Planning Your Wedding: 3 Tips to Match Your Vision to Your Money

The average cost of a wedding in the US in 2026 is $36,000, according to Zola. Does that sound like a lot to you? A little? Where do you fall? Depending on your vision, that might be ten times what you end up spending, or it might be 30% of your wedding spend. Even if you just want a nice wedding, that can mean spending closer to $50,000. It’s easy to get carried away when wedding planning. You will be making a lot of decisions, both large and small, and it takes a toll emotionally.

When decision fatigue sets in, it’s easy to spend more money than you intend. It’s easy to spend an extra $50 on something when the overall cost is $5,000. At the time, the $50 doesn’t seem like a big deal comparatively, but over the whole wedding planning process, those $50 scenarios can add up.

When you’re planning a wedding, I have (unsurprisingly) so many money tips for you. One of the first is that you can start saving for it even before you’re engaged. You can, of course, call your wedding savings by other names like flexibility or “one day maybe” funds if you feel weird about saving before you are engaged.

The second tip is that you can continue to save throughout your entire engagement. Similar to the planning itself, many of the costs of the wedding are bar belled into the beginning and the end of the planning process. For example, a venue deposit might represent a huge chunk of your overall spend, and it might be due upon signing with the venue, while the remaining chunk isn’t due until the wedding itself. The same goes for different vendors like photographer, DJ, or videographer.

The third tip is to build and plan for a buffer. Sometimes it can seem like everything tends to cost more than you expect and there are elements that you realize you need that you didn’t initially plan for, so a buffer, just like in all projects generally, can significantly help and provide some peace of mind. You’re going to have a lot of decisions to make together, and each one will affect both the cost and style of the wedding you will have.

Take a moment to discuss with each other and find out where you both stand on the money front. These questions will help frame the rest of your thoughts on your wedding, and I’ve also included some real examples of wedding costs broken down by category for you as well (because let’s be real, that average overall cost is too high level to be helpful, and too many factors could easily swing that number wildly one way or another) in my free list of wedding visioning questions and budget planner to help you both through this. Then fill out the example budget templates there to assess how your vision lines up with your financial reality. I’ve included a wedding budget breakdown table as well to help guide you.

As one client told me: “We were trying to look at venues without knowing how much my parents were going to contribute, and it was difficult for us to lock down a venue (that often comes with so many other items included such as a required caterer list, that also adds up and locks in certain costs).”

Questions to Discuss:

●      How much money can you each realistically contribute to your wedding?

●      How much money can you each save during the engagement or contribute from ongoing income toward the wedding?

●      How much are you or are you not willing to impact other goals such as retirement, a house, or moving? (Sarah’s planner tip: Please try to impact your retirement contributions as little as possible here. Your future selves will thank you.)

●      Will either or both of your families contribute? How will that impact their planning participation or guest list creation opinions? How do each feel about that?

●      Fill out the visioning questions and budget planner together. How do those impact your feelings to the questions so far?

●      If you can afford to go big, do you want to? If you wanted to go big but maybe can’t right now, does that change anything about your type of wedding desired?

●      How does your wedding day stack up against your other life goals, both individually and with each other?

Looking for more financial advice? Check out what services and programs Momentum offers or schedule a free intro chat with Sarah!