Wedding Wednesday: The One Where I Make A Budget

In the hopes of not completely saturating this blog with wedding garbage, I'm going to attempt to limit myself one day (Wednesday, because I adore alliteration) per week for wedding stuff.

I'm planning on doing a decent amount of DIY projects for this wedding that include:

• Will You Be My Bridesmaid Box (dress cookies, bridesmaid hangers, note insert)
• Save-the-Dates
• Invitations (design and putting them together)
• Programs
• Reception Signage (menus, table numbers, escort cards)
• Centerpieces
• Fabric bouquets and boutonnieres - If we're being honest, this may never happen, depending on how good my fabric flower creating skills are
• Favors (stickers, cookie display)
• Bridal accessories (headpiece, bling-y belt/sash)
• Out of Town Guest gift bags (door hangers, map, other?)
• Other??

I'm deluding myself and saying that since we have roughly 18 months until the "big day," that I can easily complete every single one of these projects.

I've read too many Wedding Bee posts to think this is even remotely true, but damned if I'm not going to try!

In any case, I've recently started looking into...well...everything.  And I am beyond overwhelmed at how much everything costs!

I know every bride says this.

So, being the list-making, perfectionist, a-type person I am, I knew before we could do anything, even before we started a guest list, we needed to make a budget.

I made an Excel spreadsheet that included every single expense I could think of associated with a wedding, right down to my 3 days before cooter waxing.

Once I did that, I separated everything into groups, added a couple of formulas and ta-da!  My wedding budget spreadsheet was born!

The great thing about this spreadsheet is that I can keep track of everything in it.

There's a tab for the budget, which keeps track of every expense and there's even a column that calculates when each item should be completed. 

There's a tab for the guest list, which includes columns to enter each guest's address to create a mail merge for addressing envelopes.  There are also extra columns to keep track of received RSVPs.

And since I love you, I'm going to share this gorgeous Excel work of art with every single one of you!  Feel free to make changes to it to suit your needs.  To update the "Appt Made" column, change the wedding date at the very top (A2) to your date.  Everything else will populate itself.  Technology at its finest!

To download the budget spreadsheet for yourself click here.

If you use the spreadsheet, let me know how it works for you!  If there's something I blatantly missed, shoot me a message or leave a comment and I'll be glad to update it!

Background Noise for This Project:  Ed Sheeran/Cher Lloyd Pandora Station