Thursday 9 July 2009

Wedding Budget


It's 457 days until the wedding and we have a budget!

After much research and browsing online (mostly ideas from 100 Layer Cake and the blessed Little Black Book blog) and adding more and more items to my list I have finally come up with 3 versions of what the wedding could cost.

The process:

  1. List everything you can think of for the wedding from the dress to the favours ( you can add more things as you think of them).
  2. Make 3 columns and use the titles " Extravagant", "Realistic" and "Frugal".
  3. Start thinking BIG! Dream about how you would want the wedding to be if you had absolutely no restrictions. Horse drawn carriages, Vera Wang dresses and glass slippers are encouraged at this point.
  4. Start putting prices in the Extravagant list. At this point they will mostly be guesses unless you know that your dream dress costs £4100. Tally up. Mine comes to £21, 662.50!
  5. Setting your priorities is extremely important when setting your budget. For example: I want all the men to be in the same smart, tailored suits but what's actually important to me is the unified look so, they could easily all wear the same tie and socks. Saved money. Easy.
  6. The Frugal list is all about figuring out what you can live without (eg. possibly the live 40 man swing band), what can be made in advance for a fraction of the cost and who can possibly help you with paying for certain parts of the wedding. I cut out spending money on invitations at this point and decided we could probably email everyone. It's that kind of extreme I want to see. Tally up. Mine: £1,372.50
  7. In the Realistic column you start putting in the figures which are inbetween your two extremes. Try not to compromise on the key elements of your dream wedding. If the vision of your dream wedding includes fairy lights en masse then you could possibly get outdoor lights at the end of the Christmas season in the sale and get your man to hang them up. This is an "extra" that you don't really need but you can't imagine your wedding day without it.
  8. Keep finding ways of doing things yourself for a fraction of the price. Get tips from the pro's. Take a couple of floristry or calligraphy classes or get people you know to show you how it's done.
  9. My wedding budget is an ongoing process. The aim of which is to make the event as close to my dream wedding as possible while spending as little money as possible. One tip is to not compromise on the things that will save you stress and heartache, especially on the day - get someone else to do them!

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