Hello friends, I trust that you are doing well today!

Over the last couple of decades, I’ve seen a lot of couples set a wedding budget and go over it, spending far more than they originally set, in fact, according to The Today Show, nearly 74% of couples go over their budget and spend nearly $12,000 more than they thought!

Today, we’d like to explore that a bit, explain why couples go over the budget and how they can prevent that in the first place.

Educate Yourself Before Wedding Planning

The biggest issue that couples face when wedding planning is that they have literally no idea where to begin.

Jumping into a multi-billion dollar industry seems like it’s a fairly easy thing and it can be, but many times couples will be blown away by the sheer amount of money a wedding can cost in 2021.

The most important thing that you can do for yourself is to educate yourself about the wedding industry before navigating it.

Knowing what to expect with regards to services, the various vendor types, how much you can truly spend, and how the industry works will set you up in your favor and will be well worth the knowledge.

Things like our wedding blog for example can be a great toolset for you to help understand weddings and how they relate to your budget.

Be Realistic with Your Money

The truth is this, vendors want your money in exchange for their products or services.

There is nothing wrong with that, but at the end of the day, the vendors that you hire are performing a business transaction plain and simple.

The very first thing you should do after you educate yourself is set a wedding budget, it’s something I speak of a lot on the blog.

Why?

Because your budget is literally the bible to your wedding day, EVERYTHING you do will revolve around it.

There are two types of wedding budget tools, the first is an overall spending tool that helps set an estimated price point for the various categories that you’ll need to spend.

So, for example, if you want to spend $17,000 for example, the calculator will spit out budgets for some of the most popular categories. Give it a try below.

The second wedding budget tool is more of a truth in what you spent to better compare it to the first calculator.

The idea behind this tool is to see how much you’d like to spend or to see the differences in want vs need when it comes to the wedding day.

Go ahead and give that one a try and email it to your inbox.

Setting the Budget and Sticking to it

The hardest part is setting the budget and sticking to it. That again boils down to a couple of things, what you want vs. what you can afford.

For example, you may want the $4,000 wedding photographer because you truly like the style they offer, but you’re budget only allows for $2,700.

The question is do you pay the extra money to the more expensive wedding vendor or do you find someone within your budget?

Chances are, if you’ve met with the more expensive vendor, you will book with them.

While that’s not a bad thing, it does create a bit of an issue, where do the additional funds come from?

• You could add to the budget

• You could take away a service(s) to avoid going over budget

Don’t ask what others paid for wedding services

One big mistake couples tend to make is jumping online and asking what others paid for a given service, usually venues or photographers.

You may be asking, what’s the issue about asking what others paid, isn’t that a good thing?

Well, yes and no.

While it might be good to know what other paid for a product or service, the truth is the wedding industry has four main categories to help cover your budget, so no matter if you have a lot of money to throw at it or very little, chances are there is a vendor that can best fit the mold of your budget.

Think of it this way, not everyone can afford an $80,000 car, some might be able to only spend $18,000 on a car, others $30 or $40,000.

While it is true that you get what you pay for within the wedding industry, just because someone paid a lot of money for a vendor doesn’t mean that you need to as well.

If you decide that you need to ask on places like Facebook, be as specific as you can and avoid using words like “affordable”, what you think of as affordable, the next person will have a big difference.

The more specific you can be, the narrower the list of responses may be, and the better you will find what you are seeking.

Weed out the things you DONT truly need

Finally, try to weed out things that you truly do not need for the wedding.

A great example is the ‘save-the-date’ card.

22 years ago when I was just starting in the business, that was not a thing, today, it’s become common with couples spending a few hundred bucks on them.

The truth is an email will work just a good and it’s basically free.

A couple of other things that you honestly don’t need are an expensive wedding dress or a huge variety of alcohol on the wedding day.

I see a lot of couples today trying to offer 15 different types of beer or wine at the reception when truthfully just a couple of types of each will do. It costs more to offer more.

With the wedding dress, they’re very expensive when you break it down per hour it will be worn. Don’t think however that I’m saying don’t buy a dress, I’m saying that you can find great dressmakers for a fraction of the cost at places like Etsy or ones pre-owned at Brides Against Breast Cancer.

Want to see how much your dress will cost per hour at the wedding, check out the online tool below.