Tips on Setting Your Wedding Budget | By Wedding Planner, Abeer Safa
Written by on September 12, 2013.
Tagged under: Dubai, Wedding Budget, Wedding Planner, Weddings
Tips on Setting Your Wedding Budget
A wedding day is supposed to be a memorable and happy event. But weddings are becoming more of a financial burden for those who fail to budget wisely, they can end up paying for extras they don’t really need. No one wants to start married life with huge debts hanging over them. Event Planner & Co-Founder of Touche D’or by Al Wazzan L.L.C. Abeer Safa, offers some invaluable advice and simple steps to help set a realistic wedding budget.
Start Budgeting
Be clear about your budget before you start booking services, and establish how you intend to pay for your wedding. Once you know your budget, you can start pricing up each element.
It can be tempting to go all out on your wedding and spend way more money than you have. Check out the below steps, aimed to help you prepare a wedding budget, so you will still have some cash left over for the honeymoon!
You Will Need
1. An expense list
2. Research
3. A guest list
Step 1: Calculate the total
Calculate the amount you and your future spouse have to spend on the wedding. Include contributions from family and friends.
Step 2: List all expenses
List the items and vendors you will need and dedicate a percentage of your budget to each.
Step 3: Research – Expensive doesn’t mean ‘better’
Think carefully about the things you need and don’t need. Use a wedding planner to help you understand the areas you need to think about, from sending out invitations, choosing dresses, buying rings to booking your venue and arranging food. Work through each task or requirement one by one to establish which is essential, which can be tweaked to save money and which can be avoided. Prioritise your spending: What do you want to put money towards? Amazing food and drink? Feel empowered to ruthlessly cut other budget items.
Research the vendors for every item. Prices for food, flowers, music, and photography can vary greatly. Don’t be afraid to shop around for quotes and negotiate within reason.
Adjust each percentage to reflect your priorities. If floral arrangements and bouquets are particularly important to you, you can add money there and cut back in other areas, like entertainment for example.
Step 4: Determine your guest list
Determine exactly how many people you plan to invite. A good portion of the expenses, such as catering, invitations and postage, and centerpieces, depend on the size of the guest list, the smaller the guest list, the more money you save!
Step 5: Decide what to wear
Consider costs for attire, such as the wedding dress, headpiece and veil, shoes and accessories, jewelry, hair and makeup, and the groom’s tuxedo or suit. Plan to spend about 10 percent of your budget on attire.
Step 6: Consider reception costs
Determine how much to spend on the reception. Nearly half of a wedding budget is typically spent on the hall, catering, wedding cake, and favors. You may want to purchase wedding insurance to protect yourself from the unexpected.
Step 7: Remember details
Don’t forget to account for the little things, like transportation for the wedding party, valet parking, gifts for bridesmaids and groomsmen, and gifts for out-of-town guests, furniture (if needed) sound and lighting (if needed). Sometimes these can be overlooked and then you will find yourself having to find an additional few thousand dirhams to cover costs.
Looking for more wedding tips and advice? Click here.
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