So what's the first thing you should do as part of your planning after you get engaged? Sit down and figure out the budget! You need to have an idea of how much you can afford to spend and that will help guide you to make every single important decision related to the wedding. I think most people have an idea of what their total budget will be but without writing everything down, most people end up being surprised by how much they actually spend. All those little expenses add up!
According to www.costofwedding.com (great website btw to look up the cost for things by zip code), the average cost of a wedding in the US is $25,631. So when I thought about my budget, I said I wanted to spend about the average amount or $25,000. Luckily for me, I have been saving up for this day for the last couple of years and had that money already set aside so that was a number that I knew I could afford. Now some of you might see the name of this blog "L.A. Budget Bride" and think $25k is not exactly a budget wedding. However, let me tell you that Los Angeles is a really expensive city and I would argue that $25k really is a budget wedding for So Cal. Of course there are people that have done it for less but you definitely have to sacrifice something big to achieve this.
I knew that due to trying to please my family and his family as well as our friends that we would want to do a Saturday evening wedding where a full plated dinner and alcohol would be served. That meant that a $10k wedding was really not feasible in trying to accomplish this. I think when setting the budget you've got to have realistic expectations. Yes it is a lot of money to be spending on one day but hopefully this is something that you only do once in your life.
So once you have your total budget figured out, the next step is dividing that budget for all of your expenses. www.theknot.com has a great budget tool that does this automatically for you and is a great starting point. Here's the rough breakdown that I ended up with for our budget:
Venue/Food/Drinks - $14,000 (this is by far the most expensive part of your budget)
Dress/Alterations/Accessories - $1500
Photography - $3000
Videography - $1000
Florist - $2000
Officiant - $250
Hair/Makeup - $500
Groom's Attire/Tux rentals - $400
Bridesmaid Dresses - $100
Invitations/Paper - $300
DJ - $1000
Cake - $300
Wedding Coordinator - $500
Favors - $150
Total - $25,000
And because I was realistic and knew that most people do end up going over budget and that there were a lot of little expenses that I hadn't factored in, I also "planned" to go over budget by 10%. So my real ultimate budget was $27,500. This was of course not including the cost of the rings or honeymoon...oy vey. With also trying to buy a house in the next year or so, let's just say that we are going to broke for a long time =(
What was/is your wedding budget?
According to www.costofwedding.com (great website btw to look up the cost for things by zip code), the average cost of a wedding in the US is $25,631. So when I thought about my budget, I said I wanted to spend about the average amount or $25,000. Luckily for me, I have been saving up for this day for the last couple of years and had that money already set aside so that was a number that I knew I could afford. Now some of you might see the name of this blog "L.A. Budget Bride" and think $25k is not exactly a budget wedding. However, let me tell you that Los Angeles is a really expensive city and I would argue that $25k really is a budget wedding for So Cal. Of course there are people that have done it for less but you definitely have to sacrifice something big to achieve this.
I knew that due to trying to please my family and his family as well as our friends that we would want to do a Saturday evening wedding where a full plated dinner and alcohol would be served. That meant that a $10k wedding was really not feasible in trying to accomplish this. I think when setting the budget you've got to have realistic expectations. Yes it is a lot of money to be spending on one day but hopefully this is something that you only do once in your life.
So once you have your total budget figured out, the next step is dividing that budget for all of your expenses. www.theknot.com has a great budget tool that does this automatically for you and is a great starting point. Here's the rough breakdown that I ended up with for our budget:
Venue/Food/Drinks - $14,000 (this is by far the most expensive part of your budget)
Dress/Alterations/Accessories - $1500
Photography - $3000
Videography - $1000
Florist - $2000
Officiant - $250
Hair/Makeup - $500
Groom's Attire/Tux rentals - $400
Bridesmaid Dresses - $100
Invitations/Paper - $300
DJ - $1000
Cake - $300
Wedding Coordinator - $500
Favors - $150
Total - $25,000
And because I was realistic and knew that most people do end up going over budget and that there were a lot of little expenses that I hadn't factored in, I also "planned" to go over budget by 10%. So my real ultimate budget was $27,500. This was of course not including the cost of the rings or honeymoon...oy vey. With also trying to buy a house in the next year or so, let's just say that we are going to broke for a long time =(
What was/is your wedding budget?
No comments:
Post a Comment