Image via WikipediaI couldn't believe it when I heard that the average wedding can cost anywhere between $20,000 and $30,000 according to different reports. I know my wedding didn't cost anywhere near that amount even though it was 17 years ago now.Since that time a lot of my family and friends have had weddings where I've been asked to help out. I know that for most of the weddings I've been apart of, none have cost more than around $10,000 and they've all been a great success. I still hear comments about how beautiful my niece's magical wedding was and that was a few years ago now.
In many of the blogs I have been on recently, I've noticed that there's a lot of brides out there wanting to plan their wedding on a budget as low as $5000. With a lot of couples having mortgages to pay and living costs being so expensive, it can be a challenge to find the funds to pay for a wedding. Just because the average wedding is over $20,000 doesn't mean that you can't achieve the same wedding on a small budget.
The biggest question people have when it comes to planning their wedding on a small budget is: "will I be able to have the wedding I really want?" Take it from me, the answer is definitely YES! I have seen where lots of couples with budgets as low as $5000 or less, have put a lot of careful effort into planning their wedding and have achieved the wedding of their dreams.
When the wedding budget is small, the most key element to success is in the planning process itself. Couples need to sit down and really focus on designing a wedding that is tightly focused on those elements that truly mean the most to them that they want to include in their wedding.
For many couples, planning a wedding is a first time event. There is so much information and advice to be found on the internet, often one of the biggest challenges is sorting out the good advice from the not very good advice.
I hope that this guide provides good advice on planning a wedding, saving money and tips on staying within the budget.
In order to plan a wedding, you're going to have to make a ton of decisions along the way. One of the first decisions is deciding on how much you want to spend on your wedding. For this you need to set a wedding budget.
For a typical wedding, the budget is divided into 5 main categories, such as:
Wedding Ceremony: venue, celebrant, wedding rings etc
Wedding Reception: venue, menu type, decorations, flowers, favors etc
Wedding Attire: wedding dress, bridesmaids dresses, groom's suit etc
Wedding Cake
Photography
Wedding Ceremony
In many weddings today, couples are opting to hold their wedding ceremony in a different location to the traditional church service. One popular option which I chose for my wedding, was holding the ceremony at the same venue as the wedding reception. There's a few benefits to choosing this option, including saving money, not having to hire wedding cars or pay the costs associated with a church service. Also, our guests didn't have the worry of travelling between the church and the reception and then having to find parking.
Wedding Reception
In a typical wedding the biggest expense is usually the wedding reception. It usually takes up between 40-50% of the budget depending on the type of reception you have in mind.
Wedding Attire
The cost of things like the all important wedding dress, can vary greatly, depending on whether you buy a designer gown, an off the rack dress, have the dress made, hire a gown or buy a second-hand gown off Ebay. Whatever the choice, there is a huge emotional investment that goes into choosing a wedding dress because every bride wants to look their best on the day. So setting a realistic budget will be very important, when it comes to factoring in how much you can afford to spend in this area.
Wedding Cake
The cake is one of the oldest symbols of a wedding and a very important must have item, for a lot of couples. These days there are a lot of different options available besides the traditional tiered cake.
Photography
Your wedding photos are a very important part of your wedding and will provide you with many years of memories. However, wedding photography can easily blow the budget out of the water if you don't budget carefully. While professional photographers offer a whole host of services and options, they can be very expensive. It's important for couples to shop around for the best deals or find other alternatives such as get a family or friend to do the job for you to cut down on costs.
The key to planning a wedding on a small budget is focusing on only those elements that have the most meaning to you and your wedding and then set your budget accordingly. The best way to do this is to get a wedding planning guide that will make the whole process, and covers everything aspect of your wedding right from the planning stage to the wedding day itself.
Here is a wedding planning guide that I think has a lot of great tools and resources and also offers to help you save money on every area of your budget. It's reasonably priced and also comes with a great
bonus too! If you're interested, check it out here....Amazing Wedding Planning
If you would like to see some reviews on a good wedding planning book or 2, then this is a great site, just Click Here!
Good luck with your wedding planning,
Regards
The Wedding Fairy
