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Your Wedding Budget!

Essex wedding venue

Photo Credit: Scott Miller

When it comes to planning your wedding, before anything else, before you pick the venue, or even think of the dress, your wedding budget needs to be established. It’s no big secret that weddings are a costly event. Regardless of whether you’re trying to rein it in, or going all out and in spite of having the best of intentions, so many couples find themselves overstepping the initial agreed budget. Thankfully, here at That Amazing Place, we’ve seen enough weddings to know that there are some rather easy ways to ensure you stay in budget from the second you set it. So get your pens at the ready…you’re probably going to want to take notes.

Write Your Wedding Budget Down At Every Stage – This may sound rather tedious but your budget is there for a reason and must be adhered to. Write it down and just as you would with your taxes, make a note of what your budget is and what’s remaining at every step of the way. It’s not fun (unless you’re an accountant) but it’s necessary unless you want to spend your honeymoon worried up to your eyeballs about the debt you’ll be returning to. To make things super easy you could always simply jump online and check out wedding budget calculators and even download the odd app or two to help. Make a note of everything you spend from bridesmaid dresses to flower arrangements and as the budget begins to grow a little thin, you can adjust the budget for each area accordingly to ensure the things most important to you, get the biggest portion of the budget allocated to them.

Consider Extra Costs – Here at That Amazing Place, what you see is what you get however, there are some services out there that may charge an extra cost for a service you may have assumed is part of what you’re already paying for. Extra bridal gown alterations perhaps? Extra flower arrangements? Extra table decorations or even extra food within the catering budget. Ask about everything. A particularly good one to remember, that many forget, is that trials aren’t always free. Whether it’s a florists demo, or a cake tasting, even a hair style trial; these can all cost unexpected amounts, taking vital pennies from the budget that could be better spent elsewhere. Ensuring you’re aware of this will mean there are no scary surprises and that budget of yours stays on track.

Plan To Go Over – As crazy as this sounds, it’s always worth putting a little extra aside, should you need to go over budget because if you account for the overages, then you’ll never actually go over the budget. We’ve seen some couples decide on a budget and then aim to come in under the budget by one or two thousand, when they don’t, it’s no big deal as their original budget covered the cost anyway. Some areas that you may find yourself struggling to stay within budget are areas like flowers, any weather-related incidents (we are in Britain after all) and in case of any small hiccups such as gown alterations last minute.

For more hints and tips, simply contact us today. We’ll be more than happy to discuss our fabulous Twilight Wedding Package that gives you all the glamour of a wedding at That Amazing Place for a much lower the cost.

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Wedding Budgets 101

Rachel Lyndon Photography

While most dream of an unlimited budget for their wedding day, the vast majority of us realise that’s not quite the case. With that in mind, most spend our time planning weddings simply by shifting one part of the wedding budget from one part for the wedding to another…decided you want more roses? Then pinch a little from your invitation budget. Simple right? Wrong! Tipping the scale in the wrong direction could have dire consequences for your big day. Thankfully, we’ve got the lowdown when it comes to wedding budgets; where to spend and where to save.

Food – food is without doubt a hugely important aspect of any wedding. The problem lies here when people try to create over-adventurous meals that look better than they taste. That’s why we always recommend the fabulous Magpie Catering or Premier Crew who not only create beautiful looking food, but food that tastes amazing thanks to the high quality produce they use and the quality of the produce is most definitely an area in which you don’t want to be scrimping and saving. One way to save a few pennies however, would be to opt for seasonal meals and produce instead of requesting hard to source food, as this can of course mount up in cost.

Decoration – décor is an area in which you can save and splurge at the same time. By this, we mean avoiding overdoing it in numbers but ensuring the decorations you do have look amazing. Focus the decorations in areas your guests will be mingling instead of wasting money on décor in an area that won’t be seen. Think stunning floral arrangements from the likes of Joanne Truby or Gracie Day Designs. Using a quality florist to create fabulous pieces where you need it most can mean saving on cost in terms of “amount” but can mean you splurging on the quality of flower.

Entertainment – while you may be shocked to hear it, entertainment is indeed an area in which you can save simply by taking advantage of our resident DJ’s, the fabulous Piano DJ. These guys are nothing short of amazing and what’s more, very reasonably priced to happy couples saying “I do” right here at That Amazing Place. From a fabulous pianist to an awesome DJ guaranteed to have everyone dancing, Piano DJ really do have it all.

Cake – your wedding cake is something everyone will be looking forward to seeing and no doubt tasting and as a result, is certainly not an area you’re going to want to cut corners. A wedding cake that looks amazing but tastes dreadful is only going to be a disappointment, well after the wedding itself. Ensure you employ a quality company who not only makes a great looking cake but uses the very best ingredients too. Save money but choosing a simple design and then simply decorate it with a few spare blooms from your florist. Simple yet elegant.

We understand planning a wedding, and more importantly sticking to a certain budget isn’t easy but it’s not impossible and with the talents of our events manager Angie, it’ll be easier than you ever thought possible.