How to Save and Plan for a Wedding

There are, of course, many hidden costs of getting married: a reception hall, caterer, florist, possibly a band or DJ, never mind wedding clothes. This is why a plan for saving towards them is so essential, so that the many expenses that make getting married special don’t set your family (or you) back for years to come.

These approaches can help you to plan for a wedding and save up enough to provide for your needs.

Key Takeaways

On average, the cost of a wedding is different in different countries and depends on the type of the wedding you want to have.

The majority of couples spend too little on their wedding and still end up splurging more than they initially planned.

Comparison shopping is one of the best ways to save on wedding costs.

Wedding savings accounts should be highly liquid so that wedding costs can be paid as they come.

How Much Does a Wedding Cost?

The amount of money you will spend on a wedding depends largely on how big (or small) you want to go. By comparing some average figures for wedding costs, you can get a sense of how much you might be in for.

As cited by WeddingWire.com, for example, the median wedding cost $38,700 in 2019, with the majority of these costs being linked to the wedding ceremony and reception ($29,200).

Couples who postponed their wedding-ceremony plans in the wake of the crisis and shutdown significantly reduced the cost in 2020, spending on average only $19,000. However, wedding-ceremony costs are already climbing back to pre-pandemic levels in 2021.

The average spend on a wedding also covers such items as the officiant, wedding cake and dessert, wedding and engagement rings, stationery, a dress for the bride, a band, catering, and flowers.

The Knot puts the average cost of a wedding a little lower overall – for 2019, at $33,900, including the engagement ring and the wedding ring. That number also covers all the most common big-ticket items in the planning process: booking a reception venue, hiring a photographer, paying for a wedding planner, buying a bridal gown and outfit for the groom, paying for the rehearsal dinner, and covering fees for an officiant. It doesn’t include the honeymoon, for which you’ll want to budget another $5,000 on average.

Location, Location, Location

Go without saying, your final cost depends on where you decide to get married. Couples spend the most to get married in New York City. An average Manhattan wedding costs $88,176 (compared to $51,922 for New York State overall). A wedding in Mississippi, meanwhile, will cost you the least. The average wedding in the Magnolia State cost $12,769 overall.

If you’re planning a destination wedding—or at least a destination elopement—away from home (and maybe anywhere), you might emerge from the experience not only married, but poorer by just half as much as the average couple. The wedding-mavens website Brides.com put the cost of the average international destination wedding at about $35,000, which could feel like a bargain compared with the cost of average. destination weddings can provide a built-in barrier to guests’ plans to bail, and can be cheaper for you to arrange if you’re inviting fewer guests. If you’re bundling the wedding and honeymoon together in one place, the destination can actually cut costs. Destination weddings are more expensive for guests than the average local wedding—which could also help to keep the band down.

Important

If you’re planning a destination wedding overseas, it’s worth studying venue and vendor cancellation and refund policies. Likewise, familiarise yourself with your credit card, airline and hotel’s cancellation and refund policies in the event that nature, politics or a global pandemic forces you to postpone your experiential celebration.

How to Save for a Wedding

In theory at least, the earlier you can start thinking about spending money and allocating resources to your wedding, the better. ‘In an ideal world, couples should start their “wedding budget talk” before they get engaged,’ says Kirsten Cowles, a destination wedding planner in Costa Rica. ‘It can avoid some of the haggling down the road if they’re already on the same page about the size, type, and budget of the wedding prior to starting to plan.

That might be the ideal, but Cowles says couples often start discussing wedding costs once they are engaged. If you have recently been (or done) the proposing, let yourself enjoy the engagement for a few days, then get your wedding savings plan off to a running start.

Calculate a Wedding Budget

A budget can help you only if it is feasible and acceptable. A survey from WeddingWire found that 74 per cent of newlyweds go over budget and that more than half of couples increase their budget over the course of the planning process. The average couple spends more on their wedding than they expect, with the average couple underestimating how much they’ll spend by 45 per cent. As the 2021 Brides and Investopedia wedding survey indicates, the average wedding budget is roughly $20,000.

For Cowles, the process of getting your budget right begins with having a talk about what kind of wedding you want. ‘Couples need to sit down together and figure out what kind of wedding they want,’ she says. ‘Is it something more elegant, in a ballroom? Something more relaxed and laid-back, in a backyard of a family member? Is it a destination wedding? And, the more they can figure out that vision for what the wedding will look like, the more easily they can make a really rough estimate of who they want coming. Because it’s going to be a big driver of your budget.’

Clearly a backyard wedding that welcomes 20 or 30 of your nearest and dearest won’t cost nearly as much as a black-tie bash with hundreds of names on your guest list does. While you’re making your guest list of immediate family and friends, recommends Cowles, group people into one of three categories: the immediate family, the best friends and extended relatives; good friends and close family; and, finally, co-workers or casual acquaintances.

From there you can work your way back to a per-person figure on which to base your budget. This is also where you need a line-by-line list of everything you think you’ll be spending on the wedding: ‘The cost of all the little things people overlook,’ says wedding coach Hayley Devlin. ‘Certain things are very obvious: the ring, the catering, the dress. But then the decorations, wedding favours, chairs and props can really start to add on to the budget.

