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When Adrian and I started to plan our own Wedding about 3 years ago, one of the first issues we talked about was the budget. We were working with a teeny weeny weeny teeny shoestring budget, but really, budgeting is important even if you’re planning a 150K Wedding Day. Here are some of the things I’ve learned.
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What’s Most Important
There are so many subjects and details a bride has to think about and it is hard to know how much you should spend on each item. To figure out what is most important to you, write all the parts down. Flowers, Dress, Favors, Dessert, Food, Beverages, Dancing, Venue,… The list is long! Once you’ve got it written on a piece of paper start to give each item a number, 1 as most important to you personally.
Maybe for you it’s the dress or the imported high heels from Italy. Maybe it’s the flowers or the venue.
Ask your groom to do the same if he’s into helping planning the day. Now you have a good start to figure out how much money you want / can / should spend on each detail. Splurge on your most important ones and try to save on the details that you don’t care much about.
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Lasting and Fading Details
Now comes another calculation into play. What’s-going-to-stay-and-what’s-just-for-the-day Calculation. Think about it, flowers or food – even though beautiful or delicious – is just for the day. Photography and Videography on the other hand is going to stay and remind you of the Wedding forever.
That is a calculation Adrian and I didn’t really know about. For us, the honeymoon in Hawaii was most important and if I could change just one thing of our Wedding I would do a road trip in CA and used the vacation money on a professional photographer instead.
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Why Photography is so Important
This brings me to the next point. Because Photography as well as Videography is something that is going to stay forever, I suggest you calculate that in right in the beginning. I’ve once heard the rule of thumbs that you should put away about 15-20% of your entire Wedding Day budget for Photography. This sounds like an overkill, but think about it again – it will last forever and it will help freshen up those wonderful memories for many many years to come!
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Get Creative
There are three great advantages about this last point I would like to make today. First, DIY projects are unique and personal. Second, DIY projects are a ton of fun, especially if you do them with your best friends. Thrid, DIY projects are more economical.
Here a few easy ideas to get the ball rolling – we did a ton ourselves and our guests really appreciated the personal touches…
- Favors – buy in bulk and wrap in your colors
- Invitations – buy the paper and print yourself
- Glitter Shoes – find inexpensive canvas shoes and beglitter them (perfect for Bridesmaids)
- Flowers – maybe one of your friends/family members knows about flowers?
- Decorations – buy items and make good use of a hot glue gun
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I hope these tips help you to figure out the numbers of your Wedding Day. Happy Planning!
xoxo, Rahel ♥
