Creating a wedding budget (that includes candles)

So let’s say your wedding day has been set (or not) and you are trying to work around the financials of a wedding. Understandably one of the most important parts of it…

How do you go about scheduling the expenses of the wedding? In other words, how do you make sure you distribute the available cash so that it is equally spread out and you don’t have just a fancy cake, but a crappy event room? Do you need a financial adviser? Well…no. But you do need something, and that is common sense.

The whole point of a wedding is to announce to the world the fact that two people (a man and a woman) are getting together and making the decision to live on for ever, together, until death sets them apart. Note, that I said “world”? That means people. People with emotions, tastes and many of which are quite opinionated. Now, you obviously will not invite the gossipers (unless you are into that kind of stuff) but even normal people will observe the way you have setup everything. I mean, many times women will get caught up on the hair the bride has or the groom’s tie. I mean, it’s natural!

Can you imagine though, being so focused on overspending on things that people don’t see? For instance, the wine. Yes it needs to be good, but come on: you don’t need the most expensive French wine the liquor store has to offer you. I mean, if you have the budget to do so, more to you! But if you are trying to make things look fancy across the room and you don’t have $10 million to spend on your wedding day, then you probably want to be smart about where you get to spend your money. As the good old story suggests: you bring in first the good wine, and then when everyone is dizzy and doesn’t really understand what is happening around them, you shove the cheaper wine. I mean it’s common sense.

Unfortunately, your expenses for a wedding go far beyond good wine. Just the wedding dress can run you a few thousand dollars. So you want to make sure it looks as perfect as possible. Don’t cheap out on the dress! Everyone will be looking at it. And also on all photographs you’ll take, that will appears in front of everyone. So please please please, make sure the bride wears something decent. Even if that means to cut back on the food you serve your guests. Believe me, you will hear more complaints about how the bride looked, than the crappy food you served them. Let them bring their own food if they like.

So recreational and aesthetic things should be taken care of every single bit. That means the flowers that are going to be around the ceremonial room need to be in the greatest shape possible and make sure they are good looking flowers. I mean you don’t want:

1. to have flowers that look as if they sat in the middle of the desert &
2. flowers that are just ugly looking

Spend an extra buck or two on something fancier.

And here kick in the wedding candles. You can have candles that offer all sort of pleasures: visual pleasure, smelly pleasure (loved the way I said that) and romantic pleasure. Aromatic candles will just take you away in a magical world. You are living the dream on your wedding day, but it’s even more magical when that flickering candle is making its presence known. You want some large, thick candles that will last you ’till the end of the wedding. Can you imagine some cheep – low quality candles that burn to the ground, half way through the ceremony? What a disgrace! So don’t cheep out on candles is what I’m saying. Where can you cut back to afford the candles? Here are a few ideas:

• the money you spend on paying the minister doing the ceremony
• the dollars spent on vehicles that are going and leaving the wedding ceremony
• the flowers on those vehicles
• the gift bags you give your guests
• the number of guests you actually invite (the more you invite, the more you will pay on food etc)

Those are just a few areas you can consider cutting back on. Don’t be too stingy in those areas though. I mean, it was mentioned to cut back on flowers that dress cars. But don’t have a car that is plain, with no smell of flower on it. Common sense people – the name of the game.

Okay,  my fingers are hurting from all the typing. I think I’ll stop now. Thank you for stopping by, and make sure you come back later to check for more. We are going to have so much advice for you! That’s the whole purpose of our little hobby.