Budgeting help!

Knottie1440521910 · September 2015

We are looking to get married next fall, just got engaged two weeks ago. I'm in the very initial stage of planning, made my website, made the guest list up for my side, have started browsing all kinds of vendors & venues & stationary sites (and crunching the numbers). But I have no idea where to start for figuring out my actual budget. I've never been good at that, and while I hate to drive up my debt, am more than happy to use my credit card to pay for some of it. Or worst case, "owe" my FH.

Any tips??

Pupatella · September 2015

Congratulations!!

There are some budgeting tools that might be useful to you!! (The Knot has one). I recommend putting in something like $10k for starters and seeing how much it budgets to each category, and then maybe go from there?

Also, the budget is really dependent on how large your guest list is, where you are getting married (A major city vs. country) etc. Are you having a night wedding or an afternoon wedding...are you getting married on a Friday vs. Saturday, etc.

Just a piece of advice, please don't go into debt to pay for your wedding if you can avoid it. If you can't afford it, then just do a small ceremony with a brunch (for example). It doesn't have to be a big blow out!

climbingsingle · September 2015

First, don't go into debt for your wedding. It's one day. It's not worth putting yourself into debt for. Also, why would you "owe" your FH for wedding expenses?

Knottie1440521910 · September 2015

Thanks! Ha, my FH said the same thing regarding debt. I did start playing around with the Knot's budget tool, but I would feel a lot more comfortable if I had a real number to use, not just a hypothetical. And the FH won't have a good idea of what he can spend for another month or so. *sigh*

All of those things you mention are dependent on the budget, rather than the other way around. IF we can afford it I'd like a Saturday night, but am willing to do Friday although that will be less convenient for our guests (I'd take off that day regardless haha!). I'd like to avoid the city but I'm having better luck finding off-beat venues there (and they're not cheap). Guest list is non-negotiable, I have lots of friends, he has lots of family.

I appreciate the help though!

Pupatella · September 2015

climbingwife said:

First, don't go into debt for your wedding. It's one day. It's not worth putting yourself into debt for. Also, why would you "owe" your FH for wedding expenses?

Agree with @climbingwife. You are marrying your FI. You shouldn't "owe" him anything money wise no matter how much he contributes to the wedding.

Edited because I can't spell...need more coffee...

climbingsingle · September 2015

Well, you'll need an actual real budget before you can start planning. You and your FI need to sit down and come up with a number you're both comfortable with.

Knottie1440521910 · September 2015

Haha my friends have the same opinion, but I'm weird about money. In my head, we're splitting this evenly, and maybe that's part of the problem. Either way, I think he and I need to have a serious talk about this.

Pupatella · September 2015

I also recommend having venues you like price out a full quote for you (including price per person, tax, gratuity, set up fees, open bar, etc.) That will help you figure out what you can realistically afford after you and your FI decide on how much you would like to spend.

missa011 · September 2015

Hi! Congratulations on your engagement! Fall is the best time of year to get married (IMO), mine is this November!

If you/your FI are paying for the wedding yourselves, sit down together and discuss seriously numbers with which you feel comfortable. What is the absolute most you want to spend? What are the most important aspects of the wedding for you both (food? venue?) Keep in mind that you are hosting and providing a thank you to your guests, so if you are looking to eliminate things, start with what the guests will not notice/care about (decor, make-up, etc.). In my experience, I had to put down a 25-50% deposit (depending on vendor) for booking, and the rest is due before the wedding, so take this into consideration when thinking about how to pay.

If you cannot host an open bar, then have a dry wedding. If you can only accommodate wine and beer, then just offer that. Your guests shouldn't pay for anything at the reception.

If anyone is offering assistance in paying, be sure to discuss budget with them. Also keep in mind that if you accept money from family, it usually comes with strings, and you have to take their desires/opinions into account when planning. If you do not wish to do this, politely decline the money and host a wedding that you/FI can afford but also control.

For reception venues, all-inclusive is usually more cost efficient. Once you have to start renting and bringing in your own chairs, tables, caterer, cake, etc., those costs can really add up. I'm getting married at a country club, so nearly everything was included, I only had to get my own cake. Look around for different types of venues that fit your aesthetic but also your budget.

For your dress, search around. Simpler gowns cost less than intricate gowns. There's David's Bridal which, I believe, usually has $99 dresses on sale, as well as a variety of $ ranges. BHLDN also has a decent range of $ for their gowns. J. Crew I think is reasonable and beautiful, but can be hard to find in person so you may have to order online. No matter where you go just be honest with your consultant about your budget and do not try something on that is over! Also keep in mind alterations/accessories when budgeting for attire.

