Here we go with #4 in the Top 5 Things To Do When Planning Your Wedding! For those of you who have not been following along, I am sharing my wedding planning expertise as a Calgary wedding planner, covering the 5 “must-dos” in wedding planning.

To get the full benefits of these wedding planning tips, you need to catch up the topics that we have already covered here:

#1 of The Top 5 Things To Do When Planning Your Wedding – Determine your wedding type & style

#2 of The Top 5 Things To Do When Planning Your Wedding – Prioritize

#3 of the Top 5 Things To Do When Planning Your Wedding — Manage Expectations

Now that you are all caught up, let’s get started with #4!

#4 of 5 Things To Do When Planning Your Wedding — Set a budget

Ah yes, the dreaded “B” word (no, not “Bridezilla”). When it comes to wedding planning, budget is typically what couples worry about the most. Heated discussions and statements like “But it’s just for one day!” and “But it’s my wedding!” happen, and it sometimes isn’t very pretty.

As a Calgary wedding planner, one of my tasks is to manage your wedding budget. Because I am not as emotionally invested, I am able to talk about your finances in a realistic way and help you keep things in perspective. Building your wedding budget requires compromise and realism. Yes, this is technically just “one day”, but the details of your wedding day are captured forever in photographs. They also build a lifetime of memories for you and your loved ones. On the flip side, you can’t be unrealistic and start planning a wedding that you will be paying for years down the road. That will just lead to disaster in your marriage!

A great way to start your wedding budgeting is to have honest conversations to see who will be paying for the wedding (this ties into #3 – Manage Expectations):

Who will be paying for your wedding?

• The Bride’s Parents — Traditionally, the Bride’s parents have been the ones to foot the bill for the wedding. This is certainly not a rule, but depending on your family and financial situation, maybe this works for you. The upside of having your parents pay for your weddings is that you and your fiancé won’t have to dip too far into your Savings. Maybe this lets you buy a house and start building your life together. The downside, naturally, is that the person holding the funds usually gets the most say in how the wedding goes. This means that you may have to compromise a lot…which could, ultimately, make your wedding a little less personal. In addition, this wedding may set back your parents’ retirement and strap them down with debt too.

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• All sides of the families — A concept that works for modern wedding planning is having everyone contribute to the wedding budget. A manageable way to do this is to find your “bottom line” and figure out the flat fee that everyone is, individually, comfortable with supplying — adding these amounts together may already give you your wedding budget. Alternatively, you can take the total budget and divide it equally among everyone. By splitting up the costs this way, your budgeting will be much easier than if you asked people to pay for specific items. This might help you avoid awkward situations like if your dream dress costs more than what your parents are willing to pay for. Again, with this situation, you will still have to compromise!

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• You and your fiancé pay for everything — This is very common nowadays, with couples waiting longer to get married so that they are more established and have the funds to throw a great bash for their family and friends. This being said, you get to decide the kind of “bash” you are throwing to celebrate your marriage, be it a casual wedding at a friend’s cabin, to a glam, ultra-luxe wedding at a boutique hotel. Naturally, if you are funding everything for your wedding, this could mean that your budget is smaller, so you may have to compromise on the size and/or style of your wedding, or risk being stuck with a lot of wedding debt.

How a wedding planner helps with your wedding budget

One of the most common things I hear from the couples that we work with is that they simply do not know if the budget they set matches the wedding experience that they want. As a wedding planner, discussing the budget is one of the first things I do for my couples that are looking for Complete Wedding Planning & Design: we go over your wedding vision and your wedding priorities and the amount you have set to create that wedding. I believe in being honest with my couples, and I always let you know if your wedding vision is feasible with your wedding budget. Often, we need to tweak certain aspects in either the budget or vision to create a balance. I monitor our budget during all phases of our wedding planning so that you can have a stress-free budgeting experience.

Photo credit: Shannon Ho Photography

If you would like to find out more information on how Evelyn Clark Weddings can help with your Calgary wedding (or Banff, Canmore, etc. wedding!), give me a shout on my email or at 403-837-9667.

We are almost there! Stay tuned for the last tip in our Top 5 Things To Do When Planning Your Wedding series.