Setting our Wedding Budget

I realized you can’t just randomly draw an amount. You need to be realistic, or at least guided, in setting the budget. Different couples have different ways of coming up with their respective budgets. As for Rye and I, we were guided by the following points:

-          How much savings do we have as of the moment?

-          What portion of it are we willing to spend for the wedding?

-          How much can we still save up before the wedding?

When this has been settled, we moved on to discussing what type of wedding we can have given the budget we decided on. 

We did the initial computations, and to my dismay, the penciled amounts went beyond our budget, by a little over P50,000. Just as Rye predicted. So, he suggested we adjust it to accommodate most of the things we wanted in our wedding. But my kuripot monster was sulking with the idea. Why set a budget if you won’t stick to it anyway? I treat budgets with respect. They are meant as a guide. They are like finish lines in a race. And finish lines don’t get adjusted just because the runners can no longer make another step. They don’t get extended either, even when runners can still go another mile. Okay, I’m sure you get the point, I’ll drop the analogy.

Rye pouted at my arguments. He was willing to shoulder the excess amount. After all, we have been saving for the past four years of our relationship and we can actually afford a bigger wedding. But that’s just not the case in point. Fortunately, I was able to convince Rye that with a little more research and with time on our side, we can still crunch the numbers.

The wedding won’t be earlier than November 2015. That’s more than a year from now. Longer preparation time means less strain on the budget and less stress on my part. Plus, a little luck won’t hurt. 

So, how much are we allotting for the wedding? It's P250,000 tops! Not a peso more. I'll be happier if we can even spend just around P200,000.  

Originally, I insisted on just P200,000 but considering that we want to serve our guests a sumptuous meal and it will be an out-of-town wedding, I had to agree on stretching the budget. 

I have stumbled across blogs where the couples spent amounts lower than our budget and I admire them for pulling it all off. Below is a link of some of these blogs. You might want to check out how they did it.

• How to Plan a P150K Wedding
• My $3,000 Filipino Wedding (or approx. P150K)
• A Frugal Yet Elegant Wedding (P100K only)

When I read these posts, I really felt envious. At the same time, I felt even more determined to accomplish this challenge. Yun nga lang, nangangamoy DIY, matinding DIY. So, I'll be needing a lot of luck, help, and time.

For my next post, I'll be sharing how we sliced our budget pie and what our priorities are.