Top 5 Hidden Wedding Costs and How to Protect Your Budget
Congratulations on your engagement! As you start to plan your wedding, you'll come across hundreds of wedding planning tips. While many of those tips will be important, you may want to pay close attention to the tips that relate to your wedding budget. After all, weddings can be very expensive and you don't want to be surprised about all of the costs that lie ahead. To help you out, here are five of the top hidden wedding costs that many engaged couples don't expect.
- Tips - Many couples don't realize that it is customary to tip the DJ (or band), wait staff, caterer, transportation, etc. This expense needs to be accounted for as you create your overall wedding budget. Fortunately, it is not expected that you tip the photographer or florist. In addition, you may want to give a trusted family member or friend the 'tip envelopes', so that they can take care of distributing the tips at the end of the wedding night. That will be one less that that you'll need to worry about as you are partying the night away!
- Vendor Meals - It's also customary to feed certain vendors such as the DJ, photographer, videographer and wedding planner. The good news is that you can usually negotiate a lower rate for those meals at many venues - sometimes 50% off.
- Postage - Large, bulky and/or abnormally shaped (i.e. square) invitations are expensive to mail. Sometimes postage can run as high as $2 per invitation. And your stationer is not likely to let you know about this added expense before you purchase your invitations. So, steer clear of those ultra fancy boxed invitations or heavy papers. Keep it simple. Sometimes a simple look can be just as classy and elegant as the more complex designs.
- Overtime Costs - If your wedding runs a little longer than you expected, your vendors and venue will charge you extra. To avoid those extra costs, be realistic when you are booking time with your vendors. And get overtime costs in writing, so that there won't be any surprises on your wedding night.
- The Backup Plan - Severe weather could roll in right at the wrong time. Your venue, photographer, or any vendor for that matter, could face a problem and be unable to provide their contracted services. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that your big day may be covered? On average, wedding insurance policies may cost you less than your three-tiered wedding cake, but could potentially save you tens of thousands of dollars and safeguard your wedding-related investments should things go wrong.
A wedding can be one of life’s major expenses. That’s why savvy wedding planners and couples are saying “I do” to wedding insurance!