If you have started planning your wedding you will have noticed how each service inexorably raises the total budgeted expense.
No married couple is clear about how much a wedding may come to cost even though this, is a question that all married couples ask themselves when they decide to take the “big step.”
I cannot help you with this, as there is no precise figure because there are so many variables, and although it pains me to admit it, unfortunately, not always all bridal couples are able to afford the wedding they have always dreamed of.
In this article I want to give you the knowledge of how to do to minimize giving up, stick to the budget but most importantly I would like to help you outline the right spending priorities and how to eliminate some fears.
You are sure to find several articles, guides or tips online on industry sites that aim to give you the magic formula for calculating the cost of your perfect wedding, but as mentioned earlier there are so many variables.
First you need to start by putting a budget on the plate within which you want to stay, better if you aim for a price range, it will be easier to stick to what you have quoted, and secondly you need to list all the services you need for your wedding and among them identify which ones are, for you, those that are vital to the success of the event.
Define at this point how to indicatively divide the budget among the different services listed, by doing so you can already have a fairly real idea of spending.
I am aware that it is not easy to price the different services, and you will find, along the way, that in most cases your estimates were lower than the cost of the service, but relax and it is completely normal.
BALANCED CHOICE
In most cases about half the budget (some more, some less) is devoted to the food aspect of the day so you are left with about half the budget to distribute among all the other services of your wedding.
It is at this stage that your choices will make the difference between a successful wedding worth remembering and a mundane, boring one that will soon fall into oblivion.
Each vendor will aim to sell their product by playing on emotion, on the fact that you do it once in a lifetime, presenting you with different packages from the most minimal to the most opulent, knowing that the middle choice is almost always a win-win for both parties.
What no one tells you, however, is that in recent years things have changed considerably.
We have all attended a wedding and in most cases the memory of the day is not a positive one so much so that receiving an invitation to a wedding, i.e., the classic invitation, is often greeted with as much joy as an Equitalia bill!
The guest nowadays no longer wants to participate in the usual endless day that sees him or her abandoned hours and hours sitting at the table bingeing on food and alcohol, they would like to participate in a wedding that is certainly elegant and refined, but at the same time fun and dynamic.
He will carry with him, overwhelmingly, the memory of the atmosphere and experience he had during your wedding!
If you have recently attended a wedding, you too have probably been shuffling from couch to couch, lost in social media or some video game hoping there would be a network at the venue you were at.
Today the guest wants to feel involved and participate, actively, in every moment of the day: only in this way can you be sure that they will remember the experience they had!
In so many consultations done it makes one smile to think that one of the items that newlyweds tend to save money on is entertainment and music!
Let me ask you a question, “Thinking back to some wedding you attended as a guest, do you really remember the floral arrangements, everything you ate, or the car the bride and groom arrived in?
I bet very few of you will remember everything in detail, for the most part you will remember whether you ate a lot or a little, whether the location was opulent or bare but gradually you will forget even that!
What you remember vividly instead is how the day went, whether it was dynamic and fun or a bore, whether at the evening party you went wild or left almost immediately since the party never got off the ground.
Yet for cars, flowers, food, hundreds of thousands are spent.
Can cutting back on music and entertainment in your opinion be a smart choice, or can it turn out to be the biggest miscalculation you could ever make in the face of such a major investment as a wedding?
Of course coming from those of us who have made this art our work and passion it probably appears biased, but many couples in counseling with us have brought us examples of disastrous weddings because of supposedly professional DJs or entertainers on paper who later turned out to be anything but.
Do you really want to take that risk?
If you attended a wedding that was so much fun that you remember it positively long after the fact, what made it so?
Could it have been the entertainment and/or music aspect chosen by the bride and groom?
Of course, the choice remains yours, but from experience and without wishing to be presumptuous, I can tell you that deciding to save precisely on entertainment and the music aspect is like SEEING YOUR HOME DESTROYED BY A NATURAL CALAMITY.
Just think that in recent years there has been a tenfold increase in the number of so-called “Climate Change” insurance policies in Italy, insurance against environmental disasters; A growth in demand as a result of the exponential increase in natural disasters that increasingly affect our cities.
What is most surprising, however, is that those taking out this type of policy are mainly individuals or businesses that have been more or less severely affected by just such a disastrous weather event.
Why did I want to bring this example to you?
