How to split a wedding budget

The first is the total you can actually spend: what you have saved, what you can put aside between now and the day, and any contribution that has been promised out loud rather than hoped for. Write it down. A budget that lives in two heads is two budgets.

The second is the guest count, and it is really the same number. Most of what a wedding costs is per head: the food, the drink, the chairs, the invitations, the cake. Decide roughly how many people before you look at a single venue, because the venue will ask, and the answer sets the price of everything after it.

Whatever the total, this is roughly where it goes for a wedding with a sit-down meal. It is a starting point rather than a rule. If photographs matter more to you than flowers, move the money.

• Venue, food and drink45%
• Photography and film10%
• Clothes and rings10%
• Flowers and decoration8%
• Music and entertainment7%
• Stationery, cake, transport and the rest10%
• Contingency10%

Venue, food and drink: 45%

Room hire, the meal, the drinks package or the bar, evening food, and the staff. This is the line that the guest count moves.

Photography and film: 10%

The one supplier whose work you keep. Book early; the good ones go first.

Clothes and rings: 10%

Outfits for both of you, alterations, shoes, and the rings. Alterations are the part people forget to count.

Flowers and decoration: 8%

Bouquets, buttonholes, the ceremony and the tables. Ask what the venue already has before you hire it.

Music and entertainment: 7%

The ceremony musician, the band or DJ, and anything for the gap between them.

Stationery, cake, transport and the rest: 10%

Invitations and postage, the cake, cars, favours, hair and make-up, and the small things that add up to a real number between them.

Contingency: 10%

Not spare money. It is the money for the next section.

A honeymoon sits outside this. Decide separately whether it comes from the same pot, because if it does, it comes out of the top before you split what is left.

Ask every supplier whether the quote includes VAT. Some do, some do not, and the difference on a venue is not small. Then look for the others:

• Service charges and staffing, sometimes added at the end of a venue quote.
• Corkage, if you bring your own drink.
• Evening food for the guests who arrive later.
• Hair and make-up trials, which are charged as well as the day itself.
• Alterations, and the second fitting.
• Postage, twice: the invitations and the thank-you cards.
• Suppliers' travel, and accommodation for the ones who work late.
• A wet-weather plan, if any part of the day is outside.
• The morning after, if you are feeding anyone.

That is what the contingency is for. If you reach the day without having touched it, it becomes the honeymoon fund.

For each thing you are paying for, keep what you planned to spend, what you have been quoted or booked, and what you have actually paid. The number that matters is the middle one. A deposit paid is not money spent; it is a promise to pay the rest, and the rest has a date.

Put the date beside every balance. Most suppliers want the balance two to four weeks before the day, which means a large amount of money leaves in one month at the end. Knowing that in the spring is the difference between a plan and a shock.

It will, somewhere. Cut a category rather than the contingency, and be honest about which categories actually move the total. The two that do are the guest count and the bar. Everything else is a smaller saving than it looks.

The cut that does not work is deciding to find the money later, because later is the month the balances fall due.