Planning Our Wedding Budget
So not too long ago, the fiance (I’ll call him Tobes for privacy sake) and I spent a Saturday night at home calculating our finances and determining a wedding budget. Woo hoo! Boring I know… but it had to be done. Money is never a fun topic to talk about unless of course its the “what would you do if you won the lotto?” question. Anyway, we were pretty clueless to how much weddings really costs these days so we ended up blindly just setting a budget of $50K for a 220 people wedding. The $50K wasn’t based off any solid research. We heard from friends that Bay Area weddings averaged anywhere from $30K to $60K so $50K sounded like a good number. It was a budget we thought we could afford and was determined off some initial research we did on wedding venues, food, etc.
We checked out a few wedding venues and prices ranged anywhere form $3K to $10K just to rent, not including food. Doh! We also did some initial research for food. It costs anywhere form $35/person on the low end and $150/person on the high end. We hope to spend somewhere in the middle. I mean just the cost of the wedding venue plus the cost of food was going to set us back at least $20K. OUCH!!! That’s already 40% of our budget. I’ve heard that 40% of your budget should go to the ceremony (site fee, officiant’s fee + tips) and reception (site fee, food, drinks, tips, part favors and parking).
Reception and ceremony should be the bulk of the cost. Hopefully we’ll find other areas where we can cut costs by prioritizing items like cake and invitations. I mean I’d really love to do some DIY projects to save money but with a hectic full time job and lack of creative skills, I’m just not sure if its possible. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
