How did you decide on your budget?

There's a lot of these questions, and some good answers here.

https://www.weddingwire.com/wedding-forums/deciding-your-wedding-budget/486906e689c850cf.html

https://www.weddingwire.com/wedding-forums/choosing-budget-help/2052c6026f9662bc.html

https://www.weddingwire.com/wedding-forums/if-you-and-fh-are-footing-the-bills-yourself-how-did-you-decide-on-budget/a7dbf057c4a5609d.html

Mostly it boils down to what you can afford and being realistic about it.

That's entirely up to you and the size of wedding you want. For us, we had a good amount of savings plus my parents offered to help so we based our budget on that, plus the size of the guest list will make a difference. My only advice is to don't go into debt, don't have a wedding bigger than you can afford. I personally don't want to wipe out our savings completely, but we are spending a good chunk of it.

One way you can think about it is - what is the maximum amount of money that can disappear from your bank account without you being adversely affected by it? And that's the maximum amount you can spend. Just remember - even though your budget is "x" amount, it doesn't mean you absolutely have to spend that entire amount, all it means is you can't go over :-)

We were comfortable spending no more than 50% of our savings. Actually, we came in under budget at $44k, and a good portion of this was reimbursed through very generous gifts from our family.

We had already begun saving, we added up things like our bonuses, some of ou income tax money, and my mom is helping a great deal. I'm the first in my family to get married and everyone knew I would want a big over the top wedding, so my family is helping as well. Yeah I'm a bit spoiled, but we are paying a big portion as well. It's not all left to my family. I say my family because his family is not contributing at all. That an entirely different story though lol

We are paying for the wedding. We were comfortable spending an amount of money that would not cause us to go into our savings, go into debt or effect our quality of life. My parents are paying for the rehearsal dinner and plane fare for some family members.

Don't go into debt, have an emergency fund for about 6 months worth of expenses, and then spend what you can afford. People take anywhere from $100-$2000+ each month from their paychecks to go to wedding expenses.

Go on www.mint.com and figure out where you're spending your money, and how much you can afford to save. Then make a guest list, and to be safe lets say $100 per person for everything (invites, food, centerpieces, flowers, etc- some weddings will be less, some will be more. Super general rule of thumb but can be helpful to start- ours will be about $142 per person for our entire budget

@e=mc2 - Six months of expenses?! I have about two months of expenses in my savings, and it's the most money I've had in my life (and I'm in my mid thirties).

We were lucky in that my family always made it clear that they wanted to pay for the majority of our wedding costs. My mom has a vision of something that is pretty over the top, so we could never afford it if we were paying for everything ourselves.

Shortly after we were engaged, I sat down with my family and talked about what everyone envisioned. I showed them some quotes for venues and how estimates for how much I thought that vision would cost. Everyone agreed what the budget would be, where we could splurge, and where we would try to save.

FH and I are definitely putting in some of our own money, but the majority of the expenses are paid for. We're extremely lucky!

For us we got a loan, and some credit cards, and based the budget on that. other people base it on what they have in savings. others base it on what they can afford each month to contribute.

I calculated the extra money we could have and that I could save and FH did the same.

We didn't want to spend anything more than 12k period - we just felt like its unjustifiable. So then, we decided we did not want to go over 5k. We are lucky in terms of having a venue - I work there and will get the room for free. That helps - a lot!

It's one day. Hard to justify spending so much on one day.

I've always been a saver, so I had a good chunk in my savings account. We then figured out how much we could save each month (we didn't want to completely deplete my savings). We had a long engagement, so that helped as well.

@purple it's a general recommendation based on my opinions... especially if kids are involved. But many people here have had unforeseen things happen in life- death of a loved one with a lot of funeral expenses, the loss of a job leaving them without income, an unexpected home or car repair/medical bill. Every person's different, along with their risk tolerances. I would say 3 months is a minimum but that's just my opinion obviously. Once contracts are signed with vendors things are pretty set regardless of personal matters, and would hate for someone to go into debt over their wedding.

We figured out how much we could afford based on our income and monthly expenses. We knew we didn't want to have a super long engagement so once we picked a date we took that and the total amount and based our wedding around it.

We chose a number based on what we thought we could save during our engagement. We're still putting money into savings and living like we always did and that's how we like it. We will not be touching our savings or going into debt for anything. Fortunately, we have good paying jobs and generous parents that have been big helps.

My advice is start with the budget then start envisioning the wedding.... not the other way around.

We based it on what we could afford without going into debt, still paying our bills on time and took it from there.

I would say, your wedding budget should be what you can afford.

Then, back things out of it, starting with what is most important to you. Get starting prices from some local vendor websites.

Consider: would you rather have a fabulous intimate dinner with the 15 or 20 people closest to you, at a wonderful restaurant, or would you rather invite everyone you know, and have possibly more ordinary food and venue. I'm asking this sincerely, for your introspection.

Perhaps you like flowers, but they aren't your most important thing. Instead of the $125 garden compote centerpieces, maybe you have a more rustic or simple style and prefer the $40 centerpieces. Same with your bouquet: are you going for the incredible $350 bouquet full of peonies and orchids, or do you like the lovely seasonal flower bouquet for $175?

There's no right or wrong answers. It depends on if you want to go into debt for this, or not. And if you do, how far into debt will you go? How much money can you actually put into savings between now and then? If you put it all on credit cards, what will you do if your car dies?

I recently had a bride inquire about wedding flowers. She wanted to spend no more than $900. I can do that, I've done many weddings for less than that. But when I asked her WHAT and HOW MANY she wanted, of WHICH types of flowers, I went through the basic math using starting prices on my website - which doesn't include the peonies and orchids she wanted - and it came up to $1700. I don't think she went through the math exercise herself.

Just be honest with yourself. I don't believe all the your flowers should be 15% of the budget. It's what is important to you, and what you can afford. That's your budget. ChampagneDream and the other ladies are right: start with budget, THEN envision your wedding. Best wishes!

Same with the hype about what the engagement ring should cost...you know that's just marketing by the diamond/jewelry industry, right? That it should be so many months of your fiancee's take home pay?

I say, do what you can afford.

We figured out our budget by deciding how much we could save per month. Then by figuring out how much the type of wedding we want costs in our area. Then we decided to have a long engagement (almost 2 years) because we also have to save for a new home, furniture, etc. By the time we get married we'll have enough for the wedding, honeymoon & our new place (plus extra). I was afraid of not having enough $ for everything so the best decision we made was to have a long engagement & save as much as we can while we still live with our parents

Where I am stuck right now is the vast expanse between what we can afford versus what we want to spend.

We both got amazing new jobs recently, so we can easily save up $30-35k by when we want the wedding to be without having to dip into either of our current savings. My FH is comfortable spending $20-25k. I'd rather keep it under $5k or $10k tops.

It's the first thing that really matters than we've disagreed on in our relationship.