Wedding budget checklist
Priced out category by category before anything is booked, because a total budget agreed too late tends to arrive after the first few deposits already have opinions of their own.
17 items
Makes your own editable copy. No account needed.
The items
- Total budget agreed between everyone contributing, before any venue is viewed
- Venue hire costed, including any minimum spend
- Catering costed per head, with final numbers confirmed late rather than early
- Drinks budgeted separately from catering
- Photography and videography costed
- Outfits budgeted: main outfits, alterations, accessories
- Rings costed
- Flowers and decorations costed
- Entertainment or music costed
- Invitations, stationery and postage budgeted
- Transport for the day budgeted
- Hair and makeup costed
- Legal and registrar fees confirmed
- A contingency amount set aside for the thing nobody pricedSomething on every wedding costs more than the first quote suggested.
- Deposit schedule tracked against payment datesDeposits are spread across many months — a missed one can lose a booking entirely.
- Guest list finalised before catering numbers are confirmed
- Honeymoon budgeted separately from the wedding itself
Makes your own editable copy. No account needed.
Questions people ask
- What's usually the biggest single cost?
- Venue and catering combined, though the split varies. Pricing both early, before anything is booked, is what lets everything else get planned against a real number.
- How much contingency should be built in?
- A meaningful amount, not a token one — weddings reliably turn up a cost nobody priced in advance, and a contingency line is cheaper than a surprise at the final invoice.
- Should the honeymoon be part of the wedding budget?
- Better kept separate. Combining the two makes both harder to track, and a honeymoon competing with catering for the same pot tends to lose.