How to Prioritize Your Wedding Expenses

Now that you’ve got a general idea of the expense breakdown for your budget, you’re ready to move onto shopping for your vendors. For a lucky few, you may be able to find everything you want within the budget you’ve allocated. But most of you, especially if you’ve been perusing the latest wedding trends on Pinterest or Vogue, may start to find that what you initially envisioned is out of your price point. Pulling off your dream wedding while staying within budget means reducing the spend on certain vendors, which can be difficult to decide because you and your partner want every part of the wedding to be magical and perfect. This article is dedicated to helping you and your partner figure out which expenses to prioritize and which ones you can try to be more savvy with.

1. You and your partner each create a list of the top 3 line items you personally value the most

We’re talking about your big day - something that you’ve dreamt about for the last few months, if not the last ten years. What are the things that you care most about when it comes to your wedding day? What do you want to remember about it? In this step, we don’t care about what your guests want or will remember - it’s all about you and your partner. Your guests are there to celebrate the two of you and what they’ll remember most is how they felt and what your love is all about, so make your wedding personal to you two! What are items that will reflect each of your personalities, parts of your story, and will make you feel most comfortable and excited on your wedding day? Take some time to think about this and narrow it down to your respective top 3 items.

2. Talk with your partner about and create a joint Top 3 list

Once you and your partner have created a list of your personal top 3, come together to figure out what your joint top 3 list would be. Perhaps you’ll have a lot of overlap or maybe you’ll have 6 completely different items and need to work it out - there’s no better time than during wedding planning to polish your collaboration skills. Once you make the joint top 3 list you will have a deeper understanding of the vision for the wedding and the prioritized expenses to make that vision come to life, which will allow you to better support one another on the journey as well.

Additionally, creating a list beyond your top 3 will be helpful in knowing where you can afford to take money from in order to achieve your dreams in the prioritized aspects of your wedding. For example, perhaps you haven’t prioritized florals and decor, which means you can now afford to shift some of that budget towards an expense you care more about, like the photographer. These are the trade-offs that will help you to set a realistic budget and stay within it, but you’ll only be able to make decisions like this once you and your partner are on the same page when it comes to prioritizing your wedding budget.

3. Identify expenses that will be important for guests of honor

After the two of you have settled on your own priorities, it’s a good time to double check, if you haven’t already, with any family members or financially contributing donors about expectations they may have. And to figure out your plan to address those expectations. While you may not prioritize them in your top 3, it’s good to understand what additional expenses you may have and where they fit in your list of priorities.

Once you’ve fine tuned your budget to highlight your priorities, you are more than ready to find your dream vendors and even begin negotiating. Stay tuned for part 4 where we talk all about talking to your vendors. You got this, planning pals!