Wedding Planning Tips for Brides -- from iVillage Wedding Expert Anne Chertoff
- Weddings
- From I Will to I Do
Dollars and Sense
One of the first things you should do when you get engaged is figure out your wedding budget. How much you and your fiancé want to – and can afford to – spend on your wedding, as well as finding out if any relatives want to contribute to your wedding piggy bank.
While you're talking about your wedding budget, you and your fiancé should also talk about your non-wedding finances so you can save for a home, retirement, kids, etc…
I spoke with Judi Rosenthal a Senior Financial Advisor with Ameriprise Financial and I got 5 great tips on marrying your finances. Along with Judi's tip, I'll add a wedding budget one to help you stick to it. Here’s the first one:
Map out Your Financial Goals Together: Don’t start your life together without a plan. While couples often share social, political and religious values, financial values tend to get overlooked. Take time to discuss your personal views and aspirations for saving, spending and sharing money. Then, establish some mutual financial goals and develop a plan to help you achieve them as a team. Putting your plan in writing can also help. It’s a great way to hold both of you accountable, and keep you headed in the right direction...even if the road gets bumpy.
Wedding Budget Tip: While the general breakdown of how much you "should" spend on your wedding is helpful - 10% on your dress, 10% on music, 30% on the menu – you need to decide which elements are important to you and your groom. Do you want a designer wedding gown? Are the flowers more important than the cake? Do you want the best band? Once you have a better idea of what your priorities are, you can breakdown how much you want – and can afford – to spend in each area.
Here are the rest of tips in this series:
My Groom to be and I are planning to get married May 3,2008. We are struggling with our finances though. But we want our wedding to be small, but still beautiful. Any suggestions of how we can do that with a small budget?
There are so many things you can do on a small budget, but the first thing you need to decide is how many people you are inviting. The more people the more money you'll need to spend on the location and food. Have you picked a location yet? Have you finalized your guest list?
Here are some ideas to help you get started:
Have a cocktails and desserts only reception.
Serve a brunch menu instead of a formal dinner.
Hire a DJ and MC instead of a band.
Instead of floral centerpieces use candles. Or use food as the centerpiece by serving food family style.
Limit your bar menu to wine and non-alcoholic drinks.
Don't have favors - you don't have to have them.
Make your own invites with Moutaincow software (mountaincow.com/) - you can also make your own menu cards and programs, but those are also extras.
Hope this helps, if you have more specific questions you can post them here or on my message board, Ask the Bridal Expert - http://messageboards.ivillage.com/iv-rlwedding
my cousin's boyfriend is going to be the dj at mine and my fiance's wedding a year from now. so i'm lucky to know someone in the family that has a mine and my fiance's best interests at heart.
What percent of invitees do you expect to come to the wedding?
The rule of thumb is that you can expect 10% of your guests to decline your invitation. But don't invite 10% more people because you expect them not to come. You never know, you may be the lucky couple where all of your guests accept your invite.