Before the day

Before the day

Although many of the pre-wedding tasks will fall to your parents if you’re not hosting the wedding, as the bride-to-be you still have plenty of pre-wedding tasks to do.

Deciding on the date

It’s never too early to decide on the date for the wedding - the longer you have to prepare, the more likely you are to get exactly what you want and the less likely you’ll be to be rushed into making hasty decisions.

When deciding on a date for your wedding, you'll need to think about when, as well as the bridal couple, the best man, bridesmaids and ushers are free, not forgetting important relatives and close friends. You might want your wedding date to be one of special significance. You might also want to calculate a date which does not coincide with your period.

Planning the ceremony

Once the wedding date is set, you and your groom should contact the vicar of the church in which you want to get married or the superintendent registrar for your area if the wedding is to take place in a register office or civil venue.

The wedding ceremony itself is for you and your fiancé to agree. Other than the celebrant, no one else should get involved. You can email this paragraph to anyone who disagrees, if you like!

Decide who’s paying for what

There's only one real rule when it comes to budgeting for your wedding: plan only for the type of wedding you can realistically afford.

From our registered users, it seems that the average wedding costs about £15,300. This includes around £1,200 for the rings, £1,400 for the wedding outfits and essential pampering in the run-up to the big day and £1,300 for the wedding itself. The reception adds a further £3,500 and then, of course, there’s the honeymoon and various other expenses that vary from couple to couple...

Traditionally, it falls to the father of the bride to pick up the tab for the main event, with the groom chipping in for the church or registry fees and the all-important honeymoon. But more and more couples now choose to pay for the bulk of their wedding themselves.

It's important to work out from the start who is paying for what and whether there are any financial constraints. For example, is the bride's father willing to pay for a horse and carriage to the church? And how many guests can you afford to invite to the main reception?

Confetti's interactive budget planner can get you started on working out how much to spend on the various items. It gives the average costs normally paid out. It's essential to set a limit, whether it's your money or your parents’ purse that's paying.

Planning your wedding is stressful enough without arguments erupting over the costs. Allow a further 10 per cent to your budget to cope with the inevitable extras.

You’ll find more tips on setting budgets dealing with wedding finances on this site.

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