How to Create Your Wedding Budget

Discussing money and budgeting can be tricky. Regardless of how much you have, this is always an awkward conversation, but it is one of the most important things you will discuss when planning your dream wedding. Being able to establish a strong foundational budget for your wedding day will be the deciding factor on when and where you get married, which vendors you choose and how many guests can come, among other things.

Unfortunately, there is not a great resource available to newly engaged couples for determining a realistic budget (sorry, but The Knot just doesn’t understand), so where do you start?

Even if you scour the internet for hours, days or weeks, you may end up empty-handed with conflicting opinions that leave you frustrated and tempted to skip the ever-so-important budget spreadsheet.

We are here to solve that for you. We are going to break down the actual costs and ideal budget for getting married here in North Carolina, but these same principles can be applied to several wedding destinations in the Southeast.

First, it’s important to understand that every budget starts with your guest count. Here at Sweet Oak Events, we recommend you start with a minimum of 500 per guest as a baseline and go up from there depending on your priorities. We find that most of our couples are spending around 1000 – 1500 per guest. It is impossible to just throw a number at your wedding planner without first understanding how many guests you are expecting. For example, a 50,000 budget for 250 people is not even close to realistic, but a 50,000 budget for 25 people would be considered a luxury event. Bottom line: Your guest count truly determines your budget.

A Real North Carolina Wedding Budget

Now that we understand how wedding planners think of budgets, let’s assume we are expecting 100 guests for our wedding in Spring 2024 at a popular venue in Raleigh, North Carolina. Our vision is a floral heavy design, plated dinner, a band with a stage buildout and custom details throughout the event that showcase personal touches. Photography and cinematography are equally important (as they should be), and the majority of our guests live out of town, so we need transportation provided. We are only budgeting for the wedding day itself because another family member has graciously agreed to cover the cost of the welcome party and day after brunch. Our wedding budget might look something like this:

• Venue Buyout: 9800 – 15,000
  • Includes Saturday rental for 12 hours including necessary tables & chairs. Our venue for this budget is 10,500.
• Planning & Design Team: 3500 + 10% of total wedding spend (with a few exceptions)
  • Includes planning, designing and managing all logistics, details and vendors for the entire wedding planning process as well as 12 hours of wedding day management from a team of professionals
• Photographer: 8000 – 12,000
  • Includes 8 – 10 hours of coverage from ideally 2 photographers. Our photographer for this budget is 10,000.
• Videographer: 8000 – 12,000
  • Includes 8 – 10 hours of coverage from ideally 2 filmmakers. Our filmmaker for this budget is 9500.
• Ceremony Musicians: 1500 – 3000
  • Includes a string quartet for ceremony and cocktail hour music plus travel and accommodation expenses. Our ceremony musicians for this budget are 2000.
• Band: 5000 – 15,000+
  • Includes 5 piece band for 4 hour reception plus travel and accommodation expenses
  • For this budget, we have decided to work with a band whose total is 9500.
• Florals: 7500 – 50,000+ (around 150 – 300 per person is a good average)
  • Investment level widely varies depending on preferences on size, lusciousness and floral varieties. Since this budget is floral heavy with several installations and luscious centerpieces, we are going to estimate 25,000.
• Rentals: 8000 – 50,000+ (around 200 per person is a good average)
  • Investment level widely varies depending on preferences, customizations, tabletop wishes, etc. Tabletop, tenting, lighting, drapery, specialty furniture, staging, dance floors, fixtures and equipment are all included in rentals. For the purposes of this budget, our total is 20,000.
• Hair & Makeup: 3000 – 5000
  • Includes professional hair and makeup for the bride, 6 bridesmaids and 2 additional VIPs (such as mothers) plus a trial session for the bride. Our total for hair and makeup is 3500.
• Transportation: 3000 – 10,000
  • Includes several shuttles including a getaway car for the couple. For this budget, we are reserving two 41 passenger shuttles for our 100 guests plus a Rolls Royce for our getaway car for a total of 5000.
• Food & Beverage: 10,000 – 30,000+ (around 150 – 300 per person is a good average)
  • Estimating food & beverage costs can be extremely difficult since every menu is different, but for the purposes of this budget, let’s assume we have 4 passed appetizers at cocktail hour, are serving a plated meal with 3 courses (salad, entree and dessert) and a 5 hour top shelf open liquor bar. Our total for food and beverage would likely be 20,000 for our 100 guests including all servers and staffing.
• Stationery & Details: 5000 – 15,000+
  • Including working with a stationery designer and having some custom details created, while keeping many items digitally printed. Details can blow the budget quickly, so this area will be highly specific to each bride. For this demonstration, our couple wants nice details, but is okay with many things being digitally printed rather than enlisting custom fabrication for everything. Our total for all stationery items and details is 7500.

These are the main areas that we as wedding planners will include in your wedding budget. Of course, there are some items not included such as your attire, hotel rooms and other accommodations, officiant, marriage license, alterations, wedding insurance, tips, etc. that will also play a factor in your overall budget, but cannot be estimated for this purpose since those will be highly customized for each event. Due to this, we will add 15,000 to the total budget for “Ancillary Items” to get us pretty close to an all in wedding budget.

Let’s add it up!

Of course, this budget is no guarantee that you will spend exactly this amount. You can host a beautiful wedding for much less than this number, and you can host a beautiful wedding for much more than this number. It all depends on you, your priorities and your planning & design team. 

Ready to find the perfect planning experience for your wedding? Click here to get in touch.