If you are getting married soon you may be thinking about setting a budget. This can be quite tricky as you may have all sorts of plans and not really want to compromise but still want to make sure that you can afford it. There are several things that you should be doing in order to think about how much you should be paying.
Consider What You Want and Price It
To start with it is a good idea to think about what you want for a wedding and work out the price of it all. It should be fairly easy to make some enquiries and find out how much everything will cost. You might be able to do this online or speak to people who have recently got married and aks them. It does not need to be completely accurate but you just some sort of idea of how much it will all be when you allow for everything. Include the cost of the venue(s) registrar or vicar, catering, cars, photographer, videographer, flowers, gifts, decorations, favours, stationery (invites, menus, order of service, place names etc) clothing, hotel rooms, honeymoon and cake. Also consider whether there is anything else that you might be paying for as well. There are lots of different things that will need to be considered and they will all need to be accounted for.
Calculate How Much You Can Afford
The next step is rather more sobering! You will need to work out how much you can afford. Have a look at your personal finances and see how much you have saved and invested and think about how much you can afford to put towards the cost of the wedding. If you do not have enough, then you will need to think about what you are going to do.
You do have a selection of options so you need not despair. The most obvious is to cut back the wedding plans to something that you can afford. You might be happy with doing this as you may feel that the vows and commitment are the important things and the extras you can go without. However, there are many people that will want to still have all of those things to make the day really special and memorable. Therefore, they will need to find the money. They will have tow option left. They will either need to wait and save up, so the delay the wedding until they can afford it. The other option is to borrow the money and then they will not need to delay the wedding. There are obviously pros and cons to both and it will be a very personal decision as to what you want to do.
So, thinking about how much you should pay for your wedding will depend on a few factors. You will have to think about what you want and this will determine the cost. However, you will also need to think about whether you can afford this amount. If you cannot afford it, then you will need to decide whether you want to borrow the money, delay and save up or cut the cost. This is a big decision as a wedding is a very important one. You will be wise to discuss it with your partner but perhaps also with friends and family so that you can be sure that you are making the right decision as you do not want it to be a decision that you later regret.