DIY can be helpful - I know people have gotten flowers from Sam's Club/Costco and made their own centerpieces/bouquets. Just make sure you research beforehand, DIY can end up costing just as much as purchased and with added stress to boot. I have no crafty bone in my body so I bought a lot of stuff that looks DIY (thanks Etsy), but I had some leeway in my budget. None of these things were necessary, so if extras are not in your budget, don't worry about it.

I'd also post this on your local board, as they may have suggestions on well-priced venues, photographers, etc.

Good luck with planning! These boards have saved my life a couple times so stick around!

Pupatella · September 2015

Knottie1440521910 said:

Haha my friends have the same opinion, but I'm weird about money. In my head, we're splitting this evenly, and maybe that's part of the problem. Either way, I think he and I need to have a serious talk about this.

Yep!! An open talk with your FH sounds like a great plan.

If you decide to pay for things 50/50, that's okay, but you need to start thinking of you and FH as a team. For instance, if it's split 90/10, there should be no hard feelings or grudges.

Knottie1440521910 · September 2015

Missa, thanks for all of those great ideas! I Etsy, and already have an appointment for this Saturday at David's Bridal! I'm so excited! They have a dress I completely adore, I'm hoping it fits and looks good, b/c the price is nice.

Pupatella - I know, I know...

jenna8984 · September 2015

I don't really understand why he needs another month to set a budget. You guys as a team should be able to say-

1. We have $5,000 in the bank we'd like to use on the wedding.

2. According to how much we are able to save each month and timing of deposits, we can spend $5,000.

3. Combination of the above, so our budget is $10,000.

You also don't have to spend as much as you have. Our main objective was $10,000 but we switched things around and switched guest list around and came in at like $4,500. You can (and should) have a gorgeous day without going into any type of debt.

CMGragain · September 2015

How much money do you have in the bank to spend on your wedding?
How much will you be able to save before the wedding?
This is your budget.
Do not do any wedding shopping until you have this figured out. A fancy bridal ball gown dress might look rather odd in a courthouse wedding. Don't buy your dress until you have your wedding planned.

1. Decide budget. (See above information.)
2. Make guest list. Count up how many people you want to invite.
3. If you are Catholic, talk to your priest NOW.

After you have done steps 1, 2, and 3, then you can start planning a wedding. You are putting the cart before the horse. You might have a back yard wedding. You might have a church wedding. If you have a big budget (It sounds like you do not!) you can consider an evening wedding with dinner, dancing and open bar. You won't know any of this until you have your budget total and the number of guests.

(Hint for a small budget: Small wedding parties save both money and stress.)

MesmrEwe · September 2015

1) People plan funerals in three days, you've got time, slow down and get some key details in order before you even look at ONE vendor or purchase ANY thing.

2) If you're putting it on the credit card without being able to immediately write out the check for it, it means you can't afford it! (yes, there are times you want to use the credit card as a payment form - but you should be ale to pay it off immediately) The only things you need to get married is someone to marry you, a license, and someone to officiate/witness it, the rest is window dressing.

3) How do you set your budget? You look at your savings account, determine how much of your savings you're willing to spend on one day, and you have your budget. (Refer to #2)

4) If you accept money from anyone, recognize that it WILL come with strings! If you are not willing to accept the terms of those strings, do not accept the money. Unless the money is in your bank account, assume it doesn't exist! All of us regulars have lost count of how many brides have come on here saying "Dad/Mom/Parents/FIL's/GM/GP said they were going to help us out with X detail/$15,000/$5,000/etc. and now are telling us they can't/won't/don't have the money, if we cancel we lose $$$$/can't afford this ourselves/etc., but we can't come up with $$$$ on our own, what should we do?"... Until you have the money in-hand or on their credit card, it doesn't exist!

5) Once you have a budget, you two need to come together and start planning the MARRIAGE and how finances are going to work in your future relationship. Talk about how many kids you do/don't want. Your parenting style! (friends of mine just Divorced over this).. Talk about what happens if one or both of you lose your jobs. Religious matters. Couple intimacy matters. Anything that seems like a "little" detail is going to be big at some point! Then talk about things like what you want in a wedding day.

