The "B" Word

When I talk about the "B" word, I am talking about the budget that nobody really wants to talk about. In fact, there is a Chinese saying that roughly translates to: When you talk about money, you hurt the relationship.

For wedding planning, I hope the couples are going to ignore this Chinese saying and talk about establishing their budget for the wedding as early as possible. Afterall, if you are going to get married, you will have to learn how to talk about money with your partner.

It is important to figure out how much money is available and where the money is going to come from before one rushes out to make any wedding related purchases. Wedding expenses is a list of items that add up to one big chunk of money. Don't let the tiny line item on your Excel spreadsheet fool you. If you are not careful and think this is just one more purchase, you will end up going over your budget in a heart beat.

I believe you can plan a wedding that is within your budget but it takes careful planning. Always keep track of your spending. I like to use Excel spreadsheet but you can do it however you like. There is no point to have a budget if you are not going to keep track of it.

Also, it will be good to figure some extra % of money in your budget for unplanned items as they almost always come up during wedding planning.

As a planner, my job is to make sure the couples allocate the budget to the items that make the most impact for the kind of wedding they want. I work hard to make sure the high priority items are addressed with more money while finding alternative solutions that are more affordable for items that are less important for the couple.

I call it the balancing act. Never easy but we work hard to achieve.