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Family · 6 min read · Last updated September 2026
| Category | Share | On 500,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Venue + catering | 40% | 200,000 |
| Attire + jewellery | 25% | 125,000 |
| Photography + media | 10% | 50,000 |
| Decor + flowers | 8% | 40,000 |
| Contingency buffer | 7% | 35,000 |
| Everything else | 10% | 50,000 |
Shares vary by culture and city — the point is committing to shares first, so each vendor negotiation happens inside a fixed envelope instead of a blank check.
Per-plate catering plus per-guest seating, favors and space requirements mean venue costs scale nearly linearly with the guest list: 40% of budget at 150 guests is a different restaurant than the same 40% at 300. Deciding the list before touring venues is the highest-leverage planning act in the whole process.
Final wedding bills typically exceed intentions by 5–15% (guest count creep, add-ons discovered mid-planning). The 7% line above absorbs that. Track committed spend against each envelope as you book — the Wedding Budget Planner computes the splits and tracks totals; the Family Budget tool handles the months-after reality.
Fix the total, assign percentage shares per category before booking, and hold a buffer. A common starting split: 40% venue/catering, 25% attire/jewellery, 10% photography, 8% decor, 7% contingency, 10% everything else.
Typically the largest single share — around 40% — because per-guest costs multiply across the whole list. Cultural and city norms vary; the share matters more as a commitment device than as a universal number.
Guest-count creep, mid-planning add-ons and optimism about "small" categories. Planning a 7% buffer and tracking committed spend against envelopes is the practical defense.
Nearly linearly for catering, seating, favors and space. Halving the list frees roughly half the venue-and-catering envelope — which is why deciding the list before touring venues is the highest-leverage step.