Setting Priorities

Then, as you tally up expenses and total costs, you and your betrothed may have to decide what can go. Make a ‘Mighty Wish List’ that includes everything you’d like to spend money on, no matter how frivolous it may seem, advises HowtoHostaWedding.com. Then walk through the list and select what you can live without, and what absolutely must happen or it will ruin the day.

If you’re struggling to find a balance in your budget, see if you can reduce your expenses by taking on some expenses yourself. You can save money, for instance, by making your own wedding favours (favors) or centrepieces instead of buying them. Or you can save money on the rehearsal dinner by hosting a backyard barbecue or potluck instead of taking everyone out for a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant.

Recall that 90 per cent of survey-takers in the Brides and Investopedia 2021 wedding survey claimed they’d held off on at least one large financial objective, such as purchasing a home, starting a family or saving for retirement, to cover the costs of their wedding.

You’d save money making things yourself, but how much would you be spending on materials – and, of course, your time?

Break Down the Budget Into Target Savings Goals

Next, you want to calculate how much you’ll need to save weekly or monthly to meet that goal. ‘The formula for determining the budget is: Number of months until the wedding x realistic savings per month + contributions and starting savings = total wedding budget,’ Devlin says.

Bear in mind the total budget number, take into account the number of months until you will get married, and think about whether friends or family might be able to cover any of the wedding costs. If you have an overall budget of $30,000 and 10 months until you plan your wedding date, for instance, you would have to save $3,000 a month to hit your target, if you haven’t set anything aside for the wedding so far. But if your parents plan on giving you $10,000 as a pre-wedding gift to help with cash flow, that immediately brings it down to $2,000 a month.

When you plug in numbers that you could potentially be saving monthly or weekly, be honest: Is that realistic? If you can’t hit that savings number together on a regular basis, you get to choose: pare down the wedding (and break even on the cost-versus-savings equation) or hold off on walking down the aisle (which buys you more time saving). This might not be the course you want to steer, but it could be the best option if you don’t want to skimp on elements that matter to you.

Keep Your Wedding Savings in the Right Place

Where will the funds be kept once they’re in a wedding account?

Before you begin contributing regularly to a wedding account, you’ll need to decide where the money will be housed. There are three basic options: a checking account separate from your personal account, a savings account, or a money market account.

Devlin recommends one with a checking account that you share so it’s easy to get at. You can each deposit money into it and then use your debit cards or write cheques from there (though you won’t earn anything on money you add, except when you use an interest-paying checking account.

A high-yield savings account or money market account might earn interest, but it has limited convenience – you can take out only six withdrawals from one of these accounts each month without paying a penalty – and the interest will be small given how long before a wedding that interest polices time. Depending on how often you expect to pay for the wedding, you might want to combine a high-yield savings account and a joint checking account to pay your expenses.

You might be tempted to avoid traditional bank accounts and invest your wedding savings for a better return. Don’t do it. At least, don’t do it with a certificate of deposit (CD) account, where you tie up your money in a time deposit. That means you cannot easily withdraw your savings until the certificate matures in a year or longer, or else you will have to pay a penalty.

Tip

Whether you choose checking, savings or both, check monthly fees, minimum balance requirements and the interest rate on offer – you don’t want your new accounts costing you money.

Comparison Shop

More specifically, however, more than 80 per cent of couples’ ballpark wedding budgets were constructed in a vacuum; in other words, they did little to no research on individual wedding expenses before settling on a figure. Make sure you don’t end up in this situation (and potentially over-budget) by taking the time to collect multiple bids for each line-item on your list before making a decision about a vendor.

And, when gathering quotes from vendors, don’t just take a salesperson’s word for it, says Kyle Winkfield, president of Finley Alexander Wealth Management. ‘Always ask for each quote in writing, and always make sure the vendor puts a deadline of when you can accept it by,’ Winkfield says. ‘Today’s price is not the price in six months, one year, or two years – unless there is a contract and deposit signed.’

And once locked in with a deposit and signed contract, the vendor is prohibited from raising the price without warning (so long as the contract does not include a provision that allows that). Read the fine print and sign on the dotted line only after you have done all the math and – crucially – set aside a savings buffer to ensure that you can manage in the event of shortfalls. ‘I like to tell the couple getting married to make sure they add 20 per cent to the total for incidentals that they may not have thought of when they are budgeting,’ says Winkfield.

Get the Timing Right and Look for Wedding Deals

Setting your date for the off-season can be an budgetary consideration, says Winkfield. ‘Wedding season is from late spring through early fall (peak months are June and September) so waiting until mid-winter might be less expensive, with vendors lowering their prices when demand is typically less.’

Consider timing your destination wedding for the off-season or shoulder season (when airfares and hotel rates tend to be lower), and then try to spread out your wedding spend throughout the year to take advantage of seasonal sales.

You might find rings for sale in March or at the end of summer, and it’s widely regarded as the best month to buy a dress on sale (January). Just remember this: If you’re buying any wedding item on sale, you should know the store’s return policy. Saving 20 per cent, 30 per cent, 40 per cent or more is all well and good, but you’ll lose that 20, 30, 40 per cent savings if you have to replace that item with another one. And retailers don’t usually offer refunds on sale items! (Put that in writing, too.)

The Bottom Line

It’s natural to want to celebrate getting married, but you’ll have many more years of marriage than of wedding day. You’re starting your new life together on a solid financial footing instead of a mountains of debt. Be smart about planning your budget and co-operatively saving for your wedding to create romantic moments – an ever-after happy one.