How detailed was your budget?

Idiophreak

A thread for the newly weds for once.

I've been assessing how much we actually spent on our wedding vs the budget and working out where the differences were. I've come to the conclusion that the budget just wasn't detailed enough...And I just wondered if anyone else felt the same?

Personally, I think we had around 25 items on our budget spreadsheet, all guestimated at a fairly high level - "suits", "dress", "food", "cake", "flowers", "decorations" etc. (oh, and there was a whole other spreadsheet for the honeymoon ) - and I think that captured around 90% of the final costs...but if I'd have had less money to spend, the things I missed out could actually have added up to a decent chunk of the budget.

I'll give a couple of examples of things that I didn't account for...

Petrol and parking - 2 trips to Birmingham for rings. Around £15 petrol and £5 parking each time. 2 trips to London. £15 petrol and £10 parking each. Also a trip to Cardiff and probably 20-30 smaller journeys locally for venues, dress shopping, flowers, caterers, photographers etc etc. I'd imagine these added up to c£250 between petrol and parking. So that's an extra £340 that I didn't budget for and wasn't a single big thing, but just a lot of little expenses that added up over the months.

Meals the night(s) before - didn't really think about where I'd eat the night before, or the night before that. In the end I think we spent c£100 on food between us in the couple of days before the wedding.

Tanning - again, not a big thing, but I probably went for 20 £3 blocks in the couple of months before the wedding...£60 total...

That's just 3 things that I'd probably have been able to account for if my budget was more detailed, and they add up to £500 extra spent. There are plenty more I can think of.

So, how detailed was your budget? Did you miss stuff out? Would you do it differently next time?

trying_2_b_good

Twirlypinky very kindly gave me her budget format, which was very detailed, including the below:

Engagement ring
Wedding rings
Bridal gown
Veil/headpiece
Shoes
Jewelry
Garter
Hosiery
Groom's Suit
Groom's shoes
Bows for church pews/other seating
Table centerpieces (excludes flowers)
Candles
Lighting
Balloons
Attendants
Bride and groom
Parents
Readers/other participants
Dress Maker
Bouquets
Boutonnières
Corsages
Ceremony
Reception
Musicians for ceremony
Band/DJ for reception
Formals
Candids
Extra prints
Photo albums
Videography
Church/ceremony site fee
Tables and chairs
Food
Drinks
Linens
Cake
Favors
Staff and gratuities
Invitations
Announcements
Thank-You cards
Personal stationery
Guest book
Info Sheets
Reception napkins
Matchbooks
Calligraphy
Limousines/trolleys
Parking
Taxis
Boat Trip
Officiant
Wedding coordinator
Rehearsal dinner
Engagement party
Showers
Salon appointments
Bachelor/ette parties
Brunch
Hotel rooms
Extra Documents
Legalisation Fees
Translation Fees

As for parking, petrol etc - you are right that they made up part of the wedding costs, but it's not something that I would ever bother to record or include. Some bits like getting my roots and nails done, I paid for out of my personal account, rather than the wedding account. Although these were especially for the wedding, I probably would have had them done around that time anyway. To be honest, once the main things were out of the way, I gave up on filling in the budget! So we probably spent around £500 more than I recorded...and at the end we decided to just sod it and splurge on things we wanted - it is once in a lifetime after all! And we could afford it - which is the main thing!

lollyb84

We were probably the same as trying 2 b good. We'd budgeted pretty well for most things, but hadn't factored in my nails and the massages we had the day before. We paid for these out of our personal account, as we felt although they were wedding related, we hadn't got each other a present and didn't think they should count as wedding expenditure when they were treats for us!

all in all we probably spent a couple of hundred pounds over what we thought we would for the wedding on wedding related things, but as were in a position to do so, it didn't matter too much.

In terms of the budget - all of DH's things came in on or under budget, and all mine came in over (surprise, surprise!). Funny that, when he did the budget!

lisajane8482

I downloaded my template off the internet, I can't remember exactly where from and then added my own bits to it. I added extra spreadsheets for savings (hoped and actual), payments, day guests, evenning guests and a basic table plan.

