When planning a destination wedding in Mexico, it’s easy to go down the Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok spiral for inspiration. While seeing what others have done can certainly give you fabulous ideas, sometimes someone else’s lavish style may prompt you to stretch, or even abandon, your wedding budget.
Here are our top five tips for prioritizing items and staying within your wedding budget:
Define your top priorities. One of the first things to do in the beginning stages of wedding planning is to determine the one to three most important things about your wedding day. The items you value the most will be your guiding direction for the wedding budget. If you are unsure if you should spend extra money in a particular area, ask yourself if it relates to your list of most important things. If the answer is yes, then feel free to splurge away. If not, you can easily drop that from the plans or choose a more modest selection without a second thought. With your budget and all things wedding in general, keep the main thing the main thing.
Be clear on your budget. This means that before any planning begins, it’s essential to have clear discussions with all parties contributing financially or otherwise to your wedding expenditures. You may be fortunate enough to have parents or extended family planning to contribute financially to your wedding, or you may be paying for your wedding as a couple only. And I get it – these are not always the most fun conversations! Because of this, some couples avoid direct communication about who is paying for what and how much they are contributing. Not getting total clarity in this area is a recipe for disaster and almost always ends in tears, hurt feelings, or worse. Getting very clear on your budget before you start wedding planning and reaching out to vendors is an absolute must.
Prioritize visual space at your venue. Flowers are beautiful and provide excellent wedding decoration but are typically one of the most significant expense categories for a destination wedding besides the wedding package. If your wedding spending plan does not allow for over-the-top floral displays in every nook and cranny of your venue, always prioritize beautiful linen and lighting over centerpieces. Linens occupy the most visual space in a room, so luxury textured or larger patterned linen will look great in photos and almost always cost less than a large centerpiece.
Add lighting to your wedding budget from the beginning. Most outdoor venues for destination weddings have no built-in or ambient lighting included. Half or more of your wedding will be after the sun sets, so if you are in an outdoor venue, it will be dark for most of your wedding reception. Dark spaces do not make for beautiful photos because photography needs light. This is the number one item that couples are surprised to have to add to their budget because they assume that the spaces they will be using will be lighted.
Know yourself! The best way to know if you’re going to go over your wedding budget or overall spending plan is to be realistic with yourself. If you are a person who sets a budget but never follows it (with or without going down the social media rabbit hole!), then I can almost guarantee you will go over whatever budget you set for your wedding. If you set a budget and always or almost always follow that budget, then you will most likely stay within your wedding budget. This may sound very simplified, but it’s just reality – most people continue to do what they usually do. However, a wedding is the joining of two lives and often the joining of two bank accounts. So, you’ll want to have honest conversations with your partner about how serious – or flexible – you plan to be in the planning (and spending) for your wedding.
Yellow Umbrella Events is Here to Keep Your Wedding Budget in Check
Our destination wedding planning services are complimentary, and we are the experts who work within your budget to ensure you get the most out of it and have the wedding of your dreams. Please reach out to our team to start planning for your “I Do!”
