The Financial Reality of a Dream Wedding
By Ivette Attaud-Jones
You’ve finally gotten engaged and everyone’s happy for you – now what? What’s the next step? What should you know before you start planning the wedding of your dreams?
For starters, how much money you have on hand to spend. Planning your dream wedding takes a lot of thought and communication between you and your fiancée. It’s a day that symbolizes your public display of love for one another and you want the special people in your lives to share in it. Although it’s traditional to have the bride’s family pay for the wedding, nowadays couples pay for it themselves, or enlist the help of their families. If you both know what you want for that special day, including how much you’re willing to spend, There’s a good chance you won’t overspend. You can’t say, “I have X amount of money to spend – I don’t know how much he/she has to spend.” Being able to discuss finances openly and honestly with each other is one of the first steps to being a married couple. Short of going to City Hall, you will have to spend money - no matter what type of wedding you have.
Developing a good budget means finding out how much everything will cost BEFORE you start spending. You will also need to research various wedding vendors and do the same type of comparison shopping as if you were buying a car. Some couples make the mistake of spending lavishly for their wedding, only for the reality to hit 2-3 months before the ceremony that they’ve spent much more than they anticipated. Truth of the matter is, once you sign the contracts and put your money down, you can’t back out of them. It is extremely important to do as much research as you can and it should be done before you create your guest list. The number of people you invite determines how much your wedding will cost. Keep in mind that the reception alone accounts for approximately 48% - 55% of your total wedding budget.
Here is an example of how quickly the cost of a wedding can escalate. If you’re inviting 250 people and the catering facility charges $65 per person, your reception will cost $16,250 not including taxes and gratuities, and that’s just to feed your guests! If you factor in the cost of the tuxedos, wedding gown and accessories, attendants gifts, flowers, photographer and/or Videographer, limousine, DJ, officiant’s fee, ceremony fees, decorations, honeymoon, and other extras, you will spend approximately $34,000 for your wedding. If you don’t have the financial resources on hand and are not willing to take some shortcuts along the way, you’ll spend the next several months “Robbing Peter to Pay Paul” just to pay for your wedding. Couples have gotten so caught up in the dream of their wedding day that they’ve spent upwards of $10,000 more than what they should have because they didn’t have a budget. This is part of the stress that planning a wedding can generate. If you and your fiancée find yourselves in a similar situation, it’s not a bad idea to delay setting a date while you save money to have the kind of wedding you really want.
If you’re having trouble figuring out what your budget is and how to break everything down, maybe it’s time to consider enlisting the help of a wedding planner. A wedding planner will develop a realistic budget for you and do the research to find vendors that can give you the most for your money. They can also help you stick to your budget and help save you money on your other wedding-related expenses, which should more than make up for the wedding planner’s fees.
Ivette Attaud-Jones is the owner of LIAJ Bridal Consulting and a certified Professional Bridal Consultant and Wedding Planner. She is also a member of the Association of Bridal Consultants. She can be reached at liajbridal@earthlink.net
