Wedding Planner Budget

You see a beautifully presented wedding ceremony with an equally exquisite reception afterwards and you immediately think of how much it cost.  You see a beautiful wedding gown on a stunningly beautiful bride with flawless make-up and that perfect flower on her head and you think, “My, looks expensive.”  You sip that bubbly and comment on the perfect taste of the wedding cake and think that they must have paid big bucks to get that kind of champagne and that right texture for the cake.  You take stock of everything in the wedding and immediately add up dollar signs in your head and think how costly it is to set up and have such a wedding.

But, beautiful weddings need not be expensive.  The outcome of a wedding actually depends not only on your wedding planner but also on how well you juggle your budget to get the desired results that you want.  You don't have to spend much to have that great wedding as long as you got the smarts and the moves to make things happen.

The most important thing to do is to keep track of the money outflow.  There are a lot of wedding budget guides on the net that you could download and print that could help you track what you need for your wedding as well as its corresponding budget.  This guide could also serve as your checklist on what still needs to be attended to and what has been finalized.

Here are some tips to actually get that budget going without going overboard.

The first thing to do is to set that budget and be firm in sticking to it no matter what.  You have to be able to know how much money you could actually spend and go from there.  It is even wise to get quotes from several wedding vendors and compare them to the estimates that you have plotted out for every wedding service or item that you need.

You also have to go tough on your wedding list and cut out what is not really important.  Do not give in to what your mothers want included in the wedding, whether it be your own or your in-law-to-be.  Don't get too expansive on the wedding guest list.  Just make sure that you have invited family members from both sides as well as close friends.  It is not a crime to have a close-knit guest list as long as it means better food and venue for the reception.

Don't settle for anything the first time you see it.  Why not shop around?  Giving yourself more time in picking out things for the wedding could also mean giving yourself a chance to better find that dress that looks and fits perfectly on you. 

The upside to that would be that its price has been marked down.  Or, you could even make that dress yourself if you are very handy with a needle and a thread or the sewing machine.  You could just buy the pattern of that dress that you absolutely love and you are ready to have that perfect wedding dress.

As weddings happen only once, there is really nothing wrong in wearing a borrowed or rented wedding gown and that goes also for the rest of the bridal party, as this will help you save on lots of money. 

Although you will not be able to keep these borrowed or rented items for posterity measure, the photographs, for this part, will have to do.  There are so many rental wedding attires that you could choose from that would come out as perfect as if it was made exclusively for you in the pictures.

Another important budget stretcher is setting that wedding date on an off-peak season for weddings.  You could even settle for a weekday instead of a Saturday, which is a premium day for weddings.

Of course, if you are the creative type and would want to make the invitations and giveaways more personalized, you could just purchase the needed materials and do them yourself.  You could use your computer or go handcrafted, although the latter could be a long and tedious task, not to mention time-consuming.  You would be able to use your creativity as in setting a theme for your wedding as well as save money for the printing and the gift-production.

Never be ashamed to talk to suppliers and letting them know of your wedding budget, and your wedding planner budget as well.  These experts could actually be very helpful in working within your budget or in recommending someone who could do the job for you at the budget you require.

When it comes to photographs for those sweet memories, you could scrimp by having the photographer only take pictures of the wedding ceremony.  You could make picture taking more fun by having the guests involved in it.  You could have disposable cameras set up on guest tables and have everyone taking pictures of everyone and everything that goes on in the reception.  This way your guests will not only have the photos to remember your wedding by, they will also have the corresponding stories to tell.  Also make sure that you are getting the best deal from the photographers by comparing their hourly rates to their package deals.  This way you will be able to settle for the best price that could give you the best results.  For the video, you could just ask a friend to do it for you and ask him to consider at as his gift to you.

For the wedding's ambiance, make sure that you use flowers that are in season and does not need shipping that will make its price higher or you could set that wedding in a garden so you don't have to use flowers at all.  You could have a friend's band that needs promoting to come in your wedding to provide the music.  To top it all off, you could also have a friend make that wedding cake for you.  Either you will have to pay lesser for it or she could just give it to you as a gift.