Right...how much is this whole shebang going to cost? We have already allocated/spent some of our budget, but really at the moment everything is pretty fluid.
OK...I'll admit some things we don’t even know how much they will cost yet…I never thought about how much buttonholes cost before I started planning this!
We know how much we want to spend on the expensive stuff like venue, catering and photography. We've already booked the venue for £3500 (nearly paid off) and have actually booked the photographer for £1000, less than we thought it would be. Catering is next on the list and we’re looking for around £2000-£3000.
After this we will have already spent around £7000 which seems like loads, in fact it is loads but this will be the bare bones of our wedding - venue, food and drink, registrar and photographer. We could get married with just that, the rest is just dressing really. It’s so surprising how much money you can save up if you really try and have something to aim for, I would never think we could get £7000 together in under a year until now, it makes me feel so stupid that we never got our deposit saved up for our own house – after the wedding this will be our next step and now I know we can do it I want to get it together pretty quick!
The budget for the rest is pretty fluid but we want to keep it near to the £10,000 mark for the whole thing, so we have around £3000 left (around being the operative word here this is far from accurate budgeting). We aren't stuck to that limit though, we’re really just going with what we can afford at the time so it might be more, or it might be less. I don’t want to get into debt to pay for our wedding, and while I want to have a beautiful day I also don’t want to make loads of work by having unnecessary stuff there, I'm busy enough as it is! I'm hoping to have the venue paid off by the end of the year and have the money saved up for the catering by early next year so we can pay it off in one go, this will leave us clear for all the other stuff to pay for next year. Our approach is to do this bit by bit, so paying things off as we go and then moving onto the next rather than paying for it all together on a credit card then paying it off until our 10th anniversary, remember we still don’t own our own home and have that to think about in the future.
We do also have the offer of help from family which we are so grateful for, for example Toms mum has offered us the exact amount that our photographer costs, and my Dad wants to help us out although I've not yet taken him up on that offer but we will (possibly with the catering). We are adding in help from family as additional to our budget, so this is where we can allow ourselves a bit of an overspend if needed, and where we can maybe have some nicer things that we wouldn't be able to afford on our own. To be honest we weren't counting on our families to pay for our wedding, in this day and age I don’t think you do, but its traditional for them to help out and they want to so we’ll happily let them.
The things we have left to pay for are:
Music - The ceremony and in between music we're planning to be free, so the evening music is the only thing. About £500 seems to be an average price for a DJ but to be honest we haven't enquired anywhere yet!
Invites – Less than £200 if we can. Hoping to DIY some parts and use offers/coupons for money off printing. Debating also just printing some of the parts ourselves like the accommodation information and directions to go with the invites. We don’t want anything too fussy with ribbons and bows etc, just a nice invite, maybe with a photo background. Postage is also a factor for them, we can hand deliver to our immediate family but will need to post some, and some need to go abroad.
Clothes – Dress no more than £1000 (hoping a lot less but it depends on sale prices, I have a whole year to stalk the sales!), and accessories, hair and makeup less than £500. Suit for Tom – Not sure yet depends if we buy or rent but less than £500 hopefully.
Flowers and Décor - Hoping to DIY a lot of the décor and centrepieces so the budget for that is as low as possible but around £500, the only flowers we will get from a florist will be 4 bouquets and the buttonholes so hopefully less than £200 – depends on what flowers we have, not decided yet.
Cake – Around £100 for a shop bought cake...unless we have another option - more on that soon!
There are also the additional and miscellaneous expenses, which we won’t know the amount for yet but it will probably be for things like travel, last minute disasters (replacement shoes or adjustments to dresses etc) or just stuff we add on as we go.
Those are mostly our highest estimates, some will be less, some will be more, we will have unexpected expenses, and I may look back at this and laugh at my naiveté after the cake costs £800…
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