One of the first (and most important) steps in the planning process is setting a realistic budget for your wedding. Many times, this is easier said than done! There is a funny phenomenon that occurs once you start planning – all reason goes out the window and suddenly something you want turns into something you need!

Exhibit A: Your venue has banquet chairs (albeit ugly ones) and round tables. These items are included in the rental cost and there are more than enough chairs and tables for all of your guests. Using the existing tables and chairs would save you money. But after looking at pictures of some higher end weddings and falling in love with the overall décor, you decide that you absolutely, positively, without a doubt, cannot live without chiavari chairs and square tables!!! And there you go spending another several hundred dollars over what you originally budgeted for décor.

Exhibit B: You are planning to serve a few signature drinks at your wedding. The original game plan was to have the catering staff pass these drinks during cocktail hour and serve them from the bar at dinner. But then you were at a fabulous event last week, and they served signature drinks from an amazing martini ice luge… and now that you’ve seen the drinks served that way, they really wouldn’t taste as good if you served them without running them through the ice luge! So now a martini ice luge is a must-have, bringing your budget even farther out of line.

And on, and on, and on! Before you know it, your wedding expenditures have doubled! Before you decide the whole thing is hopeless and decide to elope, here are a few tips to help keep your budget in line (while still managing to pull off the wedding of your dreams):

• Prioritize! Decide which elements are the most important to you (food, music, décor, etc) and allocate a larger percentage of your budget to those elements. That way, the majority of your resources will be spent on the things that are most important to you and that you’ll remember most.
• Hire a Wedding Planner! A planner can be a great way to help keep costs down and stick to your budget. Your planner will keep you on track budget-wise, and should have insider knowledge about realistic costs for each element of your wedding – this knowledge can help guide your decisions about how to get the most for your money.
• Shop Around! Don’t be afraid to shop around to see whether another vendor can offer similar services for a lower price. The extra time spent researching your options can save a lot in the long run.
• DIY! As my mom used to say, “give it a little elbow grease”. Choosing a few do-it-yourself items can help bring down costs since you won’t have to pay a vendor to do the labor. If you’ve hired a good wedding planner, they will often be able to help with some of the DIY items to help keep your budget in check.

Yes, it is your special day and you want it to be amazing! But sticking to a budget doesn’t have to mean giving up what you’ve always wanted for your wedding – it just means being smart about where to spend your money so that you get the most bang for your buck. Besides, sticking to your budget means you might have some extra cash leftover to spend after the wedding…. couples massages on the honeymoon? Yes, please!

Brooke Hill
Owner & Principal Event Designer
The Celebration Studio