budget budget, who's got the budget

Through all the glory and beauty of a wedding, there is one insidious issue that, although we would like to forget it, keeps cropping up. Money. Payments to vendors. Dress and Suit purchases. Gifts for wedding party, gifts for parents, gifts for each other. Plane tickets, resort stays, food, drinks, activities. A wedding, and the commonly-surrounding events (i.e., bridal showers, engagement parties, honeymoons, etc.), costs a lot. No matter how you slice it, or how cheaply you try to do it, and no matter how wealthy you (or, if you’re lucky, your contributing parental or familiar units) are, most families feel some burden from the financial obligation of a wedding. And, if there is one thing I’ve learned through helping others plan weddings, it is that almost everyone, almost always, goes over budget. I’m not a huge fan of the phrase “over budget,” primarily because it seems to indicate that at one point, there was a plan to be ‘under’ or ‘at’ budget, and someone failed at that plan. Ew. I like to avoid the feeling of failure whenever possible. So instead, I propose that we give that situation a different name. For example, instead of saying “Yes, we’re over budget on our wedding,” perhaps people could say, “We decided to spend a bit more than we originally planned so that we could have the things that we want on our wedding day.” Doesn’t that sound more mature and reasonable?

I look at it this way: the only things that get in the way of sticking to one’s budget are one’s desires (or two’s desires, so to speak). If a bride or groom desires to have things in the wedding that are outside of the budget, a conscious decision is made to either pursue that desire, or not to pursue that desire. There are no accidents in wedding budgets (unless of course a vendor is dishonest with you, or you do not read the fine print in a contract), and if anyone tells you otherwise, they’re lying - because they too do not want to feel the failure that comes with having to admit that they have gone “over budget.”