Tool II · Free forever
Wedding budget calculatorthat counts the hidden costs
Enter your total and your guest count. It splits the money across every category.
Then it adds the service charges, tax and gratuities. Every other calculator leaves those out. You see the number you’ll actually pay.
Free · No sign-up · Saves as you work
1. Your numbers
2. What matters most
Pick up to three. Money shifts toward them and away from the rest.
3. The fees
These are the ones couples forget. Defaults are typical US figures. Change any of them to match your quotes.
Percentages follow the standard industry split. Edit any of them and the rest hold their shape.
These cover the base cost of each category before fees. The Hidden costs tab adds those fees.
What this calculator actually does
Three things no other calculator does
It adds the fees everyone forgets
Service charge. Sales tax on top of that service charge. Staff gratuity, cake cutting, vendor meals, alterations, licenses and postage.
Every other calculator splits your total into tidy percentages and stops there. That’s exactly why the tidy percentages are wrong.
It prices one more guest
Not the average cost per head. That number misleads. This is the real cost of adding one person. It counts food, drink, a place setting, and their share of the service charge and tax.
Then it shows what cutting or adding twenty does.
It shows the number to plan around
Two figures side by side. What your quotes say, and what the same wedding costs once everything lands. Most couples only discover the second number after they’ve signed the contracts.
The standard split, then yours
Starts from the industry breakdown: about 28% venue, 33% catering, 12% photography and so on. Pick up to three things that matter most and money moves toward them. Or type over any percentage yourself.
Priced for where you are
A wedding in a major city doesn’t cost the same as one in a small town. Set your rough location. The per-head fees, rentals and gratuities scale with it.
Track what you have committed
Enter each amount as you book. It shows what you budgeted against what you’ve actually promised. It flags any category that has gone over before the next one does.
Edit every assumption
You can edit the service charge, tax rate and gratuity. Put your real quoted figures in and the model updates. Turn off the fees that don’t apply to your venue.
Printable and portable
Print the whole breakdown. Or save it as a PDF and send it to whoever is helping pay. It’s the same document your planner or parents will ask for.
Nothing to sign up for
No account, no email wall. Your budget saves to your own browser. Close the tab and come back to it. We never receive your numbers.
How to set a wedding budget
Start with the number you can actually afford, not the wedding you’ve imagined. Decide what the total is and where it’s coming from.
Then let the categories fall out of it. Don’t add them up and hope.
The mistake almost everyone makes is budgeting against quoted prices. A quote is not what you pay.
Service charges, tax and gratuities come afterwards. That’s why most couples finish over budget while feeling careful throughout.
Common questions
Answered properly
What is a good budget for a wedding with 100 guests?
In the United States, a 100-guest wedding commonly lands between $25,000 and $45,000. The national average sits around the middle of that.
Location moves it more than anything else. In a major city, the same wedding can cost close to double what a small town costs.
A more useful way to think about it is per head. Catering alone usually runs $70 to $150 a person before service charge and tax.
Venue plus catering together usually accounts for more than half the total.
Put your own number and guest count into the calculator above. It shows the category split. It also shows what one more guest actually costs you.
Is $10,000 a small wedding budget?
It’s below the national average. But it’s a real budget, and plenty of weddings happen for less. It won’t stretch to a large guest list at a full-service venue.
At $10,000 the math works if you keep the count low. Fifty guests gives you about $200 a head, all in. That works with a restaurant, a village hall or a family garden.
A hundred and fifty guests gives you $67 a head. That doesn’t work.
Guest count is the lever, not the level of taste. Cutting the list is the only change that reduces almost every line at once.
Is $5,000 a reasonable budget for a wedding?
Yes, for a small wedding. It rules out a traditional large reception.
But it comfortably covers a ceremony with twenty to thirty guests. It also covers a meal somewhere good, a photographer for a few hours, and what you wear.
The categories that have to go are the ones that scale with headcount. Full bar. Plated dinner for a hundred. Floral centerpieces on twelve tables.
The categories that survive are the ones you’ll care about afterwards. Usually that’s the photographs and the people.
What is the 50/30/20 rule for wedding budgeting?
It borrows from personal finance and splits the total into three. Roughly 50% goes on the reception: venue, catering and bar.
Then 30% on the things you keep: photography, video, attire and rings. And 20% on everything else: flowers, music, stationery, transport and a buffer.
It’s a sanity check rather than a plan. If your reception is running well past half the budget, something below it will get squeezed.
The detailed split in the calculator above is more useful once you’re actually booking.
Why do so many couples go over budget?
Because the quoted price is not the final price. A catering quote comes before the service charge, the tax on it, and the gratuity.
Those three together commonly add 25 to 30 percent.
Then come the fees nobody warns you about. Cake cutting, corkage, vendor meals, overtime, alterations, delivery, the marriage license, permits, postage. Individually they look small. Together they are thousands.
This is the entire reason the hidden costs tab exists. Plan against that number instead and the surprise disappears.
How much should I keep as a contingency?
Between 5 and 10 percent of the total, untouched, and separate from the fees above. The fees are predictable. Budget for them properly instead of absorbing them into a buffer.
The contingency is for the genuinely unforeseen. A vendor raising prices before final payment. Weather cover. A supplier failing. An extra night in a room.
Reach the week of the wedding without needing it? Spend it on something you’ll enjoy.
Who traditionally pays for what?
The traditional split gave the bride’s family the ceremony and reception. The groom’s family took the rehearsal dinner and honeymoon. Very few couples follow it now.
What works better is asking each contributing family for an amount rather than a category. You can plan around a number.
Taking on a category means nobody knows the cost until it’s too late to change course.