A Sit Down With Your Parents
You’ve gotten engaged and announced it to all your friends and family on social media. Everyone is thrilled and preparations have already begun (truthfully, they’ve been underway since you were born but now you get a say in things). It’s extremely easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of it all, the shopping trips, booking vendors and selecting invitations. However, before you get too far down the road we would like to outline 8 key categories to discuss during your wedding budget conversation with your parents. If your idea of an amazing wedding weekend includes surprise bar expenses or unaccounted for food and beverage minimums, then this post is not for you.
This Budget Talk is absolutely not meant to drill down expenses to the very last penny. However, a high level discussion to ensure everyone is on the same page with regard to expectations is in order. Mom and dad are most likely expecting to spend a shiny penny on this auspicious occasion, but we have found that most of the time what they had in mind doesn’t match up to what the wedding industry’s going rate is for the various services and products required to host a multi-day wedding event.
The idea is for you as a couple to sit down with both sets of parents to talk about must-have items vs. nice-to-haves, as well as guest headcount, location preferences and other decisions that must be made during the wedding planning process. Regardless of whether their budget is $80k, 150k, or 50k, it’s a conversation best had earlier rather than later.
Wedding Budget Categories
The 8 key categories to account for when budgeting for your South Asian wedding are: Venue, Food, Music, Flowers/Decor, Photo/Video, Beauty, Miscellaneous and Personal expenses. These are true whether you’re having a lavish 5-day affair or a more traditional 2-day celebration. Keeping those categories in mind, we’ve developed a Basic Budget Checklist for you to download and utilize as a guide during your conversations, and throughout the entire planning process.
