Wedding Budget Calculator

Enter your total budget and guest count, and this calculator splits the money across typical wedding categories — venue & catering, photography, attire, flowers, music and more. Every percentage is editable, and results update live with dollar amounts per category and per guest.

📖 How it works & FAQ

Total wedding budget ($)

Number of guests

Categories & percentages (editable — should total 100%)

How the wedding budget breakdown works

Most wedding planners allocate a total budget by percentage rather than guessing at each vendor separately. This calculator starts from widely used typical splits: venue & catering around 45%, photography & video about 12%, attire & beauty 8%, flowers & decor 8%, music & entertainment 8%, a planner at 5%, and smaller slices for stationery, cake, transportation, favors, the officiant, and a miscellaneous buffer. The math is simple and transparent: each category amount equals your total budget multiplied by its percentage, and cost per guest is the total budget divided by your guest count. Every percentage is fully editable, so if you are skipping a planner or splurging on flowers, just move the points around — the tool warns you when your categories add up to more or less than 100%. Estimates only, not professional or financial advice; real prices vary widely by region, season, and vendor.

How to use it

Enter your total wedding budget in dollars.
Enter your expected number of guests to get per-guest figures.
Adjust any category percentage to match your priorities — results update instantly.
Rename, remove, or add categories (for example, a honeymoon fund or rehearsal dinner).
Check the "Percent allocated" tile: at 100% every dollar has a job; over 100% means you need to trim.

FAQ

Why is venue and catering such a big share?: Food, drink, and the space itself scale directly with guest count, so together they typically consume 40-50% of a wedding budget — by far the largest slice.
What is a realistic per-guest cost?: Many couples land between $150 and $400 per guest depending on city and formality. Cutting the guest list is usually the fastest way to cut the total.
Do the percentages have to total exactly 100%?: Ideally yes. The calculator still computes each category if they don't, and shows how many dollars are unallocated or over budget so you can rebalance.
Is my budget information stored anywhere?: No. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded or saved — refresh the page and it resets to the defaults.