When you’re preparing for a wedding, you’ll want to first sit down and create a budget to stay on track. But you might be wondering what percentages of your budget should you allocate to the venue, dress, flowers, food, DJ and more! This is actually one of the trickiest parts of wedding planning. Of course, you’d like to spend as much as you can on each part of the wedding, but you can’t, so you have to choose where to spend the most and where to cut back. Here are some tips on how to figure out your wedding budget breakdown:

Catering, Venue, Rentals, and Cake

For all these things, expect to place 50% of your budget in, which is going to be the biggest chunk. Your venue and catering costs will be based on your guest count, so have a rough figure in mind when locking down these two big things for your wedding. Find a venue that comfortably fits your guests and offers different weather scenarios as a just in case. Find one that also matches the style of your wedding. When it comes to food, the catering bill isn’t just the food, but the equipment, staff, prep and more. A bar might be extra, so keep that in mind, too! Your wedding cake is part of this percentage, too since it’s one of the more prominent aspects of your wedding.

Photography, Videography, and DJ

Look to put aside about 20% of your budget for a wedding photographer, videographer and DJ. Your DJ will be the ringmaster of your reception, so make sure you choose a professional that has great reviews! A photographer is a must and so is a videographer, believe it or not. Many people think they should skip a videographer, but you’ll want the video of such an amazing day later.

Wedding Attire, Hair & Beauty

Expect to put in about 9% of your budget to the dress, shoes, hair, and makeup. It can be less depending on the style of dress and how much makeup and hair artists cost.

To make your wedding beautiful, it’s best if you allocate about 8% to the décor of it all, with flowers included. This will help transform the space into the dream wedding you’ve always wanted.

Invites

Your invites shouldn’t cost that much and should only take up 3% of the wedding budget. But be sure to factor in the stamps, too!

Transportation

You’ll want to allocate about 3% to transportation, meaning a limo for you and your wedding party. If you want to save some money, you can easily have a family member drive and use the money somewhere else.

Favors & Gifts

Providing favors to your guests and should be about 2% of your budget, including gifts for the bridal party.

Rings

You can’t forget to budget the rings, which could be about 5% of your overall budget!