Your wedding budget
Set your total, then adjust each share and drop in your real quotes. Nothing is sent anywhere: the calculation happens in your browser.
How to use this calculator
Start with the only number you really control: the total you are willing to spend. The calculator splits it across the ten lines almost every wedding has, using shares that match what couples actually spend — venue and catering alone eat half the budget.
Then adjust. Every wedding is different: a garden ceremony at a relative’s house moves money from the venue to the flowers and the marquee. Change a share and the amounts follow instantly. As quotes come in, type the real figure next to each line and you will see, at a glance, whether you are still inside your budget or already past it.
Where the money really goes
The two biggest lines are the venue and the catering, and they behave differently from the rest: they are tied to your guest count. Cutting ten guests cuts both at once. That is why the cost per guest is shown — it is the number that tells you what one more invitation truly costs.
Photography and video come next, and they are the lines couples most often regret cutting: the flowers last a day, the photographs last decades.
Keep a buffer
The default split keeps 5% aside for surprises, and it is not padding. Overtime for the band, a corkage fee nobody mentioned, alterations two weeks before the day, transport for a supplier — something always appears in the last month.
If you reach the date without touching it, it becomes a gift to yourselves. If you have not planned for it, it becomes a credit card balance you carry into the marriage.
Four ways to cut the total without anyone noticing
- Trim the guest list first. It is the only change that reduces venue, catering, drinks, stationery and favours at the same time.
- Move the date. A Friday in March costs far less than a Saturday in July, for the same venue and the same people.
- Shorten the open bar. Two hours of served drinks plus wine on the table is usually enough, and it is a very large line.
- Pick one showpiece. One thing people will remember — the food, the band, the setting — and be ordinary about the rest.
Turning the budget into a savings plan
Enter your wedding date and what you have already saved, and the calculator tells you what you need to put aside each month to arrive with the full amount. That is the number to automate on payday, the day after you set the date.
If the monthly figure looks impossible, the answer is not to hope: it is to move the date, cut the guest list, or lower the total now, while nothing is booked and no deposit is lost.
Are these percentages a rule?
No. They are a starting point drawn from how wedding spending typically breaks down, not a standard. Their job is to give you a complete list of lines so nothing is forgotten, and a plausible first split you can then bend to your own wedding.
My shares do not add up to 100%
The calculator says so and shows the total. That is fine while you are moving numbers around — just bring it back to 100% before you rely on the amounts, otherwise the plan does not match your budget.
Should I include the honeymoon?
Keep it separate. It has its own dates, its own savings deadline and its own trade-offs, and mixing it in makes the wedding total look artificially large.
Is my data saved anywhere?
No. Everything is calculated in your browser, and your figures stay on your device so you find them again on your next visit. Nothing is sent to us.
Read next
- Sinking funds: how to pay for big one-off expenses without borrowing — the method behind every calculator on this site.
- Money saving challenges that you will actually finish — structured ways to build the first $1,000.
- How to make a budget that actually works — the full method, from an honest snapshot to a monthly money date.