To make you think about human nature and how, all of us, we look for the solution to a problem only after we have gotten into it with both shoes; You only need to think about the flood that hit Vicenza and its neighboring municipalities in 2010 and of how many citizens in the following months took out an insurance policy on their homes or cars, unfortunately only after they had suffered extensive damage, thus putting themselves safe from a hypothetical repetition of the same situation.
But where am I going with this reasoning and what does it have to do with your wedding planning?
Simple unlike those people who have suffered a loss due to a natural disaster and can at u later on run for cover to protect themselves, as much as possible, from a repeat of a similar situation, your wedding is a live movie: You cannot make mistakes, you cannot rewind the tape, you cannot have a second chance to fix the mistakes you have made.
The purpose of this article is not to make you go over budget but to make you aware of how important certain services are to you, how important they are to your guests, and what effects you can have by going to save money on this or that service.
Over the years we have learned especially about clothing, (often counterfeit chinoiserie) that the right price of a pair of jeans is not 3€;
Certainly in the market stalls run by Chinese or Indians you can find many affordable garments, but after a few washes you understand why they cost so little.
However you can get 10 more pairs, you will surely have spent less than buying an original designer trouser but, forgive the tactlessness, if you decide to save money on services such as entertainment and music your wedding will be the same as a thousand others you have already seen, predictable, mundane and probably boring.
So carefully evaluate all services and give them their due importance.
Then if you are a couple who doesn’t like dancing, are not big music lovers, don’t like to be the center of attention and would like to end the wedding shortly after the cake cutting, or have opted for a minimalist wedding with only a few guests perhaps in the high age group then you are well advised to cut back on music and entertainment.
Among professionals we get to know each other and often indirectly compare the costs of the proposed service, and if I have to be honest there is no maximum cost for a quality service done by professionals, but the reasoning made for jeans also applies to services like ours.
Spending less than 700/800€ means you have not set your sights on a professional.
However, we do not want to discredit other professionals in the industry, and we are aware that newlyweds often actually have little economic leeway in their choices of the various remaining services, so if you are really forced to save money, we can only give you some valuable advice to follow to help you get the best with the money you have.
If you do not have enough money to choose a professional and fall back on a lower-end service be careful who:
- During the meetings he is more oriented to talk to you about how he “usually” works at weddings and does not listen to your needs, expectations and fears
- Use recycled music sets from one wedding to another without customizing them to the bride and groom’s musical tastes
- He does not know the timing of such a complex event as a wedding
- Doesn’t propose a site survey on the location in the event that he has never worked there
- Does not have a website or a presence on industry portals
- It has few reviews or a low approval rate
- Be devoid of photos or videos of his performances
- Has few years of work behind him or has always worked in contexts other than marriage
- It is equipped with a single sound system
- Doesn’t have a minimum of lighting rig and effects
- Make non-professional instrumentation available to you
- It does not give you exclusivity of service
- Needs recovered material from the caterer or location
- Does not have problem solving skills for any critical issues that may arise during the marriage
- Doesn’t plan the music project with you in detail; From placement, weather, constraints imposed by the location etc.
- Does not have constructive confrontation skills with guests and services present during the wedding
- Does not pay attention to volume often resulting in exaggeration
- He does not say a word into the microphone. Maybe a very good DJ but no skills as a microphone entertainer
These listed are just some of the aspects that make the difference between a professional and just any service, not least of course the price.
That said.
How can we not exceed the set budget?
The only way is by identifying the ESSENTIAL services for you and giving them the right price.
No one but you can do this because it is your wedding, and it is your choices that will dictate the style, elegance, fun, and above all, the memory that you and your guests will carry in their hearts forever.
I hope that I have conveyed to you the awareness of how important it is to rely on professionals, but more importantly, that I have helped you understand how critical it must be for you to be able to identify the TOP services for your wedding and thus avoid going cheap on those very services.
Visit our website www.weddingsymphony.it and go to the contact page to book a consultation with Paul to figure out how to make your big dream come true.
Remember that
“Marriage is a live movie. You can’t go wrong because you can’t buy a memory.”
We always say this to all our wedding couples.
A few simple tips combined with a dash of common sense in choosing services not just based on price will make your wedding a memorable event.
I am Paolo Furlan the first Wedding Music Planner in Veneto and founder of the Wedding Symphony music agency specializing in music for civil or religious ceremonies and music and entertainment for wedding receptions.
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