Right now is a challenging time for all of us, as we face further wedding and event postponements, business closures, layoffs, and illness and loss. If your wedding is being postponed, cancelled, or you are facing job loss or other financial impacts, my heart goes out to you this week. I encourage everyone to try and support each other as best you can through this difficult time. (I will update the blog soon with what I am doing in my business.) But in an effort to be useful, I'd love to keep talking this week about wedding flowers, and in particular, wedding budgeting. Setting a budget for your wedding can seem overwhelming, especially if you don't know how much things cost. But this week, I'll share tips for crafting a reasonable budget and sticking to it.
Photo by Suzanne Rothmeyer
I want to start by pointing out that over half of couples wind up spending more than they originally budgeted for their wedding. This means that there's about a 50/50 chance that you are not starting from a realistic set of numbers. Part of this is a lack of transparency in wedding pricing, which we discussed last week. Couples also are unsure what the average spending looks like in their area. They might also forget that the "average" includes courthouse wedding folks who spend almost nothing. Additionally, wedding budgeting websites give everyone the same templates and tools--whether their overall budget is $10,000 or $1,000,000. Saying that you should spend 7% on flowers looks VERY different between those two clients! (One of them would be a dream client, and the other, I might not be able to help.)
Assuming you have a realistic starting place, here are some tips for setting your wedding floral budget and sticking to it:
- Know Your Numbers: Decide ahead of time what you are happy to spend, nervous about spending but it's doable, or cannot go over. Adjust budget percentages based on your priorities!
- Tell Your Florist: Be frank about how much you actually want to spend, so we can design a proposal that fits your budget. We can help you brainstorm what to do if we know your numbers!
- Think About Non-Negotiables: Know where you could cut or move things around and still be happy within budget. If everything is non-negotiable, you might need to take another look at your priorities.
- Be Flexible: Embrace local seasons for more affordable flowers, and trust your designer to choose flowers that will be beautiful and affordable.
- Repurpose Flowers: If you're hitting your budget ceiling, think about pieces that can be used in both the ceremony and reception! You'll get "twice" the flowers for the same price.
- Skip Extras: You'll save money if you can skip a full service floral package and get someone else to pick up your flowers.
- Rent vs. Buy: Use your weddings pros to source rentals, rather than buying things you may not be able to reuse or resell.
If you want help figuring out those realistic numbers, and more tips on wedding budgeting, check out this week's PDF. We talk about the average wedding budget, what couples spend on average in Seattle, and what that means for you. I'll also provide further resources for you to read about national averages updated with 2020 data. There are people tracking and measuring these things--you don't have to go it alone! Just enter your e-mail below so I know where to send these resources.
Budgeting can be overwhelming, so please comment here if you have any questions I can help with. Or, if you have any other questions you want answered, leave a comment below! Next week, we will talk about the option that strikes fear into every wedding party's heart: DIY flowers! And whenever you start thinking about your wedding, you can read some reviews from my couples over on WeddingWire and book a consultation here!