Budgeting for a Wedding

Without a doubt, a wedding is probably the single most expensive event that a family or individual is likely to arrange, with the average cost being somewhere in the region of £14-16,000 (see Typical Costs ). When planning a wedding, it is all too easy to let your heart rule your head, so you must decide on the type of wedding you want, and then prioritise the items that are important to you.

Setting up a Provisional Budget

To help keep control of these costs, set up a provisional budget using the 'estimate' column in our budget form. Our typical costs will give you an idea about the areas that you will be spending money on, and roughly how much they will set you back.

Spend some time researching the services you plan to have and obtain quotes from a number of companies. Our suppliers and costs record form will help you organise your quotes, and make sure that you are comparing like-for-like.

The resulting provisional budget will allow you to see if you really can afford everything you have your heart set on, and may show that you need to prioritise further and amend some of your choices. We've taken a look at ways to cut the costs and save money, which may give you some ideas on freeing up your budget for the things you really can't do without.

Always allow for a 10% contingency sum, as there will often be things that you may have forgotten to add in your provisional budget. This means that if you have a budget of £10,000 to spend, you should reserve approximately £1,000 of this for emergencies.

Final Budget

Once you have completed your provisional budget, you will be able to allocate a fixed sum for each of your items. Now that you have a firm idea of the options you are interested in, obtain definite quotes from suppliers, (using the suppliers and costs record form ) and enter the final quotes in the 'agreed' column of your budget form , making sure that you stay within your fixed price. Use the costs form to keep track of any suppliers booked and deposits paid.

You will alter and refine your plans continually over the next few months, so be prepared to be flexible while still keeping your objectives clear in your mind. Remember, you're the one who writes the cheques; if a supplier is not satisfactory in some way, look for another.

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