5) The only people responsible for paying for your wedding and all of the details surrounding the wedding are the two of you. Be smart and realize your financial future is not worth risking over one day. Cars break down, people get sick, heaters go out, don't spend every penny you have on a dress that won't fix an oil leak. Be financially smart!

julieanne912 · September 2015

I speak from experience here... the #1 thing you want to do is come up with your ENTIRE guest list. Not just your side. Your FI needs to come up with his side too. Then, once you have that, you can start working on your budget. After figuring out your budget, then you revisit your guest list. If you determine you only have $5,000 to spend, then the best way to get costs down is to cut down your guest list. Once you have that figured out, you can find a venue (for both ceremony and reception, whether it's 2 locations or 1) that will fit the entire guest list (including chairs for everyone!) and then some (assume 100% attendance and factor in all the vendors and perhaps some random plus ones that people WILL try to add). After that, then you can worry about your dress and invitations and everything else.

I did not do it this way. I picked a venue first. Then a guest list. Then a budget. Don't do that, you'll create yourself a lot of headaches later.

And, for the record, I didn't split the wedding costs 50/50 with my FI. My mom and I have paid for 90% of it. But, he pays for lots of other things that I don't chip in on (like our entire mortgage) so don't try to approach this as a "you vs him" sort of thing... that'll just create a divide that will cause problems later. TBH, if he had his way, we'd just be having a kegger reception with pizza at a VFW hall, so yeah, I'm footing more of the bill to get the kind of day I want.

The only smart way to use a credit card for a wedding is if you get points or rewards and then you pay it off immediately with cash. We've used FI's credit card for the venue and caterer and a few other costs, so he gets the reward points (and by he I mean us since the points benefit us both), but then I or my mom would give him cash to pay it off immediately. DO NOT go into debt to have a fancy wedding... that's not the way you want to start a marriage.

aliwis000 · September 2015

Knottie1440521910 said:

Missa, thanks for all of those great ideas! I Etsy, and already have an appointment for this Saturday at David's Bridal! I'm so excited! They have a dress I completely adore, I'm hoping it fits and looks good, b/c the price is nice.
Pupatella - I know, I know...

No no no...no no..no.

STOP!

I get it. You are excited. But you have to stop and stop RIGHT NOW!

1. Cancel the dress appointment now. You don't know anything about your wedding and have no idea about what you CAN spend.

2. Figure out a budget with you FI. If he wont know more numbers till next month then you wait. Figure our your numbers. This is completely independent of anything else. You do not have to know what things cost to figure out a budget because a budget is based on YOU. So if the flowers you WANT at $5k and you only have $6k for the whole wedding it really does not matter what you WANT.
Sit down figure out what you can afford over the next year or so.

3. Develop the guest list. You have your side that is great. How about his? Have you talked to your parents? Do they have people they might want there? (If they pay they get a say, if not you can ignore them, however for the sake of family relations allowing them a few people would be a good idea.)

4. Split up your budget into categories, the biggest will be venue/food/drink/. Divide that number by your guest list. This is what you can spend per guest. So when you call up that country club and they tell you their cheapest option is $200 per person you know if you have that or not.

After that you can start researching, right now you have nothing to research. If you bought a new car you would have a budget....you would not go to a Ferrari delership and go..."oh well I guess this is what I have to spend..."

MesmrEwe · September 2015

Knottie1440521910 said:

Missa, thanks for all of those great ideas! I Etsy, and already have an appointment for this Saturday at David's Bridal! I'm so excited! They have a dress I completely adore, I'm hoping it fits and looks good, b/c the price is nice.

Pupatella - I know, I know...

STOP! Do NOT go!!!! You don't know if you can afford a $100 dress with alterations right now! (alterations can double or more the price of any dress!!!) Really!!!! Put a pause on your planning now!!! You're caught up in being a BRIDE, not a WIFE, cart before the horse!!!! There are things you need to do before you even risk getting caught on "Emotion Sales"!

wandajune6 · September 2015

aliwis000 said:

Knottie1440521910 said:

Missa, thanks for all of those great ideas! I Etsy, and already have an appointment for this Saturday at David's Bridal! I'm so excited! They have a dress I completely adore, I'm hoping it fits and looks good, b/c the price is nice.
Pupatella - I know, I know...

No no no...no no..no.

STOP!

I get it. You are excited. But you have to stop and stop RIGHT NOW!

1. Cancel the dress appointment now. You don't know anything about your wedding and have no idea about what you CAN spend.

2. Figure out a budget with you FI. If he wont know more numbers till next month then you wait. Figure our your numbers. This is completely independent of anything else. You do not have to know what things cost to figure out a budget because a budget is based on YOU. So if the flowers you WANT at $5k and you only have $6k for the whole wedding it really does not matter what you WANT.
Sit down figure out what you can afford over the next year or so.

