Weddingbee Blog

I know there are a lot of posts here on post-wedding budget breakdowns, but I haven’t seen too many on how to make your budget in the first place. I’m hardly an expert and I’m not going to tell you how to make your budget, but I will tell you how I came up with ours.

Budgeting for the wedding was obviously going to fall in my lap, as I budget our income on a regular basis. Mr. Cannon pretty much leaves all our financial planning up to me since I enjoy it and am pretty good at it. One of my undergrad majors was finance, and I’m currently working on my master’s in accounting. (Have I mentioned yet that I’m wedding planning, blogging about wedding planning, working full time, and working part time on my master’s while chasing a toddler? I like to keep busy!)

Anyway, your budget will be mostly dependent on where you are and what you want. We live in a pretty cheap part of the country to have a wedding. Of course, how cheap really depends on what we want out of the wedding. We want it to be fairly small and casual, which goes a long way in saving money. There are two major considerations when planning your budget—how much you have available to spend and how much it’s going to cost.

When determining how much you want to spend, you need to consider who will be contributing to your wedding and whether you want to use only available cash or get into loans or credit-card debt for the wedding. I won’t give any lectures on how you shouldn’t go into debt for your wedding, because everyone has heard it before. If you’re going to do it, you will. That’s your business. We are using straight cash. No additional debt for us. We both felt that our parents would contribute to the wedding but didn’t feel comfortable initiating that conversation, so I budgeted as if we were paying for the whole thing. We will just consider any money from our parents as a sort of bonus that will save us money. We are not increasing our budget with any parental contributions. They will just leave us with more money in our pockets.

The toughest part is figuring how much things are going to cost. The best way to do that is pure research. I set up an Excel sheet with different categories: Ceremony Location, Officiant, Reception Location, Catering Food, Catering Bar, Decorations, Cake/Dessert, Music/Entertainment, Clothes, Rings, Paper Goods (Invitations, Programs), Photography, Rental Stuff (Table Linens, etc.), Wedding Party Gifts, Rehearsal Dinner. Obviously, if you have other considerations, you would include them (e.g., cinematography, flowers, etc.). Then start looking around at average costs. If you’re pretty sure you’re going to go with certain vendors, use them as a basis for costs. Look at what other brides have spent. The internet is such a great tool to research wedding budgets. The biggest thing is being realistic. If you set an impossibly low budget, you’re only going to be disappointed in yourself and your budget will end up meaning nothing. And a little tip—I ALWAYS over-budget. Little unexpected costs always creep in, and if you over-budget you’ll be ready for them.

Also, remember—your budget is a living document. If you need to change something, it’s OK. I knew we were coming in under in quite a few areas, which is why I felt comfortable going so far over budget with our photography.

I know I didn’t put anything groundbreaking in here, but hopefully this helps someone out there. How did you come up with your budget?

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