Simple Guidance For You In Your Wedding Budget

Now that you have announced your engagement here are some of our favorite tips to creating & sticking to your wedding budget!

1. Use a spreadsheet - If you are working with a wedding planner they can help you with this to stay on track. If you aren't working with someone, schedule a consultation with us to learn more about creating a live working spreadsheet.

2. Guest List! - BEFORE you start looking at venues and other wedding professionals make sure you have set your budget and created your guest list. Finding and falling in love with a venue that is out or your budget is never fun. Additionally, your guest list can always be shrank down to help with your budget.

3. Dual Use Items - There are a lot of items you can use to decorate your ceremony with that can be brought over to your reception. Like candles & flowers, the flowers hanging below were moved over to centerpieces.

Photo by Alan Weiner Photography

4. Dessert - We see a LOT of leftover cake & other desserts. It is ok to get desserts for only 70-75% of your total attendees. Not everyone stays long enough to partake and not everyone wants to eat dessert (or cake so try something different). When working with your bakery come up with something interactive or true to your personalities.

Photo by Christa Taylor Photography

5. Do not let other people tell you what you "have" to have at your wedding.  Pick 2 things that are the most important to you and splurge on those.  Then pick 2 things that are NOT important to you.  Stick to your list.

6. Favors - Trust me when I say something edible or consumable is best. Your guests LOVE something they can eat or use. Some of the best favors we have seen were Jam, Cookies, Chocolates, Candles. Try to stay away from things that are engraved as many times your guests will not want just 1 or 2 items that are engraved. Additionally they are not always wanting things that have someone else name and anniversary on it that does not match their current items. Below is a picture of chapstick from a past clients wedding.

Photo by Paul Rich Studio

Thank you so much for reading. We hope this helps in giving you some simple tips to creating a budget for your wedding. Wedding Planning is not something you do every day so our best tip is to work with a professional wedding planner who knows, not just the industry, but also your local professionals. They can help make your day run flawlessly. 

To see additional pictures of our work check out our portfolios on our main website.

Happy Wedding Planning

Lisa Marie & Team

Events by Lisa Marie

Portland Oregon Wedding Planning

Info@eventsbylisamarie.com

503-830-7779