Hello Everyone!
I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Mary and I am not a mom saving money…but I am a bride saving money! Or a future bride that is. I became engaged a little over a month ago to Rebecca’s brother in law and have been thrown head first into the wedding industry.
The very first thing I learned was:
Weddings. Are. Expensive.
I mean, I suppose you could figure that out on your own. But seriously, weddings are ridiculously expensive. And, as any good bride will tell you, when someone hears it’s a wedding the price goes up. So in a world of 20,000 dollar weddings, how do we keep both our checkbooks, and ourselves, sane? Well whether you’re a mom saving money or a bride saving money…
Budget. Budget. Budget.
I could say it again, but I won’t. Decide on a strict budget regardless of how high or how low it is. And leave some wiggle room for extra expenses that may arise. I have created over 4 different wedding budgets in less than a month and I keep editing them as I go along. Each venue that I’m interested I create a column on an excel spreadsheet and budget out money for. It looks something like this:
This also helps decide on where I want to have the venue! For instance, if photography is SUPER important to me but one of the venues is too expensive to allow me enough for high quality photos, I nix that venue. You should talk with your partner to figure out what you want to spend the most money on, and work your budget around that!
Once you’ve figured out your venue/budget outline, keep track of all (and here I mean ALL, those little purchases add up!) the money you spend with Rebecca’s template: https://momssavingmoney.com/free-wedding-planning-budget-checklist-printable/
[Hint: After while I got sick of writing out the cost of separate bouquets and chairs, and tents, etc, so I just group those together. If you get an estimated budget/quote to rent all the tables, chairs, tent, dance floor, etc., than you can just put that in one of the rows and keep the others blank]
Clearly if you’re reading this post you want to budget – the question then becomes how you cut costs! Well, I hope to share with you cost cutting tips and tricks as I go through this process. I have read all the wedding blogs and every website in the book dedicated to weddings, but even then I’m learning things that no one seems to tell you (like that a backyard wedding can actually be MORE expensive than a venue)! And that is what I’ll be sharing with you!
So how about you? What are your biggest concerns when budgeting for a wedding? What topics are the most important to address?
Until next time!
Mary