 |
This post contains affiliate links, but all opinions are my own. Read my full disclosure statement here.
Budgeting for a wedding is extremely difficult, especially when you have idea where to start. For me personally, not having been married before, but also not having any married friends, I was lost!
I’ve created this realistic wedding budget pie chart in hopes of helping other people who don’t know where to start!
I want to be very open and honest with these posts, in hopes of sharing the process of planning a real wedding on a budget.
During the planning process, I found it difficult to find any appropriate online resources. Everything I found seemed irrelevant for my life here in Canada, way too expensive/out of reach, or too “Pinteresty”. Although there are some Canadian resources for wedding planning, nothing spoke to me.
Truthfully, everything made me feel like our budget wasn’t big enough and that everything I wanted was completely out of reach.
We started with a budget of $10,000 for 100 people. I’m a very resourceful and crafty person, so I figured that I could cut a ton of costs by doing things myself. As soon as we started booking vendors, it became obvious to me that our budget would never work for the wedding I’d always imagined. I couldn’t do everything myself, and truthfully I didn’t want to overwhelm myself by taking on too much.
My first ah-ha moment happened when we quoted out food and drink. As it turned out that food alone would take up over half of the 10k. I was blown away. When factoring in alcohol and the main vendors, the budget was shot. It was time to make an executive decision on how much we were really willing to spend. So, we did. We were set on a few things – open bar, formal venue and decor, and indoor ceremony.
I did my research, made a giant spreadsheet, got quotes for over 100 vendors, and took my time to decide what we wanted and didn’t need. In the end, we ended up almost doubling our budget. The final number came in around $18,500. To be completely honest, even staying within our new budget was extremely difficult.
My top tips for wedding budgeting? Make sure you receive quotes from multiple vendors. Prices can vary greatly from vedor to vendor. Also, I highly recommend trying to image you wedding as one that you are attending as a guest. As a guest, would you truly care about the centerpieces? Doing this can help you make money saving decisions easily.