$$Budget$$

The next step after we had the date and church decided was to tackle the money issue. I didn't know where to start because all I could find was the average of a wedding costing approximtely $28,000. However, I take national average with a grain of salt - nothing costs close to the average in NYC. So I still needed assistance in figuring out how to allocate my slowly accummulating wedding dollars. In came the Internet to the rescue, I found the budget calculator on the Knot. I entered in what we could afford to spend on the wedding, the number of guests, and the number of attendants. Out popped an estimate of what we could spend on each aspect of the wedding. However, I also went to Wedding Channel and repeated the exercise. I then put both budget estimates in excel and took an average of the two budgets. This was a good starting point but because we are getting married in NYC, I knew some of the estimates were near impossible to stay under (reception and beverages especially). So I went line by line and took money "away" from some of the aspects that were of low importance and added those dollar amounts to the reception budget. Slowly, a NYC reception seemed feasible. Additionally, once I started to get actual costs from vendors, I was able to play around with the numbers some more. My only fear is the expenses that I am not yet aware and the Knot and Wedding Channel have forgotten to warn me about.

Interestingly enough, after we had started planning and set the budget I found this interesting website called Cost of Wedding. Here it gives you the national average by ticket item and allows you to type in your zipcode to get a better understanding of wedding costs near you.