Creating a General Wedding Budget
Ahh... the wedding budget. My least favorite part of wedding planning. I'm going to try and make this as painless as possible and use real percentages from my own wedding.
I'd like to preface this by saying that every wedding is different. For instance, I chose to forego a wedding planner which might account for a much higher percentage of a brides budget. I also opted for a live band over a DJ and didn't go too crazy with florals. I chose to have a fairly extravagant wedding with a large budget. Everyone has their preferences and you can adjust as needed based on your own desires.
It's also important to note that many regions across the country have vastly different price ranges for wedding vendors, so hopefully percentages will be helpful in getting a general idea for wedding costs. These are the percentage I allocated for my own wedding budget in June 2022 in New England...
35% - Venue
This is where the largest chunk of your money will be likely spent. Check out my post about choosing the right venue for more specifics about wedding venues.
20% - Caterer
Many venues offer a catering package tied into the venue price which was often a good deal. When hunting for caterers not affiliated with the venue, make sure to shop around! I found VASTLY different price ranges across the same city. For us, the catering cost also included an alcohol package and our (gluten free) wedding cake.
10% - Band
I found it most interesting that band prices varied greatly across the northeast. The average live band cost in New York was $12k-$15k whereas the average price in Boston was around $9k-$10k. Often times, bands are willing to travel. A DJ is a more budget friendly option, but in my opinion, a live band is the way to go!
7% - Photography
I did a lot of research when searching for the perfect photographer. I found it easy to find a fairly priced photographer that matched my style. Obviously, this was one of the more important aspects of my wedding since I love photography, so I decided to choose a photographer in the mid/upper price range and they accounted for about 7% of my overall budget. The way I saw it, twenty years from now, my photos will be the main way I remember my wedding day. Shameless plug - newer photographers might be willing to strike a better deal with you in order to grow their portfolio.
6% - Florals
I am not the biggest flower girl. I can barely keep a cactus alive. I picked a florist on the lower end of my budget for my wedding. My venue was also very extravagant and didn't necessarily need a ton of dressing up. If you are someone who loves flowers and plans to have a ton, I'd consider florals to be more like 8-10% of your budget as they can get very expensive. For our wedding, they accounted for 6% of our budget.
6% - Videography
This was another area where prices varied vastly. I really wanted a record of the day and didn't care too much for a fancy videography. That being said, it still cost about 6% of my budget to hire a lower/mid range videographer.
5% - Wedding Dress
If you've watched any episode of Say Yes to the Dress, you'll have a good idea of the range of wedding dress pricing. As much as I tried to keep this number at 3%, I fell in love with a dress that was 4% of my budget and went for it. Alterations and tailoring accounted for an additional percentage (ouch!) that I really wasn't expecting.
5% - Guest Transportation
This was an unexpected large cost when gathering pricing for my wedding. I thought a simple trolley back and forth from the main town of Newport would be simple, but boy was I wrong. Most transportation companies require you to hire them for the entire evening. Even though I only needed their services for about two hours, I had to pay for them to sit for the entire eight hour time frame of the wedding. This makes sense since the company likely can't pick up another gig at this time, but it came as quite the shocker when I added things up.
2% - Paper Goods
I found some amazing paper good deals on Etsy from independent artists and actually used my own Cricut to do my menus, escort cards and ceremony booklets. Even with all of my savings and DIY, I still spent 2% of my budget on paper goods.
2% - Hair and Makeup
I treated my bridal party to hair and makeup which accounted for 2% of the overall budget. For reference, I had five girls total get their hair and makeup done.
1% - Officiant
No, officiants aren't free. In fact, most churches and places of worship also charge a required 'donation' for you to get married on site.
1% - Ceremony Music
This might have been the best percentage point I spent for our entire wedding. We paid to have a harpist do our ceremony music and cocktail hour music. She played current day songs and classics on the harp and it was amazing. She was also my cheapest vendor by far. I highly recommend getting creative when it comes to your ceremony music. My band was going to charge me triple to play our ceremony and cocktail hour for the same amount of time.
The Bonus 10% *MOST IMPORTANT*
THIS. If you're a mathematician reading this article and thinking, gee, we already hit 100% after the last one, you're right. This category is the only area where I went majorly over budget on my wedding. I had so carefully accounted for every big piece of the wedding and every large vendor, but I didn't realize just how much I'd spend on the tiny odds and ends leading up to the wedding.
These things truly added up to SO MUCH MONEY - some might even say 10% of the overall budget! Some things that were included in this portion were gifts for the bridal party and parents, hair and makeup trials, marriage certificates, welcome bags for guests, hotel rooms for the bride and groom, tips for vendors, various decor items that don't fall in other categories... I could go on forever. Plan to leave yourself 10% of your overall budget for all of the miscellanea that accumulates throughout the process.
If you don't spend it, great! You'll have some leftovers for your honeymoon, but chances are there will be many small items that pop up throughout the process that will eat up a good portion of your budget. Don't make the same mistake that I did. Try to account for this bonus 10% in your original budget, or just know that you are bound to go over your main vendor budget by about 10%.
Let's Wrap This Up!
Phew! We made it.. and writing this post only brought back a small amount of PTSD from my wedding planning days. Again, every wedding is different and every bride will value different aspects of their wedding more than others. This post was meant as a very general guide for allocating your funds to different vendors throughout your planning process. I hope you found it helpful. Feel free to email me at jacquelynkennellyphotography@gmail.com for any questions about wedding budgeting, wedding planning or wedding photography. Cheers, Jacky.