All couples ask the questions, what should and what shouldn’t you spend money on? The wedding budget is where most of the strife of wedding planning comes into play so it’s important to know what’s important to you in order to know where to spend and save. In our opinion, these are 5 things you should splurge on for your wedding:
Photo by Pinkerton Photography via this pink and orange DIY wedding
Hiring a Wedding Planner
For the sake of your sanity, not only on the wedding day but also leading up to it, splurge on a wedding planner! Leave your big day in the hands of a professional to ensure everything runs smoothly.
A Band
There’s nothing quite like the atmosphere a band provides. Settle the debate between DJ and band and splurge on a group like the Gold Coast All Stars who will keep everyone on the dance floor!
Videography
Some couples choose to forgo the option of a videographer because it can mean an expense that’s equally as costly as a photographer, or maybe even more. However, having footage, not only stills, of your vows, your joy, your interactions and celebration, is definitely worth it.
Photo by Brandon Kidd via Ali Fedotowsky’s wedding
Personalized Details
Invest in personalized cocktail napkins, stir sticks or coasters! Details like this will make your wedding standout and make for great keepsakes for you and your guests!
Your Guests
If it’s extremely important for you to have certain people at your wedding, don’t sacrifice them for the sake of saving on an extra plate. Make the people you want there a priority by splurging on a bigger guest list.
Def a videographer! 🙂
Great tips!
long live the wedding band! so fun!
100% splurge on a planner – it was a lifesaver for me!
I disagree with literally all of this, haha. The problem with articles like this is no couple is alike and everyone has different priorities.
I did not need a wedding planner because I am naturally very detail oriented, enjoy making lists and timelines, and had an awesome support group of family and friends (and 4 family friends sharing the masters/mistresses of ceremonies duty) who handled everything so I could relax. If you don’t have this personality or these resources, a wedding planner is a great idea.
While I’m sure a band is fun, I have literally never been to a wedding that had one, and there’s nothing like hearing a favorite tune come over the speakers and running to the dance floor. No band can replicate Beyonce, lol. We didn’t even have a DJ! I had an extreme amount of fun compiling an awesome playlist for months before our day. We pretty much just hit shuffle. It was perfect.
We foregoed a videographer and I will say that I would have loved to have one, but as this article rightly points out it can be very expensive and the bottom line for me was that splurging on photography was way more important. We spent 18% of our total budget on our photographer and our photos are stunning. There was simply no way we could afford a videographer as well. No one should feel like they’re going to regret it for the rest of their lives not having one. It’s a personal choice. 2 years later and I’m not bothered by it at all.
Personalized details? I mean… they’re fun but completely unnecessary. You can inject your personality into the details of the wedding so many other ways: decor choices, the flowers, the music. You don’t need to pay a bunch of money to have your monogram all over everything if that doesn’t interest you.
And as for the guest list – everyone knows making a guest list can be extremely stressful and the pressure from others to invite more and more people can get way out of hand. Encouraging people to just throw up their hands and go bigger and bigger is a great way to destroy any chance of a reasonable budget. Obviously you should prioritize inviting everyone that truly matters to the couple, but the 40 friends your MIL wants to invite that you’ve never even met? Ahem… yeah that’s not worth splurging on. Don’t feel obligated to invite every person you’ve ever met! Only those who really matter to you should be there.
The things we splurged on were #1 photography, and somewhat lesser splurges on the food, flowers, and furniture rentals. Those were the perfect things to splurge on for us. Everyone’s different. 😉
Absolutely agree with getting a planner (lol I am a planner…) BUT I totally disagree with things like customized napkins or other monogrammed favors and such. Most of the time this stuff ends up in the trash or left behind at the end of the night. One of my brides ordered 150 custom engraved wine glasses for her wedding and nearly 100 were still left at the end of the night for us to pack back up!