How to Budget for your Destination Wedding
In most weddings, there are two separate budgets. There is the:
- Regular Wedding Budget
- Honeymoon Budget
What we recommend for a destination wedding is to firstly, combine these two budgets. Why? Because it is much easier to sort out your flights and excursions into your budget, because, with a destination wedding, you are already there. What this means is you might have more funds available than you initially thought.
Currency Exchange
The second factor to consider is currency exchange. Most couples try to find a destination where their dollar is stronger and they can thereby get more bang from their buck. Having a destination wedding means, typically, that you spend money up front to get to you destination, but, once you are there, the pricing for everything else goes down. This is a huge help when you are making a budget for your destination wedding!
Once you have a sense of the currency for your destination wedding, and what you are able to spend, building out your wedding will be much easier. We recommend starting in this way:
- Flights
- Hotel
- Venue
- Group Excursion
- Pre-wedding (Hair & Makeup)
- Ceremony
- Dinner
- Cake
- Guest Gift
- Photography / Video
- Entertainment
- Honeymoon Flight
- Honeymoon Hotel
- Honeymoon Excursion
- Honeymoon Food & Entertainment
Now, with each of these items, let’s breakdown the order and percentages you can plan for each. What percentage of your Destination Wedding Budget should go towards the actual wedding, itself?
50% Destination Wedding Package
15% Flights
25% Honeymoon
10% Excursions & Extras
Budget Calculator
Let’s say you have chosen Thailand as your destination. First, you have talked to us and secured the location, secondly, you have set the dates. Now, when you have a look at your overall budget, $10,000, you decide that you will go for the one of our exclusive wedding packages.
You book your flights for $1,500, and have a look at hotels with honeymoon suites. After looking at the market, you decide you’d rather stay at our Private Villa, to have your own pool and privacy, 6 nights for about $1,300. You check out some of our tour prices and figure that for the money you’d spend back home, you can actually go on the most beautiful tours here for what you’d pay for a taxi ride back home! You decide to set up a group excursion tour to Phi Phi Islands for your wedding party, and a Romantic Private Couples tour for you and your new partner.
Once you ask us about where your wedding party can stay, we recommend that we even have Special Packages for them, including the tour, plus, a massage and pool / fitness package. You talk to your guests to see if they all want to do that, and suddenly, you have saved even more money on the group excursion!
Write Down Budget Draft
Let’s tally up our budget for your destination wedding so far:
$3,200 (wedding couple) Destination Wedding Package
$1,700 (guests)
$1,400 Flights
$1,300 Honeymoon (Villa)
$ 200 Excursions
$7,800 TOTAL
Once you have come to this figure, you realize something spectacular! You have another $2,200 left in your budget to spend! This means it is time to consider some of the details and surprise extras.
The best part about having a destination wedding is you can splurge. You are able to consider the “dream” items that you never really thought you could afford, and, make them a reality! You can literally have your dream cake, and eat it, too. Talk to us about upgrading your photo or video package to capture all of your greatest memories.
- Photography / Video
- Fireshow/ Fireworks
- Live Music/ Live Performance