Wedding Budget vs. Wedding Costs
Creating a realistic wedding budget starts first and foremost by defining what your priorities are. If you have not done so already, please review my article titled Setting Your Wedding Planning Priorities before continuing with this article.
The next step is taking a look at all of your funding sources, totaling them up so that you know how much you have to work with. Sources of funding may be your own income, savings or dedicated accounts, credit cards and so on. Other sources may include parents from both sides of the family. The caveat is if someone else is helping to foot the bill, be sure to include them in your budgeting and planning activities too.
The average total cost of a wedding in the Harrisburg – Lancaster – York region of Pennsylvania is about $26,175 with the majority of spending falling somewhere between $19,600 and $32,7181. These figures are slightly less than the national average which in 2008 was approximately $28,000. This average includes attire & accessories, beauty & health expenses, entertainment, flowers & decorations, gifts & favors, invitations, jewelry, photography & video, planner/consultant, transportation, venue & catering and of course the marriage license. It does not include the honeymoon, lodging, meals, travel or any other expenses outside of the actual wedding ceremony or reception.
Just keep in mind that these wedding costs figures are based on averages. In other words, there are a lot of weddings that cost less than $20,000 and there are some that cost a whole lot more! The other thing to keep in mind is that these figures are based on average wedding vendor costs; more experienced and/or talented services will cost more.
In any case, as was discussed in the priorities article, your next step is to start allocating portions of your wedding budget to your prioritized list. So if your top priorities are to have a visually stunning reception, you of course need to dedicate more of your budget towards location, flowers and décor. Your lower priority items should command less of your budget and little of your initial planning efforts.
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