Wedding Budget Calculator
Type in the number you can actually spend and see what each part of the wedding gets, in your currency, with a per-guest figure to hold against every quote.
Split your budget
Enter your total and guest count. Every line updates as you type, and the lines always add back up to your total.
Per guest: $300
Venue & catering per guest: $144
| Category | Share | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Venue & cateringHire fee, food, service staff, rentals, bar | 48% | $14,400 |
| Photography & videoPhotographer, videographer, albums | 11% | $3,300 |
| Flowers & decorBouquets, centrepieces, lighting, signage | 9% | $2,700 |
| Music & entertainmentDJ or band, ceremony musicians, sound | 9% | $2,700 |
| Attire & beautyOutfits, alterations, hair and makeup | 7% | $2,100 |
| StationeryInvitations, save-the-dates, programs, postage | 3% | $900 |
| Rings, transport & extrasWedding bands, transport, favours, officiant, cake | 5% | $1,500 |
| Contingency bufferTips, service charges, delivery fees, surprises | 8% | $2,400 |
| Total | 100% | $30,000 |
Shares are the midpoints of the ranges wedding-cost surveys report; the ranges are listed below. Vendor quotes usually exclude gratuity, service charges and delivery, which is what the buffer is for. Amounts are rounded to whole units.
Without a plan, a wedding budget leaks toward whichever vendor you booked most recently. Starting from what couples typically spend in each category gives you a realistic ceiling per line before you sign anything, and a way to notice when one booking is quietly eating the next.
How the wedding budget breakdown works
The calculator starts from the ranges wedding-cost surveys keep landing on: venue and catering together take 45-55% of the total, because they scale with your guest count more than anything else. Photography and video run 10-12%, flowers and decor 8-10%, music and entertainment 8-10%, attire and beauty 6-8%, stationery 2-3%, and rings, transport and other extras 3-7%. The remaining 5-10% is held back as a contingency. Each line above uses the midpoint of its range, and the lines always add back up to your total.
What a realistic wedding budget per guest looks like
Most of a wedding's cost scales with headcount, so the per-guest figure is the one to sanity-check first. The venue-and-catering-per-guest number is the same unit caterers and venues quote in, which makes it the quickest way to tell whether a quote fits your plan. Where it lands depends heavily on your city and service style, but if the calculator shows a figure far below what local venues are quoting, either the guest list or the total has to move; the split cannot fix that on its own.
Shift money toward your priorities
Pick your two must-haves and fund them first. Each priority you select gains five points, taken from the other flexible lines in proportion to their size, so a small line like stationery is never squeezed to nothing. The buffer is never touched: shrinking it to pay for a band is how the band ends up costing more than you planned. This is far easier to do on paper in month one than after you have signed a florist in month six.
The fees your quotes leave out
Vendor contracts usually list a base rate that excludes gratuity, service charges and delivery fees, which can add 15-25% to a caterer or venue quote. That is what the contingency line is for, alongside alterations, last-minute guest additions and the inevitable surprise. Treat it as a real line with a real number, not a vague mental cushion, and leave it untouched until the final months when cost creep actually shows up in invoices. Once you have booked a vendor, log the actual cost against the estimate so an overage in one line is caught while there is still time to trim another.
Or use the 50/30/20 rule
If eight lines feel like more precision than you have information for yet, switch the calculator to the simple split: half the budget to the reception (venue and catering), 30% to everything else, and a full 20% buffer. The 50-30-20 wedding budget rule is deliberately conservative on the buffer, which suits couples early in planning who have not had a quote yet. Come back to the detailed split once the first two or three quotes are in.
Key Takeaways
- Expect venue and catering to take close to half of the total
- Check the per-guest figure against local quotes before anything else
- Fund your top two priorities first; each gains five points from the flexible lines
- Add 15-25% on top of vendor quotes for gratuity, service charges and delivery
- Keep a 5-10% contingency line that nothing else is allowed to raid
Frequently asked questions
- How should I split a $30,000 wedding budget?
- On the default split, $30,000 comes out as $14,400 for venue and catering, $3,300 for photography and video, $2,700 each for flowers and decor and for music, $2,100 for attire and beauty, $900 for stationery, $1,500 for rings, transport and extras, and a $2,400 contingency buffer. Shift the lines with the priority buttons above if, say, photography matters more to you than flowers.
- What percentage of a wedding budget should go to the venue and catering?
- Plan on 45-55% of the total for venue and catering combined; the calculator uses 48%. It is the largest line by a distance because it is the one that scales directly with guest count: every extra guest is another meal, another chair and another share of the room. If a venue quote alone is pushing past 60% of your total, you will need to consciously trim elsewhere rather than discover the gap later.
- How much should a wedding cost per guest?
- There is no single right number, because venue and catering prices vary enormously by city and by service style, but the per-guest figure is still the most useful sanity check you have. Divide your total by your guest count, then compare the venue-and-catering-per-guest number to what local venues actually quote. If it is far below them, the plan needs a smaller guest list or a bigger total; the way you split the budget cannot close that gap on its own.
- What is the 50/30/20 rule for a wedding budget?
- Put 50% of the budget toward the reception (venue and catering), 30% toward everything else (photography, flowers, music, attire, stationery, rings) and hold 20% back as a buffer. It is a conservative starting split for couples who have not had a quote yet; once real numbers arrive, the detailed by-category split gives you a ceiling per vendor to negotiate against.