What are tips for budgeting a wedding?
- Consider the Size of the Guest List
- Choose An Off-Peak Wedding Date
- Go For a Naturally Beautiful Venue
- Consider a Brunch Wedding
- Opt for a Dessert Buffet
- Allocate Funds Effectively
Regardless of whether you have a million pesos, half a million, or 100,000 pesos to spend on your wedding, planning is not something that you should take lightly. Save some budget for your honeymoon. Take note, after years or months of planning, you might want a week off with your spouse to privately celebrate an important milestone in your life. From reducing the number of invitees to ensuring effective allocation of funds, here are some of the essential tips for planning wedding budgeting.
Consider the Size of the Guest List
For couples, it is quite tempting to include everyone on the guest list. While this may mean more fun, it is not a great idea if you are strict with your budget. With each head that you add to the list, your costs increase. The intimacy, as well as the privacy of your wedding, lessens.
Never feel obligated to invite the friends of your friends who you only met up with a couple of times. Conversely, do not feel you are required to invite relatives that you have not seen or spoken to for almost a decade. Although it is lovely to share the most important day of your life with every person you know, keeping the wedding intimate presents the best solution to avoid going overboard on your budget.
Choose An Off-Peak Wedding Date
Take the concept of supply and demand. Peak season means rental prices for wedding gowns, reception venues, caterers and other miscellaneous factors will shoot up due to high demand. Most Filipino weddings are held from May to June and December to February. These are the months wherein all wedding services are charged at a premium price.
Typically, couples would choose to hold their weddings on important dates in their relationship like the anniversary date, a significant month, or a notable holiday. With that in mind, many fail to recognize and consider peak seasons. Failing to consider dates and months can tremendously bloat wedding costs.
Go For a Naturally Beautiful Venue
Function halls provide you with the opportunity to incorporate your desired wedding theme. However, going for a mix of a traditional church wedding and barn reception presents an ideal combination to reduce costs associated with the location. When looking for a venue, you should look at the transportation costs of wedding essentials as well as your guests.
While holding a wedding reception in Manila entails higher rental costs, celebrating at a remote place could mean greater transportation costs and related fees to the consumer market. In addition, conventional venues require a minimum headcount. With that, you may be required to fill in the guest list and risk spending more of your budget.
Consider a Brunch Wedding
If you look at the data pie chart of any wedding, most couples would spend a sizable portion of their total budget on the reception. There are plenty of reasons why holding a brunch wedding is less costly compared to typical after sunset celebrations.
Think eggs Benedict, bacon, fried rice, and pancakes. You can save up on food expenses if you serve your guests a heavy brunch buffet. Apart from that, you will not have to rent a fully open bar to avail of free-flowing alcoholic drinks for the after-party. Cocktails such as mimosas, Bloody Mary’s, and breakfast sangrias are great brunch cocktails.
Opt for a Dessert Buffet
Instead of pouring a large portion of your wedding reception funds into the main course buffet, why not allocate more for the dessert buffet? Combine the breakfast buffet with delectable sweets through a grazing table filled with sweet pastries and even savory finger-food. Put together a gorgeous grazing table for those who crave sweets in the morning.
Regardless of whether you have a buffet-style setup or plated meals, having a breakfast grazing table on the side should satisfy your sweet tooth. It should also satisfy those who are looking for finger-food as they enjoy their mimosas.
Allocate Funds Effectively
Correctly allocate your funds by breaking down the possible expenses you will have for your wedding. To do this, you should be able to rank the importance of each wedding essential according to your preference as a couple. For instance, others would prioritize the caterer because they wish to serve the best food to their guests. While some would rather have the best wedding photos.
Regardless of your total budget, here is a sample breakdown of wedding expenses in percentages:
- Wedding reception: 48-50%
- Church wedding ceremony: 2-3%
- Bridesmaids and groomsmen attire: 2-3%
- Flowers for the bride and decoration: 8-10%
- Entertainment and sound system: 8-10%
- Documentation including videography and photography: 10-12%
- Miscellaneous costs like overtime expenses: 8%
- Emergency fund: 5%
Key Takeaway
Planning your own wedding is probably one of the most exciting and tedious activities you will immerse yourself in. The key to creating an effective wedding budgeting plan depends heavily on how you want your wedding to be and the total budget you allotted for the special occasion. At the end of the day, you will face the receipts of all the wedding expenses. Let the vision of it remind you to include only what is essential for the celebration. The most important part of it is you share the special moment with the people you love at a venue dear to you.
