When you were young and chatting with your little friends, I know the subject of your wedding came up. You told them about how beautiful it would be and how exquisite the church and the reception hall would be made decorated. You went on about the “cinderella” dress you would be wearing and the huge diamond necklaces and earrings along with the various other diamond/gold pieces that would adorn your body. You told them about how you get the latest heartthrob to sing at your reception and it would serve him right to see you married off to another man. As you got older your dream changed as you matured and realized that it takes money to buy the things you want for your wedding. You learned that for bi projects you had to have things like budgets so that you could insure having enough money to pay for everything.
The problem you have nowadays is watching TV shows about weddings you quickly get the idea that everyone can have a lavish wedding. Ever notice that the planner may talk about the budget but the bride and groom keep on ordering and ordering more and more outlandish things for their wedding day. Everyone wears diamonds, limousines to drive everyone around, cigar bars, even helicopters to ferry you around.
The problem with these shows is they are not at all realistic about what you should do to have a gorgeous wedding on a realistic budget. That is why you really need think about what your wedding needs to look like, how it needs to be decorated, what sort of extras it must contain. Then you need to get preliminary pricing on all those things.
While working up your preliminary budget you will need to make sure you include all the small details of what will be used in the actual wedding. You then need to think about what will be used for your reception. Sit back and imagine the flowers, the tables and what is on them, the entertainment, and even the venue you want to use. After you have carefully listed these items you need to get pricing for each and everyone. Then you can tell if want you want in anyway comes close to what you have to spend. For luxury items I always advise couples to get things that have lasting value such as diamond jewelry.
It costs $27,000 for a wedding with 200 guests. That is what the average cost is the United States. Your goal should always be to have a wedding that is high in quality first and high in quantity second. You can invite everyone in your town but are they really worth all the added expense. You need to visualize what you really want to achieve and prune yoour guest list down firs in order to achieve it. You can always give and take with yourself and come to an acceptable amount of people for an acceptable amount of money.