Costs That Will Burst Your Wedding Budget

 By: Shenette Prevo

Teacup Planning & Events | Houston Wedding Planner

The quickest way to burst your event budget is an unexpected expense. It’s important to add contingency to your wedding budget categories to account for these common forgotten or underestimated costs.

In this post we'll review five wedding budget elements that often get overlooked or underestimated.

1. Logistics Fees

Travel and delivery fees are often forgotten about. Most vendors have a delivery radius and charge delivery fees. When your event location is outside of the delivery radius, more fees may be incurred. If you need same day delivery and pickup on a weekend, after hour delivery fees can get steep. Delivery fees doesn’t only apply to equipment and décor, your dream cake may be within your allotted budget, but it may cost an additional $100 to deliver it. When you firm up your budget be sure to make room for logistic costs.

2. DIY Materials

The materials needed for DIY projects can quickly burst your budget. When we look at a finished product like a faux floral arrangement for example, we see flowers and a vase. What we don’t see is the floral tape, foam, wire, pins, Spanish moss, and stem covers it took to create the final product. It’s often not until you purchase the materials that you realize how costly the project will be. To save your budget and your sanity, check around before you take on the task of a DIY project. Compare the cost of materials and your time to the going rate of purchasing from a store or a professional to ensure it will truly be a cost savings.

3. Permits & Insurance

Permits are often a forgotten cost that’s not thought about until the last minute. Every municipality is different but the three ordinances to always ask about are fire, noise, and parking. This is especially important when your event is at a private residence, outdoors, or under a tent. Event Insurance is so important and often overlooked. The fee is small in comparison to what it will save you if you have an unforeseen circumstance with your site, weather, your wardrobe, vendor no shows, sickness, injury, or need to cancel or reschedule.

4. Postage

Postage is often underestimated because postage costs vary depending on weight. Long gone are the days of the simple 5x7 cardstock invitations. Today invitations can be odd shaped and made with different materials such as acrylic, and some even have 3D elements which effects the weight of the invitation, therefore raising the cost of postage. It’s easy to blow your postage budget when you are solely basing it on the going rate of a stamp for a normal outgoing letter. Be sure to take the weight of your invitations into account when you set your postage budget.

5. Tips for Your Vendors

You may notice during the planning process that your vendor(s) provided exceptional service or went above and beyond your expectations. Tipping won’t be expected but is the perfect way to show your appreciation and to let them know you are happy with their service. While tipping your vendors is not required, adding a tip category to your budget plan ensures that you won’t blow your budget in the 4th quarter so to speak because it’s already accounted for.

Not sure how much to tip? Click here to download our free Vendor Tipping Guide.

As you can see the little things can add up big and fast. It’s important to add contingency to your budget categories to mitigate surprises down the road. One of the benefits of working with our team in a full-service capacity is that we will help you make smart, educated decisions based on your top priorities and help you save in areas that aren’t as important. We provide budget tools that help you see where your money is going and to stay on track with your budget!

Happy Planning!✨✨‘Til Next Tea Time!

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