The True Cost of an Indian Wedding: Budgeting, Mindfulness, and Intentionality

Ready to take control of your wedding budget? 

In this exciting episode of Beyond Vows & Veils: The Luxury Wedding Experience Podcast, Brittany Ellis shares insider secrets to help you master the art of budgeting for your big day! Forget the notion of an "average wedding budget"—Brittany reveals how to customize your budget based on key factors like venue, food, and beverages. She offers game-changing advice on managing your guest count and meal planning, and introduces innovative tips for drafting an initial budget with confidence. 

Learn how to strategically allocate your funds to different vendors and make every dollar count towards what truly matters to you and your partner. Whether you're just starting to plan or looking to refine your budget, this episode is packed with actionable insights and expert guidance. 

Don't miss out—tune in, get inspired, and make your wedding dreams a reality. 

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ABOUT EVENTRICS INDIAN WEDDINGS

Eventrics Indian Weddings is an award-winning team of experienced wedding planning and management experts, specializing in large-scale Indian Weddings & Fusion Weddings in Miami, Orlando, Palm Beach, and destinations worldwide.

The Eventrics Indian Weddings team offers complete and partial planning services with a personal and hands-on approach. We believe each couple deserves a fully invested wedding planner to be engaged throughout the entire process to ensure no detail is missed or overlooked!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: Importance of Budgeting
• 9:08 Factors Affecting Wedding Costs
• 12:34 Allocating Budget Percentages
• 23:23 Intentional Wedding Planning
• 30:32 Conclusion: Subscribe and Support

Transcript

Brittany (00:01.316)
Hey everyone, today's podcast is something that I've been procrastinating doing.

rather not we've just been in busy season and now we're kind of in that lull time. So I'm glad to be chatting today about budgeting, why it's important, what's the significance behind it, and just genuinely how to maybe navigate some of the events that you're planning and how to offer maybe a little bit of insight and support. So first and foremost, one of the questions that I get all the time is,

Brittany how much is this wedding going to cost me? Or Brittany, can you give me an average now that you kind of know a little bit about my event on like a ballpark figure that I can expect to spend? You know, there is no average wedding budget. I just want to break that bubble right away because I think that there's like this sort of stigma going on right now in the industry because pricing is so high that, you know, couples do need a sense of direction. And so I'm hoping that this podcast sort of helps break that down. So

So let's talk a little bit about what plays into the average cost or overall expenditures of anybody's wedding or celebration. So again, it doesn't matter if your budget is, you know, less than $200 ,000, more than $200 ,000 plus whatever the range might be for you and your family. Essentially, one of the biggest contributing factors is going to be your venue, your food and your beverage. So breaking that down even further, we always say who's all coming.

How many guests are you inviting to your wedding weekend is going to make a big difference in where that cost comes from, right? So if you look at your your wedding budget and you're kind of using a notepad or Excel spreadsheet or if you're driving right now, that's all good. You can pause or make a mental note at this point.

Brittany (01:57.124)
So the first thing you're going to need to decide is obviously essentially a location or a where. So I always tell couples to maybe just use more of like a generic hotel pricing to support in their initial budget drafting because trying to select a property like, we're going to host this anguide at my home or we're going to rent this banquet hall or we saw this very unique destination location, but it's not associated with a property. Those things can be really complicated to budget out.

that's something that I would suggest to couples when you get to that wedding planning stage where you're ready to have somebody support you with the journey, that would be a lot better to kind of give to that professional to price out for you accordingly as opposed to you trying to attempt to do that. So let's talk more generic pricing for now. So generic pricing is let's say that you want to get married in, I don't know, Orlando, okay? And maybe you don't want to get married at a five -star property, maybe, you know,

mid -tier property. A mid -tier property I would consider to maybe be like a Marriott or you know a Hyatt. It's you know again, it's not necessarily your luxury facility, but it definitely has really great service and value that it adds and it might be something that's at a mid -range for cost point. Okay, so one of the things I would recommend that you do is you reach out to that property and you obtain pricing from them, right? So what is the per person price for either a menu that they could otherwise

provide for you or what we call in the industry as an outside catering fee or a forkage fee. Essentially, what is that per person price in order for you to bring in your own caterer to provide whatever meals that you're trying to provide over the weekend. So rather that just be for the Sangeet and the post wedding lunch and the dinner or is it also for like that hospitality room that downtime in between your functions where people are showing up for coffee and tea. Is that something that

the venue can provide or the caterer can provide. The reason I'm kind of getting a little bit more detailed with this is because

