Keep a contingency budget available
Once you’ve decided how much your wedding budget is going to be – cut a chunk from it, for those ‘just in case’ costs. How much you choose to set aside is up to you, but at least 10% of the total budget is a good place to start. That way, if you have some unexpected costs that creep up on you, or simply the dress you’ve set your heart on comes in a bit over budget then you have some cash to play with.
Allocating your budget
As a general rule, you can expect to spend around half of your wedding budget on the venue – that will cover the hire fee, food and drink for your guests throughout the day. This will then help you to work out your guest numbers – or reconsider your budget if the two don’t match up. Many wedding venues will quote their prices as ‘per head’ for food and drinks, so it’s handy to understand what that means for your budget before you start reaching out to venues.
Once you know how much you are likely to pay for your dream Manchester wedding venue, it’s time to think about everything else! The remaining 50% of your budget will need to cover everything from your wedding photography, flowers, dress and so on, so prioritising will be really important when you start to think about booking your other suppliers. We’d recommend making a list of what’s really important to you. For many of our couples having beautiful, bright and natural wedding photographs to cherish forever is at the top of the list, take look at our portfolio to see examples of our work. Once you have an idea of your non-negotiable elements – and those which are less important – you can allocate the remainder of your wedding budget accordingly.
Top notch ‘wedmin’
You’ve decided how much you’re willing and able to spend, identified the most important things to you as a couple and have some money set aside for incidentals – you’re ready to start the fun bit, the planning! Before you do though, we’d highly recommend putting in place some ‘wedmin’ systems to help you keep track of all the elements of your wedding planning. A spreadsheet is a great place to start and will help you track any spending against your allocated budget. It’s also really useful to set up a separate folder in your emails to file all your quotes, contracts and so on to make sure you can access things easily as and when you need to. Or set up a new email which you can use specifically for wedding planning.
Budgeting For Your Wedding Photography
Wedding photography is pretty high up the priority list for most couples. As soon as you book your venue start getting in touch with your favourite photographers. We take bookings 1 – 2 years in advance. Getting in touch early is the best way to avoid disappointment. When you set your budget for wedding photography firstly you need to think about what you want to be included with your package. Do you want just the photos or do you want a wedding album? Would you benefit from having a second photographer? This is really important to know before you start getting quotes. Wedding photography prices for full day coverage with one photographer usually range from £1500 – £3000. Bear this in mind when setting your budget. Also be aware that if a photography package has full day coverage plus a load of extras for the lower part of this price range that’s a red flag. Wedding photography is a highly skilled job with a lot of work on the day and after the wedding. It’s not a place to cut corners. See our Manchester wedding photographer prices for more information.
We hope this helps you start thinking about how to plan your wedding budget and we’d love to hear from you once you start planning! Head to our blog for loads of wedding planning tips and real wedding inspiration. We also have a list of amazing Manchester wedding suppliers who can help make your dream wedding a reality.
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