4 steps to create your wedding budget
Creating your wedding budget is a crucial step of planning your big day. It can be a daunting task though so we want to help with 4 steps to create your wedding budget are simple to follow and will allow your to create your wedding budget that is realistic in cost.
You might be asking yourself “why do we even need to create a wedding budget?” To put it frankly. You can’t really plan anything without knowing what you can afford and we also find many couples avoid talking about wedding budgets. We find most couples:
- Don’t create a wedding budget at the start of their wedding planning journey.
- Get 6 months into the planning and think they should probably create a wedding budget because they have become completely stressed on how much everything is going to cost for their wedding.
- Or they have no idea what things in their wedding could actually cost so they can go into the whole process a bit blind, unsure and eventually become really overwhelmed with their wedding budget.
We know weddings costs money. And sometimes it can be a lot of money. When you create a wedding budget you can see exactly what your wedding could cost and essentially plan ahead. It allows you to be savvy with your wedding budget and even save money!
So whether you can afford $40,000 or $120,000 for your wedding. You will want to know how much you are spending on your wedding and where your money is going. And the only way to do this is creating a wedding a budget. Creating a wedding budget is a huge step we take in all of our wedding planning and wedding styling services with our clients and now we are eager to share our insights with you. Not only are we sharing out 4 steps in creating your wedding budget, but we are sharing our very own wedding budget template for you to download here.
Step 1: Assess your finances
First thing is first. You need to dive into where the money is coming from for your wedding in order to know how much you can spend on your wedding. Ask questions like:
- Are you as the couple paying for the entire wedding?
- Are you going to get a loan? Maybe a credit card?
- Have you got a family member who will be contributing to your wedding budget? If family are contributing, never assume an amount they will be contributing. Ensure you get an exact figure. The last thing you want is thinking your family will paying “for it all” and your wedding will cost $80,000 but your family is only contributing $30,000.
These are all obviously very personal questions but equally as important to have when creating your wedding budget. It will be different for every couples and there are no right or wrong answers. It’s all about what you can personally afford and what you are comfortable in spending on your wedding. But it’s questions you need to ask yourselves.
When you have assessed your finances, you will have a rough figure of the money you will have for your wedding. We not saying that this is what you’ll actually spend (as it could be a more or less), but you’ve started the conversation on where your money is at and you have a figure in mind when it comes to creating your wedding budget.
Step 2: Determine your wedding priorities and must-haves
Either as a couple or as individuals, you might have a vision of how you want your wedding day to be. And for that vision to be accomplished, you might have some key things that are important to include. These are what we call your must-haves or non negotiables. The things that if they weren’t included on your wedding day, it wouldn’t be the wedding you envisaged.
Your must-haves could be a particular venue vibe or a venue location. It could be the style of food. It could be a particular celebrant you like or a photographer you have been stalking on socials ever since you got engaged. Maybe the fact that you don’t want to be the one having to set up your place cards the morning of your wedding (pssst… that’s what our wedding coordinator services cover). It could even be the fact that you have to arrive on a helicopter. Whatever it is. If it’s important to you. It’s a must’have.
Whatever your must-haves are. Sit down and discuss about them together. Make a list. Write your must-haves on a piece of paper or put them on your phone. You might find you have the same must-haves or completely different ones. Both is fine. Just be sure to have these conversations because it will come in handy when you start to create your wedding budget.
Step 3: Research wedding costs and collect information
One of the common things couples say is that they usually don’t have any idea what different wedding vendors cost. It’s tricky to know what your wedding can cost, especially if you have never planned a wedding before (which most of us haven’t)
So unless you have a wedding planner like Mellyrain Creative helping you create a wedding budget and guiding you through each area of a wedding and what your wedding could cost based on your vision, you’re kind of going into the whole wedding planning process blind. If you decide to not bring on a professional wedding planner, you need to do some wedding cost research. And to do this, you need to reach out to venues and vendors.
Before you start reaching out to wedding vendors and venues to get an idea of wedding costs in order to create your wedding budget. The very very first thing we suggest you do is create a wedding specific email address with your names. For example melandtraviswedding@gmail.com Why? Because, when you start to enquire with wedding vendors venues, your inbox will explode with replies. So to keep it away from your personal emails and all in one place, a dedicated email address is a super easy way to manage all your wedding related emails. Plus this will help down the track with with Step 4 in our 4 steps to create your wedding budget.