Brittany (04:03.748)
The two biggest factors is obviously the number of people coming and the number of times that you're feeding those guests. So you need to look at this from a bigger perspective, not just hyper -focused on your main functions, because it's really important to understand what your expectations are, what your family's expectations are when it comes to the amount of times that you're feeding your guests. Because if you have 300 people and you're inviting them for two dinners and a lunch is always what I say, you know,

you have to look at how many meals, but then on top of that, you're wanting to provide a breakfast or a hospitality room, or then you're providing snacks at the ceremony. All these things add up in that line item. So getting really keen in on that. So if you have some venue pricing or what we were mentioning as the forkage fee, you're going to write whatever that number is times your guest count times the amount of times that you're feeding guests or that forkage fee would apply. So let's use for example,

sample, a Sangeet a post wedding lunch and a reception as an example. So again, you take that 300 person, you times it by that forkage fee, and you would essentially times it by three functions. Sometimes properties will charge a little bit less for a breakfast or a lunch in comparison to a main dinner reception. So you can always toggle those numbers as it makes sense. The second part of this exercise is that you're then going to obtain that venue's beverage package. So essentially, do they charge, you know,

know, a set price per person for a certain amount of hours for that event.

And before we get into this, I already can hear some of the clients I've talked to and maybe even people that I've had the pleasure of doing just consults with, you know, essentially where it's like, hey, well, my auntie doesn't drink or half our guests don't drink or this or that, you know, that's fine. Whatever you decide is best for your attendees is totally your decision. You really only have two choices. One is to go with an all inclusive package, if you will. Essentially, you're paying for an unlimited amount of drinks.

Brittany (06:09.494)
within a certain amount of time, whether that be for a four or five hour package per person. The only time that there's going to be a variance on that cost is if someone is not of legal drinking age. It just depends on the property as well, but for the most part in our experience, if you are under the age of 21, then they would be charged a different rate for obviously like a soda juice situation. Okay. The other option is to pay on consumption. Now this definitely works great for families who if you choose

have 50 % or less of your guests do not drink. So you would not go with a package option. You would simply pay per drink and drinks can vary depending on the tier of bar you go with. So maybe like a mid tier, you can have a glass of wine for, I don't know, $10 plus plus plus tax and service charge. And then maybe like a cocktail, you could start at like, I don't know, 12 to $15 plus plus. So depending on how you want to do your math to keep it simple for this episode,

I'm simply just using package pricing. So again, back to that notebook, you've written down the outside catering or forkage fee times the number of guests. And then now you've also written down the bar package that you feel most likely your family would go with. So let's say for the Sangeet night, it's roughly four hours and maybe for the reception, it's five hours. So you've got a total of nine hours of bar over the course of the two days. And so you would essentially times that by your guest count, right? So you can figure out from a venue cost

perspective only what is a rough ballpark that I can expect to spend at this facility. Please do not forget your plus plus. Your plus your service charge. So service charge can sometimes vary between 24 to 28 percent. Sometimes that's broken out but that's essentially a rough guesstimate for the state of Florida and then a 7 percent sales tax. Sometimes that also will vary.

depending on where you're hosting your actual function. That tax and service charge obviously is not a small number. So you want to make sure that you do include that on your plus plus allocations. So if it's, I don't know, $40 plus plus for a forkage fee for a lunch, then you would simply tag on that 24 % and that 7 % on top of that to get your total ballpark figure, if you will. Again, we're talking more high level just so that you can get a sense of cost when you are having these conversations with family.

