Is There A Wedding Planner in Your Budget?

The cost of today's average wedding has gotten so high, you might think that the application of the word "budget" doesn't apply. Of course you'd be wrong. Whether you're spending $3,000 (far below average, even in the least expensive areas of the U.S., but I know several people who've done it quite successfully) or you're spending $30,000 (only a bit about the average cost of a wedding today, so average means plenty of people spend more), you still need a budget. 

A budget isn't necessarily an attempt to spend less. It's a plan for where you'll spend the money you do spend, regardless of the amount. I hope you're among the lucky few who can afford to spare no expense when planning the wedding of your dreams. On the other hand, I know some fairly wealthy people, and I don't know anyone who didn't angst to a certain extent over the cost of their wedding. Most people simply can't afford or just would rather not to empty their savings and run up their credit for their wedding. 

Weddings have this somewhat scary habit of being rapidly followed by even MORE expensive things to spend your hard-earned money on, more permanent things, like buying a house and having a baby (or 2). Trickier still is the fact that many brides (the traditional planners of weddings) are marrying a bit later in life, when they're well ensconced in a career and don't have their weekdays free for interviewing wedding vendors and sampling cake. 

Do Wedding Planners Cost or Save ? 

Of course professional wedding planners have to be paid, so in that way they obviously cost you. However an argument can be made (and is made, both by wedding planners themselves and by brides who've been happy with their professional planners) that having a professional wedding planner can save you money in other areas. An experienced wedding planner is involved in several weddings each year. This means that they'll have ongoing relationships with certain wedding vendors, and it behooves those vendors to cut the wedding planner a break on prices, so that she'll continue to use their services at all of the weddings she's involved with.