Starting wedding budget

Go through the wedding wire budget tool and put in the max amount you and your fh agree you'd pay for each item you want on the list. Wait until it totals up and see if that number feels reasonable for your budget. Assess your expenses and your your current savings. My fh and I's rule was that we wouldn't spend more than 2/3 our savings as we predicted they would be on the wedding day.

You may want to do some research on average costs in your area to help get you started too. We set an ideal budget before I started looking at costs and realized things were far more expensive than we expected. For example, many of the good photographers in our area start around $3500 and we wanted to stay under $5k for the whole wedding. If you have a smaller budget, the best ways to stick to it are to limit your guest list, consider off peak season and Friday/Sunday weddings, keep your WP small, and do your reception between meals with appetizers rather than lunch or dinner.
FH and I discussed what we felt comfortable spending on our wedding, and we’re just researching and trying to find creative and cost effective options to stay in that range. In my area the average wedding is like $38k I think, and neither of us felt comfortable spending anywhere near that for one day (we are also primarily paying for it ourselves). Good luck and happy planning!

I did tons of research on average pricing of vendors in the area before finalizing the budget we were comfortable with.
A lot of times people have unrealistic expectations of what things will cost and it helped to not be blindsided.

My hubby & I started by figuring out how much each could comfortably save every month for 15 months (til wedding day). My mom gifted us cash so we included that too. That total became our initial budget.

We opened a joint checking account for our monthly deposits so as we saved money we could pay vendors/deposits along the way. Very helpful!

I've found the average costs tool on wedding wire to be super helpful in managing expectations for pricing. I think you have to start by looking at when you want to have your wedding, and how much you can realistically save towards your wedding each month until then. Also keep in mind you may have to pay initial deposits up front. You can have a beautiful wedding for $5,000 or $50,000, but a lot depends on your area and the number of guests you want, as well as what you choose to prioritize. For us, catering and venue are making up about half our budget, because we felt our venue style and location were the most important thing to us. We started with a list of what we wanted in a venue (indoor ceremony and reception in same location, hotels nearby, neutral color palate, etc) and narrowed down to a few venues. They all ended up pretty similar in price once we factored in catering, tables, chairs, basically anything we HAVE to have (some included catering, some offered a list to choose from). Things like flowers, attire, decor, music, and photography tend to be more flexible on pricing, since you can add or subtract from those things as you narrow down your budget more.

You'll need to decide what aspects you're willing to spend a little more on, the more important elements to you, for us it was photography, food and music. Then what you're willing to DIY or go for a less pricey option. Once you've decided where your priorities are, take your budget and disperse it. Go by order of importance.

Can anyone help me figure out where a good starting point as to planning my wedding would be?

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You don't have any obligation to do anything in a specific order but I would pick a season you would like it to be in first. This can help with making other decisions.

View Quoted Comment First would be to determine budget, as in how much you have saved or how much you are able to comfortably put aside. If budget isn’t an issue you can plan based on what time of year you’d like to wed and seeking venues that may fit the approximate number of guests you’d be realistically be able to host

You determine what you're comfortable and able to spend and then from there when you're getting quotes and looking at your guest list you'd adjust it.n

I agree with doing some research on vendors. Maybe attend a wedding expo to get ideas too. Are you doing anything DIY?

View Quoted Comment I Might do some diy Lynne, but the problem seems like I'm planning all of it alone because my mom and sister have only helped me a little bit.

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I completely get it. Does your FH want to help a little? I'm doing a lot of the planning myself. It is frustrating and a bit heartbreaking.

View Quoted Comment He's trying to help but is getting stressed out like I am because my mom wants my wedding her way n wants to invite all of her family but is hardly helping like as if she's not excited and everytime we try talking about it or planning it she starts asking my middle sister when she's getting married and asks her how she wants her when we're trying to plan mine.

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I am so sorry that you are dealing with that.

View Quoted Comment It's alright I'm just going to try and plan this my best alone or just get married through justice of the peace