What’s In A Budget?

What’s In A Budget?

March 13th, 2007 @ 2:23 pm by Mrs. Emerald
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Crap, at this point, I’m honestly not quite sure! Yes, yes, there are the obvious costs that are directly pertinent to your wedding which are pretty cut and dry… but then there are other costs that I consider to be in the “gray” area. The reason this even concerns me is the fact that I’m trying to be very meticulous about our wedding spending, and (almost) everything is going down on my budget spreadsheet. BUT for example, what about:

- The multiple pairs of final sale shoes that I can’t return (oops , but I think I’m done with the shoe department now!)
- The makeup I’m planning to buy but will certainly use before and after the wedding (I’m doin’ my own makeup)
- Facials, haircuts, highlights, eyebrows, misc. waxing, etc? Would I be getting all these treatments otherwise?
- Do wedding rings count as part of the “wedding” budget, even though you will be wearing them forever (I would hope, hehe)
- What about the honeymoon? Which spreadsheet does that go on?
- Pre-marital counseling?

You see what I mean? Gray area! So what is/is NOT going towards your bottom line?

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8 Responses to “What’s In A Budget?”

Guest

everything you listed went on my wedding budget. i just wanted to account for everything, rather than have anything pop up as a last-minute necessary expense. that way, i have saved for it, rather than having to figure out some way to pay for it.

3/13/07 @ 2:53 pm (reply)

Guest

Laura

I’m not sure what is on the budget anymore as well. There are so many grey areas!!! What about the new outfits I bought for my bridal shower? Or those fun new ink pens I’m using on the invitations…I’m going to use those later.

3/13/07 @ 3:02 pm (reply)

Guest

Laura S

Our official wedding budget is what’s being covered by my parents and my grandmother. The “unofficial” budget is what’s coming out of my pocket and my fiance’s pocket, and those items are limited to what we can afford out of our regular paycheques without going into any debt. By that criteria, none of the above items are included in our wedding budget. But if we can’t afford to pay for them outright, we’re not getting them (with the possible exception of the wedding rings, but I’m pretty sure we can pay for those with no debt too.)

My wedding is still 17 months away so I decided to spread out my expenses on the little stuff and spend about $100 each month on wedding purchases. That way I can put in almost $2000 and I won’t even notice the money being gone because it’s in small increments. I already bought my wedding shoes ($80) and some thank you notes and place cards ($44).

Pre-marital counselling - we’re considering shelling out for that ourselves but we may just find some free lists of topics to discuss online and then just make sure we talk about those things and make sure we’re seeing eye-to-eye, rather than paying someone to sit and listen to us have the same discussion while they watch from the sidelines.

3/13/07 @ 3:23 pm (reply)

Guest

thistleorchid

While they seem like grey areas, it’s important to think about what your intention is for them is. If you bought it *for* the wedding, then it’s on the budget, even if you use it again someday. You wouldn’t consider your dress to not go on the budget, but maybe it’ll be used again someday by a daughter. If you really can say you would have bought it anyway, then let it go as part of the rest of your budget (ie dress for shower goes into the clothing budget for the year, or a splash budget you have set up for “extras” like dinner out or movies). As for honeymoon, for us that’s going into our travel budget for the year (we rolled over last year’s travel budget and didn’t take a big vacation so that we could add more to the kitty for this year’s vacation budget - it helps that FI got a raise and we could up our budgets a little in every arena).

3/13/07 @ 4:03 pm (reply)

Guest

Chrissie

We are v. lucky in that my parents gifted us some $ for the wedding. As a result, we have two different budgets, I guess. There are some things that I am not using that money towards. So there is the master budget, and then the other one. I don’t want them paying for my shoes (which are work-appropriate), earrings, bridal party gifts, etc. Oh, and we are having our rings be our gift to each other.

3/13/07 @ 4:09 pm (reply)

Guest

Miss Mouse

I have put only those things that I am buying/doing *for* the wedding on my budget. So, even though I will probably wear some of the clothes again that I will buy for showers, rehearsal dinner and day-after brunch, they go on the budget. I am not putting esthetic expenditures on that I would be doing for myself anyway. I am putting things like gel pens for the wishing tree on there even though I also scrapbook and will most definitely use them again.

The only real question on ours was the honeymoon. I put it on there and FI didn’t think it should be. When we first started planning and were looking at how much we thought we would need FI didn’t think that the honeymoon should be included because he didn’t think that either set of parents should pay for or contribute to that. I thought if they really want to know what we will be spending then the honeymoon should be on there - we certainly wouldn’t be going on that trip if it weren’t our honeymoon. It ended up that both sets of parents gave us just a lump sum of money not based on our budget anyway but the honeymoon stayed on regardless.

3/13/07 @ 4:20 pm (reply)

Guest

Mary

Makeup and rings were in the budget. Marriage prep and dance classes were not. Honeymoon was not. Shower and RD outfits are out of my usual spring clothing budget. Really, we just used the budget tool at weddingchannel.com, and subtracted more than we added for line items.

3/13/07 @ 4:25 pm (reply)

Guest

eisor

I agree with hm. Everything you posted went on our budget as well. Our pre-marital counseling was free though, since my dad is a minister. For our wedding bands, we definitely went over budget. But, we felt that was an ok category to go over in.

3/14/07 @ 7:30 pm (reply)