7 Wedding Expenses That Can Sneak Up On You

Shutterstock

Without fail, every time a friend or coworker or family member or female I happen to end up talking to gets married, they tell me, at some point, about something that has come up in the planning process that they had simply just not ever thought about—and as a result, experienced very unpleasant sticker shock.

I think all seven of the things on this list have, at one time or another, been one of them.

And it’s really easy to see how it happens, honestly: You budget for what you can spend on your invitations and labor to stick within that budget as you go back and forth between your favorite designs. You figure out whether you’re going to address them via printed labels or a hand-calligrapher. You pat yourself on the back for keeping to the number your wedding-planning Excel sheet assigned for that task … and then oh, crap: Postage for each of your 300 invites comes out to $1.50 each, which adds another $450 to the whole invite shebang. And $450 is not nothing. $450 means that something else gets cut.

Keeping an eye out for these sneaky little costs (well, that actually aren’t always so little) that pop up along the wedding-planning way can make a huge difference in both how well you actually manage to keep to your wedding budget—and how much stress you feel while doing it. After all, if you had thought about that extra $450 for postage, maybe you just wouldn’t have gone with the engraved invites, and then you wouldn’t have to be making concessions when it comes to your centerpieces in order to make up for it.

So take a look—and take note.

RELATED: 30 Wedding Costs You Probably Aren’t Thinking About 

RELATED: 12 Ways to Cut Wedding Costs Without Being Tacky 

RELATED: How Much Will You Spend In Taxes On Your Wedding? An Infographic 

RELATED: How to Break Down Your Wedding Budget 

Getting married? Start and end your wedding planning journey with Philadelphia Weddings' guide to the best wedding vendors in the city.