In 5 Steps, How To Make A Wedding Budget

Weddings at first bring to mind positive images of brides, grooms, cake and champagne. Those festive thoughts turn cold when you begin to calculate for your wedding budget. Here are 5 steps to make a wedding budget less painful.

See How Much Money You Have

This is the most important step of course and the amount of money will in many ways control what kind of wedding you can have. Your money sources will be:

• Savings between you and your fiance
• Extra money that you can get from working extra hours, cutting expenses, etc.
• Money from family. Just note that no one is required to pay for your wedding. It is best to politely ask who is able and willing to help you out financially.

Watch How You Spend Money

During the time right before and during wedding planning over spending money can come back to haunt you later. Use a spreadsheet or a a budgeting app to create a list of things you must spend on like food and utility bills. Spend only on what you need and save what you can to dedicate to your wedding budget.

Read The Fine Print

Wedding planning is full of contracts. Each vendor you deal with will probably have you sign a contract, which is legally binding you to all the terms. Many vendors have add-ons that may not come up in your conversations with them, so you don’t want any surprises. Before you sign anything read it twice, and when meeting with vendors ask if there are any additional expenses that could occur.

Be Leery of Credit And Loans

The average newlyweds have debt to pay off and a portion of that is often from wedding expenses. In making your wedding budget try your best to use other means to pay. It is really tempting to charge a 500 guest wedding, but that my not be the kind of bill you want to see when you come back from the honeymoon.

Be Willing To Make Cuts

Wedding budgeting is hard enough, but making cuts is even harder. You will not only have to make cuts in your personal lifestyle, but may have to do the same with the wedding. If you are low on cash be prepared to tone down the wedding to save money. For example if you wanted a top shelf open bar for the whole event, you could remove some hours from the open bar or change it to house liquor instead.

Saving money for a wedding budget is never easy, but it is possible. If you are open to following these steps you can be fiscally responsible yet still get the wedding you desire.