Wedding Budget

What is the first thing to do when planning a wedding??? No, it's not pick out the colors, although that would be the most fun... Who doesn't love swooning over a great color palette?? No, the first thing you have to do is figure out the budget. Ugh. Did I just say that?? I did, but it's because I had to. If you want your event planning to go smoothly you have to start at the beginning. A budget is kind of like coloring. When you open a coloring book and start to color, it always looks best if you first outline. The budget is that outline. Then the rest of the picture will look better as you fill it in if first it was outlined. So what do you need to budget for? It is more than you think... Too many brides think that they need to pay for some place to get married, a dress, cake, flowers, photographer, and food. If only it were just that easy. There are dozens of expenses that, if your not prepared can send you over the edge and keep you from having the wedding of your dreams. Once that budget is done you can realistically decide what kind of wedding you will have. Don't worry if your budget isn't very big, you can still have an Unforgettable wedding, when you work on your budget you can move things around if you like. For example;

If your dream is to have loads of flowers... you can "tweak" your budget to figure out where to offset the cost of the flowers you are wanting. Maybe you want tons of flowers, however, you can do away with a full sit down dinner. Go for appetizers instead. Then take the money you saved on food and put that toward the flowers.

If you didn't have a budgeted plan you may have booked a fantastic venue for your reception at a time that a "meal" is required and then NOT had that money to put toward flowers. I hope this is making sense. You are essentially assigning a certain amount of money to each category, ensuring that you will have full control over where it is spent.

This may sound funny, you might be thinking, "Crazy woman, I know what I want and how much I plan on spending!" If you have never planned a wedding before trust me, there is A LOT to keep track of and A LOT of things to pull you in and make you "fudge" your budget a bit to get what you want. A solid budget keeps that from happening.

Later, I will be posting a list of things to keep in mind when planning your budget. Feel free to copy it down and refer to it as you create your budget.