Money…Money…Money
January 23, 2012
Congratulations! You are engaged—you are getting married. You are deliriously happy and excited. Now it’s time to start planning the wedding — the official celebration of your love and commitment. Once you make your announcement and tell the world your exciting news, you should be prepared for some of your family or friends to offer expertise in all aspects of you upcoming plans. It seems that anyone who has planned their own wedding suddenly becomes an expert in planning someone else’s. You and your fiancé’ need to make some important plans and decisions before involving anyone else.
As you plan your wonderful day, expect to experience a little anxiety and a little confusion. Organizing a ceremony and reception is a huge undertaking. There will be questions about everything. There will be discussions about budgets, guest lists, and the overall style of the wedding.
As you plan, please remember what this day is really about — a celebration of love. Stay focused. Make a promise to each other early on, that you will spend one evening a week, a “date night”, when the discussion of the big day is totally banned from your conversation, and simply focus on each other. Remember that the goal of all the planning is for a wonderful marriage and not an over the top wedding.
The engagement period is a wonderful time. Your wedding is a day you have dreamed about for a long time. You will be faced with decisions, compromises and debates. Before you get “caught up” in the process of picking and choosing, please take the time to carefully plan the budget and the time line. Do not visit a single reception site or try on a single dress, until these two vitally important steps are taken.
Money Money Money is not just an Abba song, but the starting point of a wedding.
Your wedding budget is one of the biggest factors in determining your wedding decisions. It is essential to make a clear budget early in the planning process.
Setting a budget for the ceremony and wedding reception should be easy — you have what you have and that’s that. Sticking to the budget is where things get tough. Sit down with both sets of parents to discuss how much money you have, how much money you need, and who will be paying for what part of the wedding.
Try to plan a wedding within your means. Before you begin, determine a priority list for the ceremony and the reception. Ask yourselves a question: Is what we are spending really worth it to both of us? Needing five years to pay off the reception is not the way to go. The latest figures show that 45% of weddings go over budget, so you might want to incorporate that fact into your planning.
One last thing to keep in mind is this sage advice from JoAnn Gregoli a wedding consultant from New Jersey. “The person who pays ultimately gets what he or she wants.” If you want an intimate wedding, but your parents want an extravagant affair and are footing the bill—be assured that your dreams may not be realized.
You will find yourself wanting to please everyone, but ultimately you need to please yourselves. By creating a budget and the overall plan for what you want, before you seek advise from family, friends or vendors, you are more apt to have the day of your dreams.
