Who will pay?

11 Months Before Your Wedding

If it weren’t for the cost of a wedding, there would likely be a lot less stress. Weddings while magical can be a very costly affair. This is the most important day of your life and it will likely be the most expensive day as well. Before you panic and think that all hope is lost in planning your dream wedding, take a deep breath and recognize that preparing a wedding budget can not only be helpful but also allow you to keep your priorities in line.

First and foremost you need to sit down with your beloved and decide how much money you have to work with. This is important to do as a couple and will help you to properly assign amounts to each element in the wedding planning. You also want to consider if you think you’ll get any money from family members, but don’t count on it in your overall wedding budget. As you begin planning out your wedding budget, you want to decide on the elements that are the most important to you. If you absolutely must have a particular setting or a specific reception venue, then you want to make that the absolute priority for your wedding day. If having high quality photos is a must have item, then you’ll want to budget more for your photography needs. It helps to list out each category that you could possibly spend money on within your wedding planning, and then decide as a couple what takes priority.

Once you have a priority list, you can start shopping around and gather information on costs for each item. Your budget in each category may change, but keep to a range whenever possible. Doing some research online to understand the average cost of some of the wedding day “must have items” is a great idea. You can visit our sample budget at Brideminders.comcan help you to assign budget amounts and stick within the ranges set along the way. The budget is definitely one of the more stressful elements in your wedding planning, but setting one at the very beginning will help you to determine your priorities and ensure that you don’t go broke in your wedding planning.

Asking close family members for monetary help with your wedding planning can be a touchy subject. Hopefully the parents or other family members approach you, but if not it’s important not to have any set expectations. If uncertain what to have parents pay for upon offering, you can always go with the classics such as the groom’s parents pay for the bar and rehearsal dinner while the bride’s pay for the venue, meal, and dress. You can make it easy and take the sum of money offered and apply it to one important aspect of the wedding day or a few smaller ones. If offered any money, be sure to discuss expectations graciously with those providing the gift and apply it to something that they are happy to be a part of.