The Budget: Where to Start When Wedding Planning
After 7 years of building Gigi & Olive, and 4 years on from my own wedding, I’ve talked with so many Brides about how to plan their day. The question I’m asked more than any other is: where do I even start?
My answer is always the same, and it’s not the answer most Brides want to hear. You start with the budget. I know. It isn’t the romantic part. Nobody pins their dream tablescape and then opens a spreadsheet. But the budget is the single most important conversation you’ll have. Every other decision flows from it.
And here’s why it matters more now than it did when I was planning. Wedding inspiration today is overwhelming in a way it simply wasn’t a few years ago. Pinterest boards run hundreds deep. Instagram is wall to wall curated weddings, but without the transparent price tags. TikTok will happily lead you down a 4-hour DIY rabbit hole. Brides are walking into the process with a vision shaped by hundreds of weddings they’ve seen online, often without realising the budgets behind them. The gap between vision and reality is where the stress lives. The budget is what closes that gap.
A wedding day, or a wedding weekend?
The other thing worth flagging upfront: a wedding isn’t always just one day anymore. Many couples now build out a whole weekend. Welcome drinks on the Friday. The wedding itself on Saturday. A brunch or lunch on the Sunday. It’s lovely, and your guests will love you for it, but it’s a meaningful shift in what you’re actually budgeting for.
If you’re planning a weekend, you’re factoring in 3 events, 3 rounds of catering, often 3 different setups. Not always at the same venue, not always with the same supplier. You can absolutely keep it modest, but go in eyes open. A wedding weekend is not the same financial conversation as a wedding day.
Have the money conversation first
Talking about money is uncomfortable. I get it. But you have to do it, and you have to do it first.Sit down with your partner. If you’re lucky enough to have parents or family contributing, sit down with them too. Get a clear, honest picture of your total number before you do anything else. Not after you’ve fallen in love with a venue. Not after you’ve signed a contract. Before.
There’s no “proper” wedding budget. It’s whatever number works for you, your partner and your families. The biggest gift you can give yourself is starting with that number clearly in your head.
Build the spreadsheet
Once you have your total, build a spreadsheet that allocates a percentage to every category. Venue, photographer, flowers, dress, music, food, production. Every penny accounted for.
You’ll read all sorts of “rules” online. Venue should be no more than 20%. Flowers should be 10%. Honestly, ignore them. The right percentages are the ones that match your priorities. Sit down and write your top 3. They might be venue, photographer and date. They might be food, flowers and music. There’s no right answer, only the one that’s right for you. Knowing your top 3 means you can spend more on what matters to you, and less on what doesn’t. It also means you don’t waste time looking at venues outside your budget, or chasing suppliers you can’t afford. Clarity is everything.
Does the guest list affect the budget?
Yes, but not as much as you’d think.
If you’re planning a smaller wedding, around 80 guests or under, you have far more flexibility. Restaurants, hotels and beautiful event spaces all open up as options, and every cost stays lower.
Once you go above 100, the maths shifts. You start needing the infrastructure of a marquee, flooring, heating, lighting, and most of those costs don’t scale much between 100 and 180 guests. Catering goes up. Infrastructure largely doesn’t. Worth understanding before you finalise your numbers.
Spread the costs
A piece of advice I was given that I now pass on to every Bride: don’t pay for everything close to the wedding. If you have a year or more between getting engaged and getting married, plan out when you’re paying for what. Spread suppliers across the months. If your birthday or Christmas falls during your engagement, ask for something that contributes (the Bridal robe you’ve had your eye on, please, not your hair and makeup). Get any non-perishable favours or items in early.
The last thing you want is the week before your wedding to be the week of biggest spend. you’ll be stressed enough without it.
The right partners save you money
This sounds counterintuitive, but bear with me. The best wedding suppliers will save you money in ways that aren’t visible in their first quote.
A great wedding planner will negotiate with venues and suppliers, flag where you’re being overcharged, and stop you spending in the wrong places. A talented florist will tell you which flowers to swap for cheaper alternatives that look identical. A photographer who’s worked hundreds of weddings knows exactly which packages you actually need, and which you don’t.
The cheapest supplier on paper is rarely the cheapest in practice. The right one is. It’s part of why we built The Directory: every partner is someone we’d genuinely recommend, which makes them an investment, not just a cost.
4 hidden costs nobody tells you about
- VAT. It’s plus 20% on everything in the UK. Most supplier quotes include it, but always check. The difference between “£10,000” and “£10,000 plus VAT” is a meaningful £2,000.
- Staffing. If your venue doesn’t include staff, you’ll be paying for it on top of catering. Most catering companies make this an easy add-on, but it’s rarely in the headline price per head.
- Setup and breakdown. Marquees, floral installations and styling all have build and break costs. They’re real, they add up, and they’re rarely visible in the first quote.
- Dress alterations. A £3,500 dress can easily come with £800 to £1,500 of alterations on top. Most Brides assume it’s included. It isn’t.
4 things I wish I’d known
- A venue with a marquee, orangery or large indoor space already in place is a huge financial win. You’re effectively paying for a venue twice when you book a blank canvas and bring in everything yourself.
- If you have access to a private home, garden or family property, look at it seriously.Even if it’s not your obvious dream venue, the money you save can transform what you do with flowers, food, the dress or the photographer.
- Build in a buffer. Weddings cost meaningfully more now than they did even 2 or 3 years ago. Add 10 to 15% to your total for things you haven’t thought of yet, because there will always be things you haven’t thought of yet.
- Get wedding insurance. It’s £100 to £300, and it covers you against supplier failure, illness or anything else that catches you off guard. Most Brides don’t think to get it. The ones I know who needed it were very glad they did.
The bottom line
Clarity is calm. The Brides I see who enjoy their planning the most are the ones who got the money conversation out of the way early. Everything that follows, the dress, the venue, the flowers, the photographer, then becomes about taste and joy, not about anxiety.
Get clear on your numbers. Then go and plan the most exciting year of your life.
Georgie Le Roux
