Can You Afford The Perfect Wedding?

The joy of falling in love, becoming engaged and planning your wedding are feelings that will stay with both of you for the rest of your lives. You are now ready to commit to a wonderful life together and there is nothing better than that loved up feeling of a couple truly besotted with one another.
All you have to do now is to plan your wedding and then you are free to start the next step in your fabulous journey together.
Unfortunately, this is the point when most couples start to worry about the costs of a wedding, how can they fund such a large undertaking and how can they cut costs? As we all know, the cost of a wedding can be blown out of all proportion and this is a particular problem when you are trying to save for a deposit on a home.
Sometimes the best idea is to simply plan on having the wedding of your dreams and funding it using a wedding loan from a financial institution. With a fabulous bells and whistles wedding costing around $25,000 to $30,000, the two of you together could easily pay off such a loan in a few years.
You can even roll this type of loan into your mortgage at a later date. So at this early stage, it is worth considering how much money you want to spend on celebrating your love, before you begin planning your big day.
However, one of the big problems faced by couples are the hidden costs that were not anticipated. So to help you budget for your wedding day, here are a few hidden costs that you need to consider in your budget:
Alterations to your wedding dress: When you are ready to choose your wedding dress, unless you have an unlimited budget, be wary of hidden costs. With a set budge for a dress, if you ignore these additional costs or don’t ask about them, you might be in for a big surprise that could blow your budget.
The costs that you may not have anticipated include alterations to your wedding dress and steaming to remove all the creases before the big day. The more expensive the dress, the greater these costs will be for any additional services. So be sure to ask before you finally decide on your perfect dress.
Rental costs: If you are organising your reception in your own home or in a local hall you will undoubtedly need to hire tables and chairs so that all of your guests can be accommodated for your wedding feast. Apart from finding the right type and number of tables and chairs, make sure to enquire about delivery fees.
That is because a lot of rental companies do not include delivery fees in their rental costs, and instead include these as additional charges. If you do not ask first, you could find yourself in a situation where you have already paid the rental fees, but now cannot afford the delivery fees. So check around and you might find that another company’s rental fees that seem pretty steep at first, are actually quite reasonable because they include delivery as well.
Corkage and cake cutting fees: These are two charges that most people don’t even consider, but which can seriously blow your budget. If you decide on a BYO establishment, corkage fees can easily cost $1.50 per bottle, sometimes even more. When you add up the costs, it might actually cost you less to hire a reception room in a licenced establishment and forget BYO.
Also, if you want your wedding cake made by an outside firm and not the hotel or establishment where you will be holding your reception, then you will more than likely have to pay an extra fee for cutting and serving the cake. This extra cost usually starts at $2 per slice, so it is defiantly worthwhile asking about these charges before you pay your deposit.