Brittany (08:38.468)
So I know I've been talking about venue food and beverage a lot, and there's a reason for that. Most of your budget, I should say 50 % of your budget, if not a little bit more, is going to be the food and beverage and venue expenditure, depending on the tier of property that you choose. Everything that's left from that budget allocation is obviously dedicated towards people like your wedding planner, your DJ, your photo video team, various other vendors that you're going to be hiring. So the chosen

property is critical to ensuring that you actually remain on task and target with that budget. Because the venue, if you decide to pay for a forkage fee where you can bring in your own caterer, the venue is simply providing you the space and potentially some rentals like the China, the cutlery, the service staff to support with that event, and then standard potential tables, chairs, and linens.

That is not including what the actual food cost is. That is a separate line item that you would obtain with your caterer. So if you have a preferred caterer in mind, especially if they're local to the area you're potentially looking to host your event, you would give them a call, get some average pricing of what they're charging for some of the different functions you're researching. And then again, you would take that number and then times that by the amount of meals that you're hosting. So now you've got a total picture of not only is what

the service going to cost for this event? What is the potential menu cost going to be for this event? And then how much is it going to be for bar packages? When you summarize all of that up, that gives you a really healthy understanding of where the core factors of your budget are going to come from. And so whenever clients again ask me what's an average cost to an event,

It really depends on the location that you're wanting to plan this because if food and beverage minimums are lower in certain areas and they're higher in other popular areas That's a big factor right there. That might be a process of elimination for you And then just in general, I always say to clients. I want to throw that question back to you What is your expectation? For the amount of times that you're feeding guests and what is your expectation from a vendor perspective? for example of a

Brittany (11:03.398)
comes to me and she shows me a portfolio that is fabulous, but I know her dinner reception is going to be minimum $120 ,000 if not more just for that one function, but her overall budget is 350k like something might not be adding up there. And so essentially you want to make sure that you're being intentional with this spend after you have like kind of your statistics in place. Okay. So that's kind of the first segment I wanted to talk about, which is

What is an average cost? Again, there's no average cost. It really is based on when you come to your wedding planner or your professional, be prepared to be very clear on how many people or the range of top guest count you're gonna land on and what your expectations are for the amount of times that you're providing hospitality for your attendees. Okay? So the second thing that I'd like to just kind of jump into is creating that overall wedding budget. So we talked a little bit about like just kind of setting yourself up

for success in the venue and the beverage and the food area. But now I want to talk about understanding how to hire your vendors and like certain percentages to potentially keep in mind. So this is definitely not an exact. So I want to be really clear. I'm kind of taking a super high level on a budget. Obviously, I would highly recommend that you work with a professional who's going to customize an outline specific for you so that you can understand all of the budgetary outlines.

available to you when you're looking at your wedding, right? But from a percentage perspective, and just for the purpose of this podcast, I'm going to kind of chat about some numbers that might be supportive. So if roughly 50 % or more of your budget is literally going to be just your venue, your food and beverage, again, completely contingent on what type of property you go with. If you go with an offsite property, maybe they have a little bit more bang for their buck because they come with some tables and chairs and inventory and they're charging you a very

Brittany (13:04.55)
very low rental fee, but they have a kitchen available and you're just having to hire service staff. Maybe, and most times those costs sort of equal out. You're almost better just going with a resort if you're trying to be super budget conscious. But how you allocate the percentages of your overall budget do make sense, right? So for the most part, the sections that you would want to consider getting that notebook back out is you now have your venue, food and beverage, and then you would go into,

you are going to be hiring a wedding planner. Traditionally, most couples that they are going to hire a wedding planner would hire that planner either just before their wedding planning journey has begun, meaning you're just now getting engaged. You're just talking about the financials. You're figuring out where you're going to get married. That's a great time to plug somebody in who can give you a little bit more guidance and quite frankly, I think bring a lot of value to the investment that you're going to be soon making. The other option is obviously to bring a professional in after you've

maybe found your venue, but you're still at the very beginning stages and you need that final guidance, that's also a great time to hire a wedding planner. So a wedding planner in general, I mean, to be honest with you, I think should be around 10 % plus of your budget, depending on how many events that you're hosting, how large your guest count is and how complex the actual occasions meet for. I think that's a fair guesstimate. And again, your other vendors probably should be between eight to 10%.

