Wedding Budget

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I dislike, no loath math and numbers.  Odd, since I sew, quilt, and craft which all require plenty of numbers and math in order to get things correct. Anyways, about the wedding: Mr. ST and I set a rough goal for ourselves right after we got engaged.  $25,000.  HAHA.  Silly us. 

That lasted all of three days. 

When we started looking at reception venues in our area we were blown away by the prices.  We went a bit south of us - nothing too different;  north of us - still roughly the same price.  So once we settled on and booked our venue, we re-worked that rough guess to $30,000. 

Our written budget consisted of things that I had scratched and scrawled onto: napkins, backs of receipts, ripped pieces of paper, a tissue, magazine pages; I then stuffed those pieces into the accompanying pockets of my binder.    Hot mess.  I have a photo and I can't even show you it because those that really know me, know how organized I am and it will be mortifying. 

As we started to put deposits down on vendors, buy items, work on projects, etc. it became harder and harder to keep track of that information.  So, I turned to my trusted source for everything:  Google.

I searched Google Documents for a "wedding budget" and a ton of hits surfaced.  I picked a few and downloaded them....waiting for Mr. ST and his mathematical brain to determine which would be the best for us.  (The numbers in the budget below are just samples to show you how it works)
This is the one we chose:

It has a spot for EVERYTHING.  Even things we may not realize should be in the wedding budget, but certainly belong there.  My favorite part is that this budget allows you to "rate" the items for importance.  Priority 1 - Must have

Priority 2 - Should have

Priority 3 - Really nice, but not necessary

There are several different "sections" for each part of the day.  You fill in the priority number, the amount you have budgeted for, and then the actual amount.  It keeps a running total for you at the bottom of each section.  When you have filled everything out, you get this box all done:

It shows you what the total for Priority 1, 2, and 3 are and how much your total budget actually is in green. 

I promise this is simple, easy, and straightforward.  I wouldn't trust something with numbers if it wasn't that easy.  Mr. ST was impressed I found it and filled it in for us just about perfectly.  Silly boy. 
I'm even more excited now, because I just discovered another way for us to save EVEN MORE and take some money off the budgeted and actual totals for ours...and I won't show you that catastrophic number until I can get it down a little bit more.  Sheesh.  Wedding industry and their monopoly. 

Are you using a budget?  What tools have you used?  Did you create your own?  Did you find one on a website?  SHARE!!!