Wondering how to spend your fixed wedding budget? Don’t sweat it! Use our free Nigerian wedding budget calculator to quickly break down your wedding budget into expense categories. In this post, you’ll also learn about two more ways to allocate wedding expenses, and see examples.
Let’s say you have set N300k as your Nigerian wedding. You certainly don’t want to start spending it, to later run out of cash. Dividing your overall budget to specific expenses (just like women make a shopping list) is a great way to use your wedding budget and avoid over-spending.
We have a formula brides can use to know how much to spend on wedding food, photography, couple’s outfits, reception venue hire and other wedding things.
Our free wedding budget calculator and wedding expense breakdown formula will tell (suggest) you how much to spend on different parts of your wedding event, so you no longer need to ‘crack’ your brain.
Read on to see the percentages and an example of using the percentage with a wedding budget, as well as other methods of splitting a budget. Also, you’ll be able to download our wedding budget percentage split template. Scroll down to dig in.
Suggested Percentages for Dividing Your Nigerian Wedding Budget (Updated)
Below are the percentages that our wedding budget calculator worksheet is based on, in case you were wondering or want to do it manually:
- #a. Couple’s wedding attire + wedding rings 23%
- #b. Stationery (invites, program etc.) + Souvenirs 6%
- #c. Venue Hire + Venue Decoration (including rental of canopy tents, tables and chairs; other rentals) 18%
- #d. Reception (food, drinks, cake) 21%
- #e. Entertainment & visuals (MC, DJ/ music band, Photos and/ or Video coverage) 14%
- #f. Miscellaneous (just-in-case fund) 17%
*NOTE: It’s a good idea to reserve 17% for miscellaneous expenses to cover any unforeseen or overlooked expenses that may come up later.
That will ensure that you won’t have to panic or borrow in case anything arises later, even when you start shopping; of if some things cost more than you thought; or if you decide to spend more on a few tempting areas.
MORE WEDDING COST PLANNING GUIDES:
- Checklist and Cost-Saving Ideas for Planning Same-Day Traditional and White Wedding
- How to Use Guest List to Know Exact Number of Guests to Invite
- See Samples of Wedding Budgets from Real Couples
3 Ways to Allocate Your Wedding Budget to an Expense List
There are three different ways to spread your wedding budget, and they are: by guessing, or the manual method, or by using the wedding budget calculator.
1. The Guestimation method: This is the regular, popular method. Here, you can either guess how much to allocate to different areas of your wedding – catering, wedding attires, decoration and so on;
2. Manual Method: Another method is to use a wedding expense percentage allocation guide (below), like the one we created for you (as illustrated in the image below). You would need to use a calculator and enter the suggested percentages below in order to get a breakdown of your wedding expenses.
Let’s say, you have N400k for your Nigerian wedding, that means 21% (i.e. N84,000) of that would be reserved for food and drinks; 18% for venue and decor; 24% for couple’s outfits and so on. Hope you get the gist?
3. The Wedding Calculator is the third and easiest method is more like an automatic way of breaking down the wedding expenses – read on for the detailed steps;
How to do a Wedding Budget Breakdown using the Budget Calculator from NaijaGlamWedding (3 Steps)
Step 1: Set a figure as your overall wedding budget
You’re not going to spend the entire money in your bank account for the wedding, right? So, how much is the limit of the amount you want to spend on your wedding?
You may choose to simply set any amount you desire as what you plan to spend on each wedding thing. But if you have no idea what to do here, use our percentage allocation guide below to plan how much you should spend on what.
Step 2: Do the Budget Breakdown
In a previous post on how to create a wedding budget from scratch, I explained how to divide your overall wedding budget into small parts. I also mentioned how our team here uses our wedding budget percentage allocation guide to work out the wedding budget breakdown.
And, if you hate math, you’ll love how easy it is to use our Nigerian wedding budget calculator to automatically suggest wedding budget breakdown – continue reading details in the rest of this post.
By the way, you can simply allocate any amount you like to any wedding budget list item, there are no hard and fast rules about it.
Step 3: Download our Nigerian Wedding Budget Calculator
Go to our wedding planning templates page and download NaijaGlamWedding’s Nigerian wedding budget calculator to your computer. You’ll have to scroll down the page to see it, as there are other downloads.
Open it and then follow these steps:
- Type in your wedding budget (amount) into the yellow box specified
- You will see the breakdown automagically calculated for you
- Copy the breakdown of your budget and use it to plan your wedding costing.
Alternatively, you can use a calculator to do the breakdown with the percentages we used in our budget calculator:
- #a. Couple’s wedding attire + wedding rings 23%
- #b. Stationery (invites, program etc.) + Souvenirs 6%
- #c. Venue Hire + Venue Decoration (including rental of canopy tents, tables and chairs; other rentals) 18%
- #d. Reception (food, drinks, cake) 21%
- #e. Entertainment & visuals (MC, DJ/ music band, Photos and/ or Video coverage) 14%
- #f. Miscellaneous (just-in-case fund) 17%
An Example: Using the Wedding Budget Calculator to Do a Breakdown of Wedding Expenses
Here’s an example of how to use the wedding calculator to know your wedding expenses breakdown:
- Say, I have a budget of N200,000 to spend for my wedding.
- So, I open the wedding budget calculator and type in the wedding budget above (N200,000);
- I should see the following breakdown, automatically calculated fpr me:
Wedding attire (bride + groom): N48,000.00
Stationery + Souvenir: N12,000.00
Venue + Decor N36,000.00
Wedding Reception N42,000.00
Entertainment N28,000.00
Miscellaneous: N34,000.00
Total Wedding Budget: N200,000.00
*Disclaimer: The NaijaGlamWedding’s Nigerian wedding budget calculator is only a guide to help you create your initial budget breakdown. You don’t have to use it – you may choose to divide up your wedding budget as you like.
Also, you’ll want to finalize the budget when you find out the actual market prices of wedding things. What we provide is based on our experience and prices of stuff in the Nigerian market, and best for low cost, small weddings. Again, NaijaGlamWedding’s budget calculator is provided as a guide for your initial wedding budget breakdown. We hope you like it.
Finally, Expand Your List into a Detailed Wedding Expenses List
After breaking down your budget into the major expense categories, you should expand your list into a detailed list of things that need to be bought or vendor services that need to be hired under each category.
For example, under couples’ wedding attire, you should be listing these: bridal shoes, grooms shoes, wedding rings, wedding dress, aso-oke, gele and so so. So, you should do that for all the budget categories – venue, stationery, reception, entertainment etc.
You can continue making the full wedding budget list or use our ready-made list of typical Nigerian wedding expenses – they’re what makes up the bulk of wedding budget in Nigeria.
Why Another Country’s Wedding Budget Calculator Does Not Work for a Wedding in Nigeria
*The above percentage breakdown is strictly based on the Nigerian bridal market and cost of stuff in Naija. This is different for other countries.
So