Also that allocation so rather that be your DJ slash lighting team Potentially your photo video crew and other various You know percentages for like hair and makeup or if you know your priest Miscellaneous expenses like if you're including your attire in that cost decor you'll notice I did not put a percentage to simply because Every bride is very different in terms of her expectation level some of these items are not even included in the mass

budget, they may say, okay, well, bride and groom are going to take over this expense. So that frees up more percentage in that category. To be honest, when I'm doing a budget Excel spreadsheet, decor is the last thing I budget in for because I need to know what does my client.

Brittany (15:19.588)
for sure where are they going to land just to make sure that this event is sound before we bring in decor and then outside of that what decor sort of makes sense and where is the client willing to you know maybe splurge in one area save in another what's important to them so again if you're putting your budget together you have to remember that if let's just say a 50 percent of your budget is gone for food and beverage what does that leave you left for your vendors and so that would be i think a pretty good way to look at that

Plus or minus depending on your expectation of the actual venue itself Okay, the last sort of segment or last to close to last segment. I want to chat about is mindful spending so I feel like it's really important that you prioritize what matters most to you and then allocate those funds accordingly so Traditionally whenever I work with a new couple and I price things out. It doesn't matter what the budget is I always tend to stick or shock everybody

that first Excel that goes out because the first Excel that goes out is me pricing out your dream wedding. Let's see how much this thing costs and let's figure this out together and then we always have a second meeting where we will then talk about

where our priorities are and is this budget in alignment with our intentions and what's important to us to make sure that this event feels customized for us. So when you're going through that with your planner or with your family, having these hard conversations in the first three sections are vital to the success of your event. Number one, is the guest count negotiable?

If it's not, you don't really have a lot of wiggle room to come down in the first three sections, venue, food and beverage, as you do now, the other vendors is essentially where you're going to have to pull. And that becomes really difficult for couples because traditionally most of the couples that we work with are really excited about the creativity coming mostly from the higher pros that they're bringing in. Exterior pros like the Indian caterer, of course, are part of that experience. And so when you're

Brittany (17:32.294)
again, regrouping on the budget that you're looking at, really understanding what are your priorities and what is your intention for each of these events? Is it important that we have breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day? Or do we want the guests to sort of just be able to meander on their own around the property and then you're providing that hospitality at the core functions? That alone can certainly save a lot of couples and families quite a bit of expenses that they could then other allocate into some of the other.

categories that they're considering. Some of the things also to keep in mind if you are trying to be mindful with your spending is potentially researching the time of year that you want to host your event as opposed to going into your process thinking that you're going to negotiate costs down. This is a difficult subject I know but recording this in 2024 and knowing where the price points were even pre -pandemic

you know, cost has skyrocketed. Budgets are not the same that they were even three, four years ago. And so making sure that your expectations on when you're going into planning your event isn't that you're going to kind of be able to negotiate all these prices down, especially if you're wanting higher tier vendors. The reason I say that is because since the pandemic, weddings are back, corporate business is back, and people have to obviously

still meet the demand, but also inflation's a real thing. Labor costs are higher and there's just a general thing going on in the industry as there is everywhere else, that cost is just a little bit higher. So if I have a couple that really wants to be lean on their budget, one of the things to potentially consider is, is hosting your wedding during off season for the state or location that you're looking to host. Okay. So that's maybe one pivot, just throwing that out there. I definitely

I never recommend anybody get married during hurricane season here in Florida because it can be a rough situation and you definitely don't want to host any outdoor functions. You don't want to have a ton of guests flying in because there could be potential cancellations of travel. But I have some had some clients that say, hey, we definitely want to go with off season because we feel like we're going to be able to negotiate a lot better rates with our vendors and venue as we would in peak season, which certainly is true and can be true. So something to keep in mind if you really are trying

