Managing money for your wedding

Draw­ing up your wed­ding bud­get can be the easy part (once it’s done!) — and then you have the chal­lenge of stick­ing to your plans.

If you’re like me you’ll have a rough idea of what’s in your bank and your purse, but it can be dif­fi­cult get­ting into the habit of check­ing your spend­ing against your bud­get on a reg­u­lar basis.

Here are our top five tips for man­ag­ing your wed­ding budget

1. Make a weekly date with your part­ner to spend half an hour check­ing what you’ve spent against your orig­i­nal wed­ding bud­get plans.
2. Avoid impulse buys when you’re out shop­ping, or set a limit for any­thing you’re allowed to spend on impulse (say £50 each if you just hap­pen to spot the per­fect pair of ear­rings or wed­ding favours on the high street).
3. Keep a wed­ding bud­get spread­sheet. Update it when­ever you buy any­thing, keep a print­out on the fridge door and carry a copy in your hand­bag just in case.
4. Use an online wed­ding plan­ning tool which you can access from home, work or any other com­puter. Try Confetti’s inter­ac­tive wed­ding bud­get plan­ner for starters.
5. Get a wed­ding plan­ning app on your phone. I rec­om­mend iWed­ding Deluxe, which has great tools for man­ag­ing your wed­ding bud­get on the go.