Against each item I have an estimated cost and then an actual cost (which is filled in as I buy/book) plus I added a savings column so I could see how good/bad my purchases. So far I have made savings of £669.15 :j

I also added to my budget an item for increase in prices (10% of our total budget) this was incase I had forgotten anything and also for inflation over the next couple of years.

My list of items (no doubt I will have missed something)

Bride

Dress

Petticoat
Shoes

Tiara

Lingerie

Hair and Make-up

Groom's ring
Matron of Honour
Dress
Tiara

Hair and Make-up

Thank you Gift
Bridesmaids

Dresses
Hair and Make-up
Tiara
Shoes

Thank you Gifts
Mothers and Grandmothers
Thank you Gifts

Groom
Suit and Shoes
Bride's ring

Best Men

Suit and Shoes
Thank you Gifts
Father of the Bride

Wedding suit and Shoes
Thank you Gift
Fees, Ceremony and Venue

Wedding insurance

Registrar and Ceremony Fees

Venue hire
Reception decorations
Chair covers

Reception Drinks
Wedding Breakfast

Evening buffet

Cake
DJ
Photographer
Thank you gifts

Flowers

Favours

Transport

Bride, father and bridesmaids to ceremony
Mothers and grandmothers to ceremony

Groom, best man and ushers to ceremony
Transport to reception
Stationery (Make myself)
Invitations
Postage
Welcome booklets
Save the date cards

Guestbook

Place names
Thank you cards
Table plan
Increase to price rises (10%)

(the green items are what I have already bought and the blue is deposits paid)

mrshassall1987

Didn't have a set budget sheet lol. We had £3000 and didn't go over it lol. Mum paid for my sweetie buffet and dads best friend is a dj so that was his wedding present

Debbiecatal

I have a multisheet spreadsheet with an overall budget. It is split into categories eg clothing, then there is a budget for a specific area eg dress, but then there is another linked worksheet which has space to list each item spent under dress eg alteration, bolero etc. I put the actual cost of that down and the total then transfers to the first page to show any differences so that we can keep a tight control of what is being spent and where. It also lists supplier contact details and deposit and payments made. I bit anal I know, but I am an IT teacher and I can't help it!

wanchai_2

Fascinating thread! Although I am not yet married, I am going to follow with interest.

I have accounted for everything right down to wedding magazines!!!! Not petrol though...

Idiophreak - tanning???? :eek: :rotfl:

MaggieBaking

I thought our "budget" was quite good, but with about 2 weeks to go until the wedding the expenses just came out of our current account

I can't remember what made the month so expensive, but I think things like buying takeaways as we didn't have the time to make dinner, some hurried honeymoon purchases, some last minute gifts, purchases for the fridge for family visiting, lots of additional petrol costs, booze on the day of the wedding. Some disposable cameras for little ones, and other gifts for children attending.

And the nearer it was to the wedding the more 'acceptable' it was to overspend on items compared to what I had budgeted for!

fawny

I have a great spreadsheet which I downloaded off the internet & it's very detailed. However we haven't included everything in the budget, like i've just got my headpiece & jewellry but i'm not even including that in the costs:o There are several other things that we have not bothered including so guess were not that good, but we are using the spreadsheet for all the major things.

Idiophreak

wanchai wrote: »

Idiophreak - tanning???? :eek: :rotfl:

I'm a computer geek and a pale one at that. The idea of turning up for a month in america from a cold start just seemed stupid, so I tried to kick start my melolin a little. Think it worked, I didn't get too badly burnt

Interested that a lot of people are saying similar things - that it ran away a little, that they didn't really count petrol etc - but for all the people on here that manage on extremely tight budgets - I just wonder how they do that. If you were going to someone else's wedding, you'd think "It's going to cost us X in petrol!" - you wouldn't just ignore it then...so I wonder why we're willing to when it's our own wedding...

heebie-jeebies

Ours also accounted just for new wedding expenses. We didn't even budget our flights in or the rental car we'd need to drive the 300 miles to the venue (nor the trip from Luton to North Staffs via Coventry for suits/dresses/family) and we certainly didn't anticipate needing a 3rd car when we got to the florists and having to send my Dad home to fetch his as well as ours and my Mums!!
There were some things on the budget that we went over (flowers but were well worth it) and others where we saved (invitations etc). I even left some items in the budget long after I'd decided not to have them (jewellery/BM shoes/tiara).