Brittany (20:01.494)
to host the wedding that you want to host, not compromise on that, but still keep it within a budgetary limit. A second option to consider is also what's become increasingly more popular is hosting a wedding at a destination that offers all -inclusive. So I'm going to be talking a little bit more about that in future episodes, but all -inclusive properties really are fantastic for the host because essentially most of the cost is front -loaded onto your attendees.

as opposed to you yourself. Now, every couple is different in terms of, again, the hospitality reach that they want to extend. So if you decide, we're going to host this wedding in Mexico, but we want to do it at all -inclusive resort, but it's going to be like, you know, however many hundreds of dollars per person per night. So we're going to subsidize that cost and we're going to throw down some money so that our guests or our attendees aren't paying but a certain limit daily. And that essentially kind of

it doesn't give this sort of indication that they're the one sort of front -ending the bill for your event. And then there's other couples that, you know, the all -inclusive works great and they don't feel like they need to subsidize the cost because they've gotten a great property with a great rate and everything else that they can provide to potentially do that.

And outside of that, one of the other things I wanted to step on was intentional wedding planning. So for me, ways to be intentional with your wedding planning is focusing on meaningful aspects of the wedding that reflect your values and your relationship because...

I see it all the time in my industry and I've been a really big advocate for, you know, you don't compare yourself to others, but there's some amazing planners and events and things going down in our industry and major props to the individuals that are making that happen because

Brittany (21:55.556)
I'm even inspired, right? But I always have to tell, you know, certain couples that there are certain budget parameters you're trying to stick within to avoid kind of getting carried away by trends and like society pressures, because I can completely understand that if you're personally attending 10 plus social functions on a yearly basis, you're exposed to a lot, you're seeing what's available, what's out there. And a lot of times, there's this

you know, expectation that if you look at a picture of somebody's reception, you sort of have an indication of how much they spent over that weekend, but you really have no idea because you don't know what their venue cost was or their food and beverage agreements or negotiations. All those things are really important to, you know, not get so caught up in, you know, how much did all of this spend as opposed to...

really breaking it down to actually what is important to you and your fiance in the first place. Because if hosting this out of control, crazy decor is the most important thing to you, but you need to be at a certain expenditure, we have to kind of chat through what makes the most sense, where are the other areas that we're willing to maybe have some concession in to get there, right? I also think that being intentional with your wedding planning is also choosing your vendors wisely. I cannot emphasize this enough.

I feel like there's sort of this...

navigating path that, you know, clients go down and they're interviewing different people. And then they're interviewing so many people that by the time that they've come full circle to like maybe the first batch of reach outs, like their dates are no longer available or they're not able to offer that pricing anymore or whatever it might be. Right. And so you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot by reaching out to so many people per category, because at that point, I feel like you're just searching for the right, like the exact price that you want as a

Brittany (23:52.39)
opposed to aligning with a vendor that aligns quite frankly with your vision, your ethics, the things that you value in bringing this event together. And in general, I think that that's probably just a rule of thumb to carry throughout your entire wedding planning process. So if you're not being intentional with the wedding planning journey from the beginning, I think it's just going to show up for you as a hardship later down the road. So

pulling that back, what I mean is when you're creating your budget and you're putting these allocations together and you're getting a true sense of your cost, really understanding

in each of your vendors, what is important or non -negotiable for you to obtain? So let's say it's a photographer, for example, and you feel that photography is the most vital aspect of your wedding weekend because it's the only thing that you're essentially going to have left in terms of memories and keepsakes when that event is over. So you know that there is a certain editing stuff

style or certain expectation that you have of that professional to provide you for your wedding weekend. And you're willing to spend up to, be very clear with yourself because pricing for photography is crazy and no hate to any photographer. I root them on, good for you. But you need to be really clear about what your cap is that you're willing to spend at a premium price for that photographer. And before you create that cap, sort of be clear

about what the market pricing even is. And so market pricing is maybe shop a vendor you're really interested in. Doesn't hurt anybody to reach out to a vendor that you love and you respect and say, hey, I'd love to partner with you. What's your price point? Like pick what that vendor is. If you truly have no idea, otherwise you can ask your wedding planner or you can certainly ask around for some ranges to kind of be within a certain range of that. But...

