How we planned our wedding on a budget

GUEST BLOGGER: EMMA PARKHURST

​If you’ve ever looked up the average cost of a wedding, you may have had the same reaction as me – time to elope! Did you know the average cost of a wedding in the United States in 2017 was a whopping $33,391?! Fortunately for us Utahans, our state average is only a ‘mere’ $18,516 according to The Knot. Unfortunately for my now-husband and I, we didn’t want to spend 18 big ones on our wedding last year. After we took the time to go over our combined expenses and income, we landed on a total budget of $10,000. It was intimidating that our budget was below the state average, so we decided to apply some general money management skills throughout our planning process to keep our minds (and budget) at ease. Here are the top 3 most beneficial steps we took to avoid overspending:

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• The Wedding Presentation: We sat down at the beginning of the planning process and physically wrote down all the working parts of the event. Having a physical copy to look at let us understand how we needed to divvy up our budget. It also helped us stay organized, identify our top 3-5 non-negotiable components, and avoid “unexpected expenses”. 
• Tracking Expenses: Now, tracking your expenses as you go might seem obvious, but we decided to use twomethods to do so. We relied on a free wedding app (The Knot) and a good old-fashioned notebook and pencil. The most useful aspect the app offered was a timeline for payments and booking vendors (which was especially useful since we didn’t hire a wedding planner/coordinator). The notebook was used to estimate our ideal budget as well as track each actual expense along the way. It also served as one central place to store contracts and receipts. Keeping track of our expenses gave us a crystal-clear financial picture of where our budget was going, and what would be left over so we could reallocate funds with ease.
• Thrifty, Not Cheap: After we knew we wanted to have an outdoor wedding, we had to make a decision between all-inclusive and do-it-yourself (DIY). But first, let’s clear something up. It’s a common misconception that being thrifty means you have to sacrifice something. I’m here to tell you that’s not the case at all! We found an absolutely gorgeous outdoor venue that was DIY, and therefore less expensive than other non-DIY venues. It gave us total freedom to use our preferred vendors and pick-and-choose what aspects we wanted to include in our wedding. The moral of the story? Just because you choose the thrifty option doesn’t mean you’re depriving yourself. We also put our thrifty skills to use on:
  • Photos/Video: used an amazing photographer and videographer team that was still building up their portfolio,
  • Cake/Desserts: worked with local bakers or bakeries for desserts and our cake,
  • Décor: purchased used décor from estate sales, Facebook Marketplace, and KSL (which we resold afterwards),
  • Food: offered simple appetizers and dinner that reflected us as a couple (chips & salsa from Costco, and a food truck with DELICIOUS sliders & fries).

My husband and I are SO happy we decided to apply general financial smarts to our planning process. Not only did we have our perfect day without giving up anything important to us, we were also able to put another budgeting experience under our belt as a team.