Montgomery, TX Wedding Photographer | Designs by Karinda Photography » Designs by Karinda Photography specializes in wedding, newborn, and child photography in Montgomery, Texas and surrounding areas including but not limited to The Woodlands and Magnolia.

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Yikes. Money. This may be the hardest thing for me to write about.

Weddings are expensive.

That’s all you need to know right? I can just stop right there.

Ok, in all honesty money is a huge thing. You will learn this even more so once you are married and you have to deal with not only your own money but the money of your new spouse. My biggest piece of advice is use your wedding as a stepping stone going into your marriage and learn how to deal with money together now. Sit down with your fiancé after doing a little bit of research to figure out how much weddings actually cost in your area, and then figure out how much money you are willing to spend on your wedding. This will be a little bit different if your parents or family are helping you with your wedding, but it still helps for you and your fiancé to start this whole process on your own first.

You will probably fall under one of these categories.

1. Your parents are paying for your entire wedding.

2. You and your fiancé are paying for your entire wedding.

3. Your family is paying for certain amount, and you and your fiancé will have to pay for anything over that.

If you are going to be paying for your wedding on your own you I highly recommend starting with a budget for your own personal expenses first so that you can figure out exactly how much money you do (or don’t) have to spend on your wedding. This may also be helpful in planning when you will get married. If you know your wedding will cost around 20,000 and you can put back around 2,000 a month for wedding expenses then you know it will be feasible to have your wedding in a year, you may also realize you need to wait a little longer to get married. This will also help you decide when to do important events like booking different vendors because you will have a better idea of when you will be able to pay deposits or make payments towards the vendors.

My husband and I paid for a large portion of our wedding by ourselves so it took a ton of planning, some good and some not so good to get our wedding paid for 😉 I will tell you this. Whatever happens, you don’t want to start your marriage in debt so cut up those credit cards before you even start planning your wedding.

I have to admit that my husband and I were those people that used our credit cards to pay for parts of our wedding. My dress was one of the big purchases that went on credit cards. I am so incredibly thankful that a couple of months after our wedding our church Lone Star Cowboy Church offered the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University Class and we signed up. Thankfully we were able to get all of our “wedding debt” paid off quickly due to some major budgeting and living like hermits for a few months. Taking this class at church has changed our lives, it is defiantly something I recommend you take before you are married or somewhere in your first year of marriage. Combining bank accounts is no joke, and lets be honest no matter how much you love your soon to be husband it is impossible to read his mind about finances and know where he is spending his money.

PinThisDid you know that the average cost of a wedding in Montgomery County is between 23,000-35,000?

Prepare for the first panic attack of wedding planning. That is more than some luxury cars.

Not all weddings fall within this range but a majority of them do…and I can tell you from experience that it is pretty difficult to plan a wedding for 100 people for much less than this range.

I found a great article on how to Keep Your Wedding Costs From Getting Out Of Control and it recommends starting your budget with the 4 walls of your wedding day. Find the 4 most important areas that are non negotiable and make those the basis of your budget. Those four walls may be your venue, photographer, dress, and flowers. These things will vary greatly depending on your wedding and what things are important to you and your fiancé.

Obviously since I am a photographer I am going to throw this one out there, your pictures should be one of your top priorities, ultimately when your wedding day is over you will realize you didn’t get to eat but one or two bites of your food and a tiny bite of cake, and that your flowers will be shriveled up in a few days, oh and you certainly won’t remember if your food was served on plastic or china or if your guests walked through a buffet line 😉 trust me…your pictures are what you will look back on and remember for a lifetime.

PinThisDesigns by Karinda Photography specializes in wedding, newborn, and child photography in Montgomery, Texas and surrounding areas including but not limited to The Woodlands and Magnolia.