Financial Expert Shares The 5 Costs Everyone Forgets To Include In Their Wedding Budget
Sure, you've thought about the dress, the food and the venue. But what about all the other details?
Wedding and lifestyle / Shutterstock It's that time again — when millions of brides and grooms start making plans to walk down the aisle. (And millions of their friends start thinking about how they're going to pay for bridesmaid dresses.)
But vital parts of wedding planning can slip past even the most detail-oriented bridezillas. Luckily, there are some tips on things that often get overlooked, from a financial coach and former bride herself.
Weddings have gotten so expensive that it's hard to even consider anything besides the biggest-ticket items. And with inflation in recent years? Hoo boy, the sticker shock is real.
So, Charlotte Darr, a financial coach, shared on TikTok the five items that brides and grooms routinely forget about that can make a wedding budget suddenly balloon out of control.
A financial expert shared 5 things everyone forgets in their wedding budget
1. Alterations to your wedding attire
It's just a fact that most of us don't have mannequin proportions, and most of the time a little bagginess here or snugness there isn't worth worrying over in our everyday lives. But you're wedding day? That's not everyday life!
Photo: Sergey Novikov / Shutterstock
"You are paying a lot of money for your wedding outfit and you want it to fit you correctly," Darr said in her video. And, she pointed out, nearly all wedding dresses do need some kind of alterations — even for the supermodels among us.
Darr also pointed out that this goes beyond just the wedding itself. You might also need alterations for "pre-wedding events like your bachelor or bachelorette party, wedding shower, stuff like that."
2. Transportation
"How are you and your fiancé getting to and from your wedding venue, the ceremony, and how are your family members getting there? How are your guests getting there?" Darr asked. Wedding parties frequently forget about this vital part of the whole deal, and it quickly adds up.
3. Gratuity, sales tax, and service fees
Unless you're lucky enough to live outside the United States where tipping isn't a thing, nearly everyone involved is going to charge a gratuity or service fee, and this too adds up.
"It's pretty standard to tip vendors like your DJ, bartender, hairstylist, and that's definitely something that I forgot to include in my budget," Darr said of her own wedding, "as well as sales tax and service fees for the venue, food, catering costs, and stuff like that."
4. Accommodations for the night before, the day of, and after the wedding
"You also want to think about where you and your fiancé are going to sleep before and after the wedding, and then you want to think about when you are getting ready," Darr said.
Photo: Maria Mikhailenko / Shutterstock
"Do you need a hotel room for that? What types of amenities do you want to have and pay for? What food will everybody eat?" If your venue is a hotel, resort, or similar, you might check with the staff. Many places throw in accommodations for free when you book the venue. And speaking of venues...
5. Potential price increases at your wedding venue
Darr explained that she and her now-husband got engaged in the summer of 2022 and planned their wedding for fall 2023. "When we were first quoted a price from the venue, it was 2022 prices," she said.
But we all know what happened in the summer of 2022 — runaway inflation. And while that inflation has been tamed to an extensive degree since, it's still very much a thing. "Costs are rising across the board and, of course, it's going to impact your wedding venue as well," Darr warned.
For many couples, a wedding is one of the biggest investments they'll make in their time together and even small, casual weddings can cost a pretty penny.
Keeping track of these oft-forgotten details will keep your wedding budget from running out of control, or at least from running more out of control than you already planned!
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.