3. Develop the guest list. You have your side that is great. How about his? Have you talked to your parents? Do they have people they might want there? (If they pay they get a say, if not you can ignore them, however for the sake of family relations allowing them a few people would be a good idea.)

4. Split up your budget into categories, the biggest will be venue/food/drink/. Divide that number by your guest list. This is what you can spend per guest. So when you call up that country club and they tell you their cheapest option is $200 per person you know if you have that or not.

After that you can start researching, right now you have nothing to research. If you bought a new car you would have a budget....you would not go to a Ferrari delership and go..."oh well I guess this is what I have to spend..."

Also, you don't know what kind of wedding you will have. You don't want a huge ballgown for a bbq or a huge train for a beach wedding. If you're going for casual, you'll want a more casual dress. Hold off on dress shopping until you know your plan.

[Deleted User] · September 2015

I'm going to say hold off on getting your dress right now too, but for different reasons. Wait until you have a date & venue picked out. You'll want to make sure the style of dress you pick goes with those. For example, if you end up with a summer outdoor wedding, or say a beach wedding, you may not want to go with a full satin ballgown style dress because it would potentially be too heavy & hot for the weather. Or vice versa, having a very formal ceremony & having a casual dress. I've seen too often where a bride picks one dress she loves and then ends ups trying to sell it because it didn't end up going with the time of year or style of wedding they ended up having.

blueeyedkat · September 2015

I had as much lead time as you for wedding planning, so I'll suggest you go to the library and check out wedding planning books (diy, planning, budgeting, etc.) Read them, get some ideas, jot them down. They're a great resource to help you get focused. Some books will have great examples of different budgets, etc.

Another thing I learned, if you can't afford a 10k wedding (you'll need at least half of that ready for deposits and then the rest by your wedding day), then you avoid etsy and pinterest like the plague. In the next few months it'll get easier to figure out what is most important to you two, and what you want to focus on with your time and your budget. For us, we set a budget estimate at 10k, worked out the draft guestlist, priced venues, visited some. Once you choose a venue, then you can do caterers, quote them!! Quote them all before tasting, and limit down to your top 2 or 3 then go taste.

Regarding venues: figure out when you want to have your wedding, what date, what day of the week, what time. Some days will be cheaper per hour. Some venues have preferred caterers, and you won't be able to bring in someone else (also, their price is pretty high up there because they know there's not too much competition for a particular venue). Some venues have no preferred list, and that leaves you much more open to choosing caterers and other suppliers.

blueeyedkat · September 2015

Oh, two more things: lots of people donate their dresses to goodwill and other thrift stores, so you can get a great, practically brand new dress, for $100 from there (shopgoodwill.com). You'll see some hot messes, but really, I never thought that paying $800 or more for a polyester hot mess that you'll only wear once is a pretty stupid expense, but that's just me.

Second, vistaprint is a money saver! you can design your invite, then save it in drafts till a good sale comes up.

dalm0m · September 2015

There are two ways to budget for a wedding.

One is to start with a figure. Say we have $X to spend then drill down. That is how we budgeted for our kitchen renovation. We forced ourselves to get creative & stay away from the high end cabinets & floors.

The other is to build your budget. Get a feel for how much receptions are per person in your area because that is usually the biggest expense. By us, I knew that $125 per person was going to be on the low end & we had a huge guest list so the 1st thing in my budget was $125 + $31.25 (tax & tip) x 400 guests = $62,500. Then I figured out how much dresses cost, added that it. The same with photographers, flowers, limos, cake cutters, shoes, a veil, license fees, favors, music, dance lessons, etc. After I listed all the line items, I came up with a number, rounded up by 10% & viola that is how I came up with a budget. I knew I had to save / set aside that much money to have my wedding. Even with that max, I tried my best to get lower prices where I could. Because we married on a Sunday, the reception was $105 pp; I got my dress on sale for $300; my veil was only $15 etc.

doclago · October 2015

Just a comment...one of the biggest causes of divorce is financial discord. If you cannot openly talk to your FI about money and finances and financial planning, you may want to reconsider marrying him.... Not being able to communicate is a HUGE issue, especially about money.

We had a rough guest list and a budget when we started looking(not actually planning). We visited with several service providers to get an idea of what they would charge for what we wanted. From there we were able to weed out what we could do without and what was most important to fit the budget.
Your budget should be a tangible number that you have in the bank or can plan to actively save by the wedding date. You need to be realistic about that number and your daily budget.

There are lots of great tools here to help you pare down your budget.

Budgeting help!

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