The Complete Guide to Figure Out your Total Wedding Budget and for Each Vendor
A common problem that many couples run into is when they get engaged, immediately book a venue, and then realize they need to allocate costs to many different vendors for their wedding day. Oftentimes, couples book a venue no matter the cost and then are stuck trying to fill in the gaps with their remaining budget and aren’t able to match their priorities. In this blog post, we will talk about the percentage how much of your wedding budget should be divided up for each vendor and how you should actually arrive at a budget that will fulfill your needs for your wedding day without breaking the bank.
First things First - Prioritize
Knowing what’s important to you will help you know where you want to spend your money. Make a list with your partner on both of your top 3-5 priorities for your wedding day. Is it absolutely necessary to have an open bar? Do you care more about the aesthetic and vibe of the wedding day? Are you dead-set on having a live painter? Will you be willing to pair down your florals to get a band instead of a DJ?
Knowing your Market Averages
The next thing that many couples forget to do before reaching out to vendors is to look into the average costs for your area for the wedding you’re hoping for. It’s good to know what most people spend in each category before you start reaching out to vendors just so it isn’t complete sticker shock each time you look up a new vendor. If you can try looking up online “average cost of wedding planner in Chicago”, you’ll likely have a range or a number that can help guide you if it’s something you’re willing to splurge on or if you might need to adjust your expectations for vendors.
Break Down your Budget
First, you’ll need to find out if you have any monetary contributions from other family (you’ll actually need to get a number from them, or give them a few vendors with those average costs from above). Then, you’ll need to figure out how much money you are able to distribute monthly without running into problems. Are you pulling from your savings? Are you planning on pulling some of your monthly income as well? These are all going to be added up and divided into a monthly spend for your wedding. Use your ideal wedding date and count how many months of payments you will have and divide your total budget into the months and this is the budget you have!
Percentages for Vendors
Now that you have an ideal total budget, now you can use a wedding budget spreadsheet to find out how much money you can or should spend in each vendor category. This can change depending on your priorities, location, and anything else that is relevant to you and your future spouse.
When you take the time to break everything down, it is much easier to know where your money should go and know exactly how much you have to spend. Figuring out your budget is more than choosing a number that sounds good or comfortable, because if that’s the case you may run into unmatched expectations. It’s best to figure out a more exact number to really know if you have room to budge or if it is firm while searching for your vendors.
If you need a budget spreadsheet to work off of, you can use my freebie budget spreadsheet as a baseline to figure out your wedding vendor budget. You can adjust as needed to match your own priorities and change the percentages to accurately represent what is most important to you for your wedding day!
