of your budget and what you can play with, your wedding planning will soon come together and everything will pretty much fall into place. As long as you stick to your budget and try to do a comprehensive search of all your options to find the cheapest in every part of it, you will not only have a cheap wedding that you can afford, but it will still be as stunning and amazing as if you had thousands more dollars, just due to proper budgeting and searching for discounts.
