Things to Keep in Mind While Creating a Perfect Budget for Your Wedding

Things to Keep in Mind While Creating a Perfect Budget for Your Wedding

Your wedding is probably the biggest and priciest event you have hosted till now, which can be overwhelming. The idea of planning an Indian wedding budget cannot be an easy feat. After all, Indian weddings are known to be an elaborate affair that can push you into debt if not planned well.

Therefore, it is essential to put time and effort now to ensure you end up planning for a grand debt-free wedding. Here are a few things that you should keep in mind while planning your dream wedding.

1. Decide How Much You Can Spend:

First things first, find out who is eager to contribute to your wedding. In India, most parents are the ones who contribute majorly to wedding finances. But perhaps you and your fiance may be chipping in too, just to extend the budget. Find out who else is eager to contribute to your wedding and sum up all of these to calculate your wedding budget.

Also, take into account other contributions by each party. For example, your grandma may be eager to buy your wedding dress. Hence you can happily remove that from your spending list.

Your wedding budget is ready now, lets move to the next step.

2. Estimate Guest Count:

A major part of the wedding cost is directly related to the number of guests you invite. This is a determining factor that lets you decide the size of the wedding hall and how much food and drinks you will have to arrange for, which is a major chunk of your wedding budget.

If you calculate a “per guest” expenditure, it will help you put things into a better perspective. It will also help if you also accounted for the cost of wedding invitations, wedding favours, transportation charges and seating rentals.

Further, while planning an Indian wedding budget, make a separate guest-list for each function you plan on having. You may only like to invite close family and friends for the Haldi, Mehendi, Sangeet and the Marriage ceremony and extend an invitation to other acquaintances for the reception function.

Here is a template that you can take a print off and use to plan your guest list.

Remember to take a good amount of time on this step as it is a major decider of your budget planning.

3. Track Spendings at Every Stage:

Indian wedding budgets are known to be the most complicated, as there are multiple numbers of functions that need to be planned. We are not just focusing on the marriage budget here but also talking about all the other functions you will host. Your overall wedding budget needs to be divided amongst all these functions, making the entire process overwhelming.

We suggest you maintain a wedding budget checklist. You can constantly update it to track how much you have spent and what remains from the entire amount.

4. Decide Upon Non-Negotiables:

While planning a wedding, you and your fiance may have different priorities. Instead of splurging into all of them, make a list of things you wish to implement by writing them side by side. This will help you both have a healthy debate and finalise the ones that make more sense.

Once you have a final list ready with both of your non-negotiables, prioritise it in order. This will help you allocate a higher percentage for top priorities.

5. Be Prepared for Sudden Expenditures:

Wedding preparations can bring in many unpleasant surprises. You must have created the best Indian wedding budget. Nevertheless, there are certain hidden expenditures you may miss. For example, you must have accounted for the cost of hiring a baraat band but forgotten all about the extra tips expected by the band artists.

When you are dealing with multiple vendors, maintain an extra margin for expenditure. Keep a sum of money aside for such sudden wedding expenditures so you do not exceed your planned Indian wedding budget.

The Bottom Line- Do Not Get Into Debt to Tie the Knot

It may be tempting to push your budget a bit further to achieve the perfect wedding you have been dreaming about. The reality is that this may become a vicious cycle where you may stretch your budget more than you initially anticipated or can afford.

Your wedding day may be the biggest day of your life, but it is just the beginning of a new journey you are about to embark on, and it is wise to be debt-free when you do it. If your parents are paying for the entire wedding, it gives you all the more reason not to go over budget.

This does not mean you give up on your dream wedding. If you become a bit more creative, you can always have the grand wedding of your dreams.

And if you are totally clueless about how to make it all happen, let our experts at The Velvet Weddings help you. We will aid you to budget your wedding in a hassle-free manner without making you compromise on your wedding dreams.