An Indian marriage is an occasion where people tend to spend out of their budget. Very often, the plans for a wedding are far beyond the financial capacity of the parents. However big the plans are for splurging for your child’s marriage, ideally there should be a budget for spending.
While you are planning a marriage, you should start with all the possible sources of financing for the occasion at the initial phase of the planning. The source can be family members, bride and groom themselves, or a borrowed fund in the form of a Personal Loan available from all leading financial institutions.
The most crucial part of a marriage plan is to organize a successful budget wedding. There are two distinct steps that you need to take for the same. They are:
Step 1: Put a cap on the total spending budget for the wedding.
Step 2: Identify high-cost functions in the wedding and mitigate your expenses in those aspects. Some of the big-budget expense factors are as under:
- Wedding Date – if you want to reduce the overall wedding costs, you may plan in a less popular time of the year, like summers, where prices tend to be lower than the marriage season, which falls in the winter months.
- Events In the Wedding – events like sangeet, mehendi, reception, etc., are an integral part of any wedding ceremony. However, clubbing with some events and organizing some of the events in your home will help reduce costs.
- List of Invitees- the guest list needs to be done with utmost care. This has a direct impact on your catering expenses. You need to maintain the right balance to ensure you are not inviting more people than are required.
- The Venue of Wedding- local banquet halls come cheaper than fancy marriage venues. You may be advised to check on those to keep the cost under control.
- Food- make it very clear with your caterer that you want basic food and impress upon the quality rather than an elaborate menu.
- Décor- itis better to have a traditional décor than a themed one. That will keep your budget under control.
- Shopping –spend judiciously on the main items like jewelry, wedding clothes. This will result in saving on your overall cost.
Budget Wedding Cost Matrix:
It will be wise to put a matrix around the same and allocate the maximum percentage of the entire budget that you will spend on each of the heads of expenses. That will help track the budget that you have set for the wedding.
The table given below gives you a suggested budget allocation:
| Heads of Expense | % Allocation | Particulars |
| Ceremony | 5 | · Cost of Venue
· Logistics for Guests |
| Reception | 40 | · Cost of Venue
· Catering · Cost of Events · Expenses Towards Beverages · Cost of Travel To &Fro Residence to Wedding Site |
| Music/Entertainment | 5 | Cost of DJ/Live Performers |
| Décor | 15 | · Mandap Decoration
· Flowers · Linens and Covers for Chairs and Tables |
| Wedding Dress/Accessories | 15 | · Cost of Bridal Dress
· Bridal Makeup Expenses · Cost of Jewellery |
| Photo/Videography | 10 | Professional Fees to be paid for photo & videography |
| Stationary | 4 | Cost of Invitation Cards |
| Miscellaneous | 6 | Little cost items that come in at the last moment |
To make your dream come true, Personal Loans in the form of Marriage Loans are available from all leading financial institutions. But a loan will add to your monthly cost as a liability of EMIs. You need to check the Personal Loan rate of interest by accessing the Personal Loan EMI Calculator embedded on the websites of lending institutions. That will help you in your financial planning.
To sum up, it may be stated that while making plans for a budget wedding, plan events and functions which are essential and go for extravagance only when all your bases are covered.
