1. Draw out a budget
Just like how our government draws out a financial budget every year, I figured I need a budget and specific breakdown before I start spending. This allows me to allocate a portion of our combined savings as well as to start funnelling individual amounts to specific categories under the wedding budget. For my fiancé and I, we decided to give ourselves a $25k budget for our church ceremony + lunch banquet. This budget also includes expenditures like my wedding gown, photography, suits, ang paos etc. Basically whatever that you are going to spend on your wedding. Btw, SG budget bride has a good excel sheet that helps with organising your budget as well as to compare your vendors rather effortlessly. You can check it out below.
2. Do your research
With internet, it’s less tedious to do your research of comparing prices of vendors, venues etc. It’s damn tedious la but I think its worth it if you really want to save money. A good tip I got from my married friend would be to google what is the average angpao rate for the hotel you are going to book vs the wedding banquet package you are going for. Just make sure you don’t 亏 (lose money). Gone are the days where you can expect to earn money from your wedding. Our goal is really to minimize our debt LOL.
3. Ask yourself what you really want
In my initial phase of planning for my wedding, I’ve been thrown with plethora of information of what I need for my wedding because it is my ‘once in a life time’ event. Sponsored contents, well-meaning friends, family members and even random blog posts would tell you that you need a list of stuff that would make your wedding a memory event. Without those, you will certainly miss out. TBH, I was quite stressed out after I keyed in the expected costs of these ‘needs’ into my budget as obviously it exceeded my budget by A LOT (read at least 10k).
This is when I told myself I need to stop being influenced by social media, friends and the fear of missing out. Yes, my wedding is a once in a lifetime event but are all those ‘needs’ marketed to me going to make a significant difference to my marriage? Is it necessary to spend SO SO much of our hard earn money in a single day or two so that we can get the most insta-gram worthy wedding? Neh. To my fiancé and I, marriage is the celebration of the union between two and while we did not want to be too giam siap, we decided that it was not necessary to splurge too. I will update more about what we decided to exclude in our wedding and what we thought was necessary :)
Part of the decision to plan a budget and a minimalistic wedding was my new subscription to a new idea of ‘less is more’. I’ve come to realize that one does not need a lot to be happy. Desiring more makes me unhappy as whatever I have currently never seemed to be enough to satisfy. However, understanding my needs vs wants greatly helped me handle my desires to consume more especially as we are living in an increasingly materialistic society. Okay la, I also want to save the earth by consuming less. But yeah, having less desire to buy buy buy really makes me happier.
4. Start/continue saving!
While my fiancé and I have been saving consistently ever since we have started working, it is still wise to continue saving and spend prudently. This is because although we may have a budget, there could be some unexpected costs etc that could throw us off balance. Renovation of our house is also going to be a big expenditure so it is always wise to be prudent and save!
5. Be realistic and most importantly, enjoy the process :)
When I was on fire for planning my wallet friendly wedding, I swung to the other extreme… I wanted to cut away pre wedding shoot, photography, do my own make up (LOL – cries), give a miser budget of $200 for my wedding dress etc. I’m not saying that it’s not doable but its just that it was to the point where I was getting a little unhappy. A reminder to myself was that although I didn’t want to be extravagant, I didn’t have to starve myself from enjoying my wedding also. I don’t have to go overboard with saving money as for certain things such as paying for a better photographer would save us a lot of agony (remember the bad photos from a bride because they hired a very affordable photographer?).
Therefore, be realistic because if I pay peanuts, I get monkeys. It’s always about finding a balance
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