What do you include in your budget?

We included everything - rings, clothing for everyone, honeymoon, rehearsal dinner, reception décor, etc. All vendors - caterer, bar service, cake, musicians, MUA (both trial and day of wedding), hair stylist (both trial and day of wedding), officiant, florist. It is obviously best to think of everything you can so you aren't surprised later. Scour all the wedding todo lists you can to come up with everything. I used 4 checklist apps on my phone, several lists I found on Pinterest, and a multi tab spreadsheet.

The only things I didn't include were rings and our honeymoon, because I don;t think either is a cost of having the wedding itself, if that makes sense? I counted what it cost to throw the celebration.

In general I am including everything except the honeymoon and the rings. And you're right not to judge yourself based on the "Pinterest Pretty" weddings---I'm pretty sure those numbers are skewed.

We bought our rings together and paid them off before I even started on our wedding budget. I'd say our wedding budget is around 5k (I think we'll end up spending 6k which is in our wiggle room), and our honeymoon was budgeted separately as another 3k. If we included it all up we'd have a $12,000 wedding I suppose, which sounds a lot fancier than what I mentally picture a 12k wedding to be.

Note: we're only inviting 35 people.

We didn't include the honeymoon in ours. But everything else including rings and tips for vendors. It seems like every day we find something new that needs to be budgeted for that we didn't realize yet.

We didn't include our Honeymoon, my dress (he doesn't know how much that cost and I don't want him to). his tux, and the gifts we both for our BP. We are paying for our own wedding and paid for our HM together but everything else we paid separately.

Everything!

My biggest pet peeve is when people come on here like, "You can totally host 100 people for $3K! We did it! Oh by the way, my parents gifted us the caterer and photographer, so that's not included." Just because YOU didn't pay for it doesn't mean it was free.

I'm including everything except rings and honeymoon. Rings we got FH's free and mine i have no idea what we are spending yet because we haven't looked and FH's jeweler is a friend of the family who had my custom engagement ring made.

Almost any blog you see with pictures of a "cheap" wedding...is not actually a wedding at all. They are staged shoots. Companies loan or offer up the best of their services, stage the whole thing like you would a home staging to sell it, and then photos are taken. They even do open model calls to get the "couple". Almost all of pinterest is like this. My friend is a photographer and regularly gets invited to staged shoots. Just know that it is not real....base your wedding on your budget and what you want, not any pictures or blogs you see on the internet.

Everything but the rings and honeymoon--we had totally separate budgets for those items.

@ Princess! Yes! Catering + photography alone is costing us about $12k for 120 people.

I included absolutely everything, except the honeymoon. It's the little things that ultimately get you, so remember to include the extras you're considering (bathroom baskets, welcome bags, programs, favors, etc). And leave that extra stuff for the end, only if you have leftover room in the budget.

Preach, Princess!! My (sort of related) pet peeve is when I talk about the wedding and how I am stressed about saving enough money in time, people always come at me with "then don't do a wedding, just have a reception/big party". I'm like "GTFO, THAT's the expensive part, not the wedding!

My budget includes everything but the honeymoon and rehearsal dinner. FH's hubby parents were nice enough to offer a substantial sum of money plus "whatever the groom's family traditionally pays for" so I am trying to get everything in our budget if possible. We might be able to include rehearsal dinner in our budget since our reception venue + catering came in under budget and we were thinking going to one of our favorite restaurants for rehearsal dinner.

We didn't really set a budget because we have done everything ourselves so we have been buying a little here and there. When I added it all up, I did not include rings, honeymoon, or rehearsal dinner.

I didn't include my rings (FH bought them as a set and isn't coming out of our "wedding money") or the honeymoon (we're having it months after the wedding and are planning and saving for it separately).

We also didn't include the RD or day after brunch because FILs and my parents are planning and paying for it separately and we have no input or idea what they're doing.

Question to those who say they included "everything". Did you include items that other people paid for? And if so, did that include BM dresses and GM tuxes? Just food for thought.

Everything but the rings, honeymoon, engagement party and rehearsal dinner are included. Budget wise, we are capped at 10k for the wedding and 3-5k for a honeymoon in Europe. I'm hopeful that both sets of parents will donate but we're planning on no financial help.

Yeah when I state my budget I include anything and everything wedding related from my dress to the cake topper!

I only included what FH and I have paid for because I'm not sure how much the BP has paid for their attire and accessories.

When I started planning I didn't include everything. Honestly I don't know why just thinking about it. I would say we are having 2 weddings for 15k and people thought I was crazy and I thought they were crazy too but I forgot to include everything else like my dress, ring, things I was gifted/ got a discount on. I was basically was talking about what's coming out of my bank account. NOW I have gone back and added everything and it gives me a realistic idea of how much I am really spending and it's easier to see what I saved on so I can splurge some place else. My budget includes postage all the way to rings. I didn't include honeymoon because that really isn't "wedding" related.