How to Plan A Budget-Savvy Wedding (Without Cutting Corners)
Tackling the financial side of weddings with your partner can often add new layers of stress, overwhelm, and potentially even conflict to the planning process—but it doesn’t have to. We believe that money-focused conversations around weddings are one of the most important parts of planning a wedding, and can absolutely be had in mindful, intentional ways rather than ones that create division or friction. We’ve created this blog post to help you be mindful with the ways you spend your dollars when it comes to your event, and to ensure you have a budget-savvy wedding without having to cut any corners. Sit down with your partner, grab a glass of your favorite beverage, and be ready for a thought-provoking conversation!
5 Ways to Plan A Budget-Savvy Wedding (Without Cutting Corners)
Let’s go through a few ways to plan a budget-savvy wedding—without cutting corners or having to resort to a generic, cookie-cutter day.
1. Set up a regular, intentional budgeting practice
It’s crucial that you and your partner become comfortable discussing the financial aspect of wedding planning. Trust us, we know it’s one of the least “fun” parts of the process, but it’s essential to designing a day that aligns with your values, passions, and your bank accounts. It’s great to get into a practice of setting aside intentional times to talk finances and work on your wedding budget, especially as you first start dreaming up ideas and reaching out to vendors.
Once you get engaged (or even prior to getting engaged!), the sooner you can sit down and talk openly + honestly about your budget, the sooner you’ll get on the same page as far as expectations go for your special day. Make sure that you’re on the same wavelength not only about how much money you’re comfortable spending, but where you’d like to spend that money: what your priorities are, what you’d be okay spending less on or DIYing, and what are must-have’s.
From your initial conversation, consider setting aside a specific time for the two of you to sit down and go over any updates to your budget; this could be once a month, once a week, or whatever you need in order to feel comfortable. It doesn’t have to be a difficult or boring conversation, either—head to your favorite restaurant, or make your favorite cocktails at home while you sit on the couch and dream up all the ways you can bring your dream day to life!
If you’d like some insight into what it might cost you to get married in the PNW, check out our blog post, A Pacific Northwest Marriage Celebration: What Do You Get For Your Budget?
2. Avoid “doing it for the ‘gram”
One of the biggest mistakes we see couples make when they dive into wedding planning? Doing it for the ‘gram. And by that, we mean turning your wedding experience from an enriching, shared endeavor with your partner to an aesthetic exercise—and one that will likely have you spending a lot more money on things you don’t really need. . . or even want.
While we do love certain aspects of social media, and while you can find plenty of beautiful, creative folks to take inspiration from, it’s vital that you keep in mind the purpose of sites like Instagram, Pinterest, and Tiktok: to sell you things. And once the algorithms find out you are planning a wedding, oh boy are they going to start selling you things! Among the noise, it becomes so easy to lose sight of what actually matters; to start catering your wedding to the algorithm rather than what you actually want, deep down.
So let’s talk about how to stay focused on what really matters by being super clear about what to avoid. Remember that sites like Instagram are built to attract + hold your attention, and to sell you things above all else, so directing your attention away from social media may honestly be a tough adjustment to make!
Here are a few ways the algorithm might try to get you to spend more time on its site, and what you can do instead:
—Trends: Think back to a wedding you’ve attended, that left a great impression on you and created some beautiful memories for you to look back on. Sure, certain design elements may have stood out, but they probably weren’t the most important memories you have of that wedding! If you want to look externally for inspiration (i.e. on social media, in magazines, etc.), we recommend setting a timer to avoid that doom scroll that becomes so easy to fall into.
—Aesthetics: Contrary to what social media may lead you to believe, your wedding does not have to be carefully, precisely planned down to the tiniest of details in order to be valued, worthy, or “good enough.” We love an elegant napkin fold as much as the next wedding pro, but trust us—your guests will probably never notice whether they’re folded into flat folds or square folds, or whether your cuff links match the colors of your day. When you find yourself focusing too much on the aesthetics, redirect your attention back to the experience and attendance of your valued guests, instead. In our book, it’s experience over aesthetic, always.
