BUDGET should be a 4 letter word

Nothing will stress you all out more than the budget. Fathers ( FOB) can be particularly out of touch with reality, after all they haven;t been watching Martha Stewart for 20 years and they don't know from The Knot. Reading through magazines will potentially give you false hope that this wedding won't cost you an arm and a leg. But be realistic, your budget has to match your expectations. If you want a seated dinner for 300 in a heated tent with a 12 piece orchestra and orchids on every table, don't even begin to fool yourself that this won't cost 100K or more.
Sure there have been zillions of weddings that don't cost a kings ransom and everyone had a great time...but I'm not here to tell you how to DIY for under $1000 and make it look like a million, I'm sure there is a blog for that. This is all about frank advice and frankly..weddings are expensive.

Now expensive is a relative term. For one bride 50K may seem like a phenomenal budget ,while another thinks that 50k will just about cover the decorating budget. Either way, there will be battles over where you put your dollars. There's a great tool on Weddingwire.com that allows you to create a budget and to keep track of things. I started that and decided that 55K was about what it would cost..and the final tally...ohhh somewhere around 70K. I just HAD to have those adorable hangers with the girls' names twisted into the wire and of course we had to have 40 pounds of Jelly Belly Beans for the Easter wedding and so what if the dress cost $700 more than we budgeted..it's the perfect one and on and on it went.
SO if it's so easy to loose control over the budget, why have one? Because you have to start somewhere and you will be expected to make decisions from the beginning that will affect your costs.
For instance: you fall in love with a venue that costs $6000 to rent and you have to bring in a caterer...you already know that your 150 guests will fit the capacity and you know that the caterer estimates that a dinner will cost about $100.00 per person, so you know right then that you are at $21,000.00 before flowers, brides outfit, photographer, music.....add on an average of 4K for each of these and you are now up to $33,000.Adds up fast huh? and these things are just the basics.
Again, i remind you that i am speaking of weddings that are of the caliber of those you'd see in magazines ..and these days, what brides see, is what they want.

SOOO all i am trying to get across is that you have to establish some kind of budget so that you can intelligently make decisions of where to hold the wedding, which caterer you can afford, what florist, music etc etc etc.. AND you have to establish this budget based on your expectations and your priorities. Is there any point in looking at Vera Wang when it will only break your heart if your daughter falls in love with a dress that costs $6000?

Next up...how to start the actual planning