“I love weddings…drinks all around!”

 -Captain Jack Sparrow

As I enter the home stretch of my engagement, I thought I’d attempt to share some words of wisdom.  You might be asking how someone who runs a personal finance blog balanced his desire to save with his fiancé’s desire to have her dream wedding. Very carefully, is the answer. Here’s a 6-step process to hold your ideal wedding without breaking the bank:

Step 1: Remind her/him (and yourself) that despite this being one of the most incredible days of your new lives together, it doesn’t mean that everything has to be plated in gold. Wedding vendors can often assess how much money you can afford to spend based on the size of the engagement ring. They’ll use phrases like “your big day”, “you’ll only do this once,” and “pay a little extra and do it right!” The marketers out there will convince you that unless you purchase the “diamond” package of every service, you’re not doing it right and will regret it later. False. You don’t have to have a shiny dance floor to have a good time or top shelf liquor to please your guests (they’ll bring a flask anyways). Have a realistic conversation about what you really want and get it; just don’t get any more than what you REALLY want.

Step 2: Take inventory of what you have. While you’re having the conversation in step #1, make a list of how much money you have at your disposal.  Whether your parents have volunteered to cover every dime up to tens of thousands of dollars or simply said they’ll “definitely be there”, you’ll want to figure this out. Consider all the sources that you’ll have available to you (any grandparents wanting to help out?). Then, realistically do some math to calculate how much you and your loving fiancé will be able to afford. I’d say it’d be okay to save a lot less and to divert the bulk of your income to your wedding fund. Figure out how much you think you can save per month and multiply that by however many months it is until the actual wedding. Add that to the money you’ll get from others, and that’ll be your realistic wedding budget.

Step 3: Shop around. Get several (3-5) quotes for each service that you’re looking at. Don’t get too caught up in the vendor’s pitch; remember, they are still a business. As best as you can, objectively compare each vendor based on what they can provide versus what they charge. In my case, we found one promising vendor that in all likelihood would have provided a stellar meal, but they wanted $40 per head. Wow. I convinced my fiancé to shop around a bit more, and we found a vendor that would actually even more so provide the right food and atmosphere that we wanted (and at half the price!).

Step 4: Prepare for the unexpected. Leave a nice cushion in your budget for the unplanned. Often vendors might “forget” to mention that tax and gratuity (could be 20% combined) aren’t included. Shoot!  Did it slip your mind that you need to buy all those stamps for thank you cards or that  you ended having to pay for the photographer to stay late? Don’t worry!  You’re prepared because you set aside some extra money. I legitimately forgot that I needed to buy a new suit to get married in, but just the other day I was able to pick one up (that I really like, no less!) without fretting about it because I had extra money available in my budget.

Step 5: Pick 2 or 3 of the most important aspects of your wedding and make sure you get those. Is the food super important? Absolutely want a top of the line DJ to make sure your party won’t stop? Have you been dreaming about that venue overlooking the water since you were 8? It is your special day; make sure you get them. You can skimp on the rest to ensure you get the very best of the 2 or 3 aspects you really want. For us, it was the venue that we absolutely knew we wanted to have.

Step 6: Take a deep breath and step back. This is a super important day that you will remember for the rest of your lives. Have the very best wedding that you can afford. Congratulations and enjoy your special day!

In closing, the following is a quote from yours truly, a personal finance blogger, from when I found out how much one of our vendors wanted. “What?!? You gotta be kidding me, there’s no way we’ll ever pay that. Get out of here.”