—“Fixes” to the unknowns: Social media is famous for offering solutions to problems we don’t yet know we have—after all, that is a big part of marketing! Have you ever had an ad pop up on Instagram for a jacket that you just “didn’t know you needed,” but as soon as you saw it, you had to have it? The same goes for weddings: the industry loves to show us “problems” that we apparently need to “fix;” usually by buying their product or service, investing in their website, etc. Be aware of this, and recognize what problems are actually relevant to your day, and which ones are being fed to you by companies that are looking to make a profit.
3. Be deliberate with your guest list
The amount of people on your guest list will have a substantial impact on the money you spend on your wedding, so it’s important that you’re very intentional with your guest count. The fewer guests you have, the higher quality event you can host, as you’ll have significantly fewer mouths to feed and people to cater to. Typically, having a lower guest count also means you’ll have more attention and energy to give to your details, and that you’ll be able to be more present throughout the experience, as you’re not trying to give attention to 200+ different human beings.
To ensure your dollars are put toward an unforgettable experience for everyone involved, you should not only be making a deliberate choice about how many people are on your guest list but about who you put on your guest list. Many couples think that their guest list needs to be a 50/50 split, but we actually believe it shouldn’t be; in our eyes, equitable representation is more important than equal numbers!
Trying to split your list evenly down the middle is like trying to solve a math equation that is both unnecessary and impossible to solve. What feels like an equitable split is often not the same for each member of a couple, so why treat your guest list that way? One of you might have more cousins while the other has more coworkers; one of you might have 2 incredibly close friends while the other has 10-15 people they consider close friends. Making sure you both have supporting guests on each side is important, but it shouldn’t turn your guest list into a math problem that needs to be solved.
Instead of focusing on the numbers first, we encourage you to focus on the people first!
Need more guidance when it comes to creating your guest list? Don’t miss our guide to How to Set + Manage Your Wedding Invitation List.
4. Consider your upgrades
As we’ve already explained, social media will have you believe that you have to go design-crazy in every area of your event. Spoiler alert: you don’t! The best way to go about designing your event is to know when to upgrade, and where it’ll be most advantageous to do so. We love when couples take advantage of neutral included/in-house offerings from their venue, and then upgrade the items that make the greatest visual impact OR impact to the guest experience. A few examples of our favorite upgrades include tabletop florals, lighting and candles, napkins and linens, decor and food that could double as wedding favors, etc. On the opposite end of things, a few places you could consider making cuts are if you have excessive stationery, too many ceremony decorations, intricate wedding party or family florals, a high volume of expensive wedding favors, or a stylized cake for the masses. We promise they won’t care how pretty their dessert is, as long as it tastes delightful ;)
5. Know when good enough is good enough
Finally, it’s important to know what your end goal is, and to be able to recognize when good enough is just that: good enough. With our modern access to information in a capitalist economy, you could truly ruminate on your options forever and still not make a decision; it’s your responsibility to choose when something is done in the wedding world so that you can move onto the next. Otherwise, things will pile up and you’ll spend more money continually trying to optimize—and that, friend, is a path to insanity that we don’t want you to follow! Empower yourselves to make a decision that feels good to you + best aligns with the information you have at the time, and then allow yourselves to unplug from that task. Only then can forward progress actually be made toward the day you are working so hard to plan.
If you feel that this guide helped you get a better idea of how you want to plan the financial part of your wedding, we’d love to share something a little special with you: our Tapestry Touch line of products and services! This portion of our business is a little more DIY-friendly, and is for couples who want to be budget-savvy, but who still crave depth and quality in their wedding planning experience. We have an entire library of on-demand planning products and services including our signature Vow Writing Workbook, Ceremony Writing Guide, and even a Wedding Planning Power Hour, where we’ll spend an hour helping you navigate your event planning with professional advice, mindful strategies, and clear intention.
Book your Power Hour now and get on our books, or start planning on your own with our tried & true digital products!
For more in-depth wedding resources like this, browse the Tapestry Blog—or visit a few of our personal favorites below.
Wedding Planning + Boundary Setting
What To Look For In Your Wedding Vendors
What Hosts Pay for + What Guests Pay for in a Weekend-Long Wedding