Congratulations! You are engaged and planning your dream wedding. Few things will ever top the excitement and the stress of planning a wedding. The confusion over who pays for what and does what can be quite overwhelming. This simple guide to who pays what when planning a wedding should make the planning a little easier.
The Bride’s Parents when Planning a Wedding
If you are a younger bride and this is your first marriage, tradition says the bride’s parents pay for the engagement party. This is the big event where friends and family will gather to celebrate the engagement of the couple and welcome the husband-to-be to the family. Not everyone has an engagement party as part of planning a wedding, but it is a traditional celebration. While nothing says you need to stick to tradition when planning a wedding, the old rules have it that the parents of the bride also pay for and send out engagement announcements. It is not uncommon in this modern day for the couple planning a wedding to throw their own engagement party, and pay for their own announcements. If you have been married before, lived together with your partner for a while or are a mature couple, you will probably step away from tradition, and pay for your own engagement party and announcements.
Traditionally, the bride’s parents pay for planning a wedding, and most of the wedding details. This includes the wedding dress, wedding venue, décor, wedding flowers, photography, deejay and catering. Just as with the engagement party, if the bride was previously married, is older or lived with the groom for a while, the bride and groom usually pay for planning a wedding on their own. If the bride and groom are paying for their own wedding, it is common for family members to make a financial contribution to the wedding.
The Groom’s Parents when Planning a Wedding
When planning a wedding, the groom's family traditionally pays for the brides bouquet, the corsages and boutonnieres for both families, and lodging of the groomsmen and the best man. The groom's parents usually plan and pay for the rehearsal dinner. Sometimes the groom’s family purchases the alcohol and helps pay for the flowers.
The Bride and Groom
The bride traditionally pays for the gifts for her bridesmaids and maid of honor, and the ring for the groom. The groom usually pays for the marriage license and fees to the officiant. He will also purchase the bouquet for the bride, and her rings. It is customary for the groom to present the bride with a gift when planning a wedding. He must also purchase gifts and boutonnieres for his groomsmen. Tradition also sticks the groom with the honeymoon bill. However, couples commonly split the cost of their honeymoon expenses.
Creating a Budget
While some rules belong to tradition, couples are planning a wedding of their own and bearing the cost of it all. If you are planning on paying for your own wedding, it is important to create a budget. Even when family members are pitching in to share the cost, weddings can become expensive. The average cost of a wedding in the United States is just over $30,000. If you and your partner have lived together a while and accumulated expenses along the way, your budget might be only half of the nations average. When it comes to planning a wedding, deciding on a wedding budget is the first thing to do.
Planning with a Smaller Budget
A smaller budget does not always mean less. Couples are catching on to a new rent a wedding concept that keeps the cost down while sparing nothing in the process of creating a dream wedding. Begin the creation of your budget by touring an all-inclusive wedding venue that can provide the venue, décor, linens, flowers, tables, runners, chair sashes, and all the fine china to stage your wedding from ceremony to reception.
Crystal Ballroom at Sunset Harbor
Crystal at Sunset Harbor is an all-inclusive wedding venue with an in-house design team and relationships with local vendors to make planning a wedding on your budget an absolute dream. Meet inside the design studio to choose your colors, flowers and décor. Crystal Ballroom makes dream weddings possible.
