Before you hire NJ wedding photographers, caterers, find a reception hall, or even start to plan your New Jersey wedding, your budget must be established. According to costofwedding.com the average cost for a low-end New Jersey wedding with around 150 guests is over $28,000. Understanding and doing a lot of research and planning will help you figure out your New Jersey wedding budget.

The most important key to planning your New Jersey wedding budget is to find out who is paying for the wedding. If you are a more traditional couple the parents of the bride may be willing to pay for all or some of the cost of the wedding. More families on the groom’s side have begun to pick up part of the wedding tab. It’s key to find out who is willing to help you and how much money they can contribute. You may want to ask family members to contribute to a specific part of the wedding day instead of asking for money.

Once you have the contributions and include what you can afford to pay for your New Jersey wedding it’s a good idea to separate the costs associated with each aspect of your wedding. Between 40-45% of your overall budget will go to the reception itself. From there you can leverage the rest of your budget for the cost for entertainment, NJ wedding photographers, DJ or band, caterer, etc. Note the reception percentage doesn’t factor into the entertainment.

After you plan the budget around the big cost items you can look into your ceremony costs. The cost of the ceremony is only about 2-3% of your budget but that cost will only cover the ceremony itself. The things you’ll need for the ceremony will also take a chunk out of your left over budget like flowers, which are almost 10% of your budget, the attire for the bride and groom which can cost about the same as the flowers, and wedding rings, which cost about as much as the ceremony itself.

The best way to finish your New Jersey wedding budget planning is to leave about 5% of the budget for any “extras” that may come up. Miscellaneous costs are a part of a wedding and saving part of your budget will help ease the stress if something comes up.

The key to making your budget work is to start to save immediately. Try to save 20% of your monthly income and put it away solely for your wedding budget. This is especially necessary if you’re paying for your honeymoon out of pocket. If you keep a tight financial budget and make some painful sacrifices (goodbye daily trips to Starbucks!) it will pay off in the end. And if you are financially strapped to begin with, consider extending the engagement period to allow more time to put money away.

Majestic Events helps make your budget planning easier by combining all the entertainment services you need for your special day. We offer experienced NJ wedding photographers as well as DJ, lighting, video and photo booth services. For more information on how we can work with you to help ease the stress of planning your New Jersey wedding please connect with us on Facebook.

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