To easily research wedding vendors and venues we suggest breaking it down into the different cost areas of your wedding (such as photographer, venue, flowers, cake, etc). To make this step super simple for you, you can download our free wedding budget template which has the most common wedding areas already broken down for you. With your template, you then want to shortlist your favourite 2-3 vendors you are eager to enquire with per wedding area. When you’re ready to start enquiring with your shortlisted vendors and venues, there is certainly a proper way to enquire. For tips on enquiring with your wedding vendors, have a listen to our Cut The Cake Podcast Episode: How to Enquire with Wedding Vendors. Be sure to ask for wedding vendor and venue information booklets, price guides and if possible their terms and conditions. You may also like to ask for date availability if you have a wedding date set.
Once you have sent out your enquiries to your shortlisted vendors. Simply sit back wait for the replies.
Step 4: Create a spreadsheet, discuss and assess your wedding budget
After about a week from sending out your wedding vendor and venue enquiries, jump back into your emails (the dedicated email you have already set up of course) and check which wedding vendors and venues have replied. Now it’s time to collate the information you have received.
How you collate the information to then create your wedding budget. Well a spreadsheet is the easiest way. And I know some people might not like spreadsheets, or find them confusing, or simply just don’t know what to have in the spreadsheet. So lucky for you, we are giving you access to our free wedding budget template for you to use.
Referring to the free wedding budget template you have downloaded, what you want to do at this point is create a “what your wedding budget look like” based on your wedding vendor and venue research. Doing this helps you create an idea of what your different wedding areas could realistically cost based on your wedding vision.
For each wedding vendor and venue you enquire with, you want to input the data and let the spreadsheet works it’s magic in calculating what your wedding costs could be. To make it even easier to work through our free wedding budget template, when you download our free wedding budget template, you will also get a video demonstration hosted by our Mellyrain Creative Head Planner, Stylist and Co-Creator Melanie showing you the best way to use the wedding budget template.
During the process of using our free wedding budget template, this is when you can discuss your wedding must-haves in more detail. You will now have an idea of what your wedding costs could be so you have the ability to allocate more or less money to areas that are either super important to you or not very important to you for your wedding day.
Doing this step in creating your wedding budget is a little tedious, but it allows you to have all the information in one place. As well as be able to move your wedding budget around if you need to.
How a wedding planner can help you create and more importantly stick to your wedding budget
Creating a wedding a budget is a huge step we do with all of our Mellyrain Creative couples. Especially if we am helping with our full wedding planning service. The beauty of doing it with a professional wedding planner is that you do have access to insights of how you can shuffle wedding budget around to help stay within your allocated overall wedding budget.
Having a professional wedding planner help you in creating your wedding budget also allows you to to get some great deals with wedding vendors and venues. Wedding planners can connect you with vendors who meet your specific wedding vision and 9 times out of 10 vendors who adore working with particular wedding planners (like us at Mellyrain Creative) they give our couples great deals!
If you don’t have a professional wedding planner helping you to create your wedding budget, you’re not on your own, but you are essentially going with your gut in wedding costs and spending what you’re comfortable with.
What does the average wedding cost and what’s
It’s tricky to pinpoint a definite figure on what your wedding could cost without going through the process of our wedding planning services. There are so many variables and a wedding is so personal in the must-haves, vision and wedding budget.
But what we can do is help you with information on what the average wedding vendor and venue prices are in Melbourne and Regional Victoria. Download free Top 16 Wedding Costs Debunked resource here.
Our biggest tip in creating your wedding budget
Our biggest tip in creating your wedding budget is that when you do have that magic wedding budget figure, add on a 10% buffer! Why? Because there will be things pop up as your plan your wedding you didn’t consider. This always happens.
At the end of the day, you need to spend what you are comfortable with and can afford for your wedding. It is different for everyone. So do your research. Download our free wedding budget template if you’re keen to create your own wedding budget. Or if you’re looking for guidance and support with our Mellyrain Creative wedding planning services, drop us a line via our website contact form.
