How do you create a budget?

I set our budget for $20K and ended up. $18.5K. Set the amount you wish to spend and have the biggest cost as your venue, food and bar. Everything else can be broken down to what you feel will be important to have in your day.

Do you want a big wedding or a small one ?

i knew for us a big wedding was the only way to go because we both have large families (i know they need a hobby ) so i knew i needed a venue to hold 200+ people.

from there i contacted them about quotes and based my quoted at 250 people(rough guest list) if everyone invited showed up.

once your venue and food costs are paid the rest of your wedding expenses are fairly minimal considering ( roughly **** per vendor)

my dress i decided i wasn't paying more than 3000 that was just my preference, i found a dress way less than that and was able to splurge and get a custom Star Wars veil. right now im on track to have my whole bridal outfit for less than 3000 bringing me under budget.

once you guys decide what you want you need to decide if your willing to pay that much/ how much your willing to pay for a wedding.

we are set to be ringing in around 27,049. 28000 if you include my wedding favor fiasco(i thought homemade candles would be a great idea yeahhhhh regretting that now its expensive right now were sitting at 5.50 per candle!!)

you need to base this off of what you can comfortably pay.

i started a envelope method & split money every pay between a few envelopes & before i knew it the florist, decorator dj & make up were paid for. now I'm working on photographer and hair and venue and were on track to be paid early if i keep up my savage saving.

My budget was $5000 but my max $10 000.00. Our wedding is 40 guests. I manage to find a small venue that does it all with no additional cost. We put the down and a week before the wedding we pay the final price which is amazing and less stress.

Decide on what you want to splurge, save and toss and it will help you with your budget. Also the number of guests can really tip the scale too!


My partner and I decided on a max budget in terms of the big ticket things. We didn’t include our looks in the budget like our attire and hair&makeup. Our budget for food, venue, photography, florals, officiant and day of coordinator is under $15,000. We’re doing both the ceremony and reception at a restaurant in downtown Toronto and I think that’s why we got to keep our budget low too. We just had to pay $250 for a ceremony fee at the restaurant. It’s a 55 guest wedding and we’re also serving the same food for our vendors. 😊 I’ve heard about horror stories of vendors only getting a small sandwich as the vendor meal! 🙈

We started with our max that we were willing to part with, then we did a guest list. We had a budget of $25000 and ended around $19000. We had a list of our must haves (open bar or not etc). We had an 80 person wedding. I really looked for places I could save though we did splurged in some areas. We spent quite a lot on our rings but since we will wear them everyday we were good with that.

Congratulations on your engagement!

I would look at your personal finances and see what you are willing and able to part with at the moment. If your wedding was tomorrow, how much money can you take out without being in financial distress or affecting your emergency fund? This is your start. Then think about what you can put away from each paycheque from now until April 2024. Add all of that up and that is your max budget.

From there, determine what kind of wedding fits your budget. No point in looking at banquet halls with a $40K minimum spend if for example your max budget is $10K. Make a list of must haves vs nice to haves and no needs so that you can prioritize which vendors to hire.

I think a good place to start is deciding what type of venue you want to get married in and how many guests you are inviting. I started by just looking at different venues in my area, most venues have their price lists right on their website. I made an excel spreadsheet to price out what a wedding at each venue would cost with our guest count. Then we had to decide if we could actually afford the price at each venue.

The best way to save money is by keeping guest counts low. We are only having a 40 person wedding to keep cost down. We are also getting married in a restaurant that doesn't have any extra venue fee, or set up fees. So we only have to pay for food/drink that is consumed.