Wedding Planning 101 - Tips for sticking to your wedding budget

One of the first wedding planning tasks you will need to complete is to define your budget. A number of factors go into this, including what style of wedding you want, whether your parents are contributing any money and of course, how much you can afford.

Your wedding will require a major investment with a lot of small details all adding to your costs. It is one of the big events in your life where if you are not careful with your spending things can soon get out of control. For this reason it is important to stick to the budget that you have defined and not stray from it. Here are a few tips to help make this job a whole lot easier.

Develop a tracking system
This is perhaps the best way to keep tabs on your wedding spending. A standard wedding budgeting tool can be used to give you rough estimates on how your budget should break down. You can then modify these to your own personal needs. Many of these tools can be found online and a quick search on google should be all you need. Once you have done this, enter all your predicted spending details into a spreadsheet and mark them off when you have spent them. If you go over one aspect of your budget, which should be avoided whenever possible, enter this into the spreadsheet and look at aspects where you can save money and adjust the spreadsheet accordingly. This will also work well if you manage to spend less than you expected on a particular part of your wedding. By looking at the spreadsheet you can calculate where you can afford to splurge.

Consider any unexpected or extra costs
As previously mentioned your wedding costs can soon stack up and it is important to keep tabs on the little things. When drafting your budget remember to consider the amount you will need to shell out in tips. Standard tips are about ten per cent. Although this may not seem like a lot when you think about how many vendors will be involved in the day and how many people you will need to tip, the amount you spend in tips can soon run in to the hundreds of dollars. Similarly think about overtime costs. If your wedding reception is going great you may want it to never end but the amount of time your vendors spend on top of what has already been arranged can cost you heavily so either think about this beforehand and include it in your budget or be prepared to end your party at a set time, even if it is in full swing.

Use your head
Be sensible when making wedding purchases. Use the same credit card whenever possible as you will get some benefits from your card company such as cash back. You may not think of it as much at the time but considering the amount of purchases you will make during wedding planning the little benefits can soon add up. Pay off your credit card with money from a bank account dedicated to your wedding day. This is yet another tool in your arsenal that will let you easily keep track of your spending. Perhaps the most sensible thing to do is to plan to go over budget. Set about five per cent of your total wedding budget aside just in case you need to spend more. If you do not have to use it then you will have a nice cash windfall to spend on your honeymoon or your home.