Brittany (26:01.764)
What I'm getting at is that kind of sets the precedence of, okay, I've reached out to this vendor that I love. I know what their price point is. This is what it is. Either it's obtainable or it's within a certain scope of what you were thinking is great. But if it's not...

If it's not obtainable, right, then, you know, that's something else to keep in mind. Is there any other photographers that maybe don't charge that type of premium, but have a similar editing style that I don't feel like I'm going to compromise or whatever it might be, right? I'm just trying to give it kind of like a high level example here. But essentially the most important thing is to focus on, you know, the actual vendor, what you feel like you're going to get. Are you getting value for what you're spending? And you can just go down the line with your partner. I think it's a really

conversation to have, hey, what is most important to us when it comes to hiring a DJ? Is it important to us that he's super lively with the crowd? Is this a cultural event, like a fusion wedding where he would need to know both like maybe South Asian music and also, you know, more like...

modern hits today? Like what is it that's important to you? Does he need to provide lighting? Do you feel really strong that your designer should provide that item instead? And so that DJ needs to be amenable to allowing your designer to be the one that provides all the lighting. These are just kind of questions that maybe you don't even know what to ask, but if you're not working with a planner already, you just want to get really clear and intentional about what are your overall goals when you're hiring these professionals and what are the things that they need to make sure that they're meeting.

So just to recap, I want to make sure that we just go through a couple of the things that we discussed because this was a lengthier episode for me and it's something that I've been procrastinating but I've really felt really good about launching it now.

Brittany (27:54.148)
We're going to edit 27 minutes and I'm just going to close out a different way.

starting new conclusion.

So to recap what we've talked about today, the average cost of an Indian or cultural event is still unknown to me. But I think that what's important to keep in mind is that that average cost can quickly be created by yourself by simply just a little bit of homework, by understanding where your biggest costs are coming from, which is your venue, food and beverage, and how that's sort of adding up. And that will, I think, essentially support

with figuring out the rest of your budget from there. And again, hiring a planner, hiring someone to support you is always a great idea in the beginning of the journey. And the second component is, again, when you're creating that wedding budget, try to use percentages as engagement. If 50 % of your...

wedding budget is allocated towards your venue, your food and beverage, then you have to look at that other 50 % and that's got to be allocated across the board with your other vendors. So keeping in mind what your expectations are when it comes to tier of property and overall expectation of experience is going to help you to kind of figure out if your vendors are falling in alignment of that expenditure. And also I think it's really important by the way that you include a contingency fund for any unexpected expenses when you're putting these percentages together.

Brittany (29:26.006)
Try not to be so dotted in that you don't allow yourself any wiggle room for

Different things that might come up that you otherwise maybe didn't plan for or just in general. I think a contingency plan is really important Also, just being mindful with your spending. So I think that we've just kind of touched on, you know Prioritizing what matters most to you and making sure that you're allocating the funds in your budget accordingly So photography is the most important thing to you and your fiance You know be willing to have the difficult conversation on what are the other things you're willing to compromise on in order to to basically prioritize

that vendor that is mattering most to the two of you. And lastly, just being intentional with your spending. Again, I think it's really important that we don't get carried away by trends and trying to keep up with what other people are potentially doing and just focus on what is meaningful for both of you as a couple and just reflect on the values that you have in your relationship and what's the experience that you really want to call forth for your guests that are attending your celebration, your union together as a couple.

Lastly, I would really love it if you would please click to subscribe. This has been a really fun journey so far and so I'm really encouraged by the community that we've continued to build, but we can't continue to build that community without making sure we have good subscriptions. So if you can please leave a review, subscribe to our channel, feel free to email our office if you have any ideas on things that you would love to hear about. But until next time and congratulations to all of you.