budget breakdown

Okay, on the weekend Robert (Grug) and I went over the budget for our wedding. While my parents have offered to pay for the alcohol (a huge relief, since this would be the most expensive part of the whole thing), we are trying to pay for everything else ourselves. Here is how we broke it down:

Venue: $200
Celebrant: $400
Jessica's clothes: $200
Robert's clothes: $200
Rings: $100
Decorations: $50
Food: $100
Invitations: $65
Wiggle room: $185

TOTAL: $1500

Our wedding is in late April, so we have 15 fortnights (we are both paid fortnightly) to save up. We added the wiggle room because a) it made it a nice, neat amount and b) we want to be prepared for surprises. We both have debt which we are paying off, and we are determined not to let this wedding add to our debt. So, from now on, we are each putting $50 a fortnight into our wedding fund. This may sound like a laughably small amount, but as most of our spare income goes into paying off our debts, it's the most that we can spare. If we get some extra money from other sources, we'll put it in there too. (That sounds rather sinister, like we are running numbers in our neighbourhood. I just mean money for Christmas or from selling comics.)

We have an extra incentive to stay inside our budget (and undercut it wherever possible) as we will be using whatever is left over for a little honeymoon. If it's just $150 left over, we'll get a nice hotel room for the night; if we have $400, we'll have a few nights in a bed and breakfast.

I'll post on each of the budget items over time, but this is essentially the plan we're following. Please tell me it's not crazy!