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As the fog of engagement excitement subsides, reality starts to kick into full gear as you begin the process of planning your wedding. Reality in this case has to do with money. How are you and your fiancé going to pay for your wedding? How much can and should you spend? Before you break out in a sweat about coming up with your wedding budget, take a deep breath and approach it in a logical and realistic manner. Try to remove the emotions from the process and approach planning your wedding budget strictly from a financial perspective. Many brides try to create their perfect wedding and then figure out how to pay for it later. A better approach is to figure out how much you have to spend and then start planning the wedding.
Money Sources for Wedding Costs
Start by making a list of all of the sources of money you have that you can allocate to spending on your wedding. If you and your fiancé are paying for the wedding, then you need to discuss how much each of you can contribute to the wedding. Some brides and grooms have other or additional sources to pay for wedding expenses. Parents, grandparents and other family members may be contributing to your wedding fund. If this is the case, be sure to include these figures in your total wedding budget. Tally up the numbers and see where you stand.
As is the case with any budget, a wedding budget has fixed costs and variable costs. For example, the church fee is typically fixed whether you have two or 100 guests. Food is a variable cost. It costs more to feed 100 wedding guests than it does to feed 50.
Some fixed costs include:
- Church
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- Wedding dress
- Venue
Some variable costs include:
- Food
- Beverages
- Cake
- Favors
- Invitations
Prioritize Wedding Spending
Every bride has priorities when it comes to planning a wedding. Figure out which aspects of your wedding are the most important to you. This is one of the easiest ways to allocate money amounts to each portion of your wedding. Priority items also help guide you when you need to reallocate funds in your wedding budget. For example, if the wedding pictures are your number one priority, then you may be willing to cut back spending on a less important area of the wedding (maybe favors) in order to allocate more money toward hiring the photographer you want. Instead of buying the wedding favors that cost $1000, maybe you buy the ones that cost $500 so you can apply the money you’re saving to the photographer.
Paying for a wedding can be a huge financial investment. As you would with any major financial decision or purchase, you need to approach creating your wedding budget and allocating wedding funds in a logical and realistic manner. You can still have a beautiful dream wedding without breaking the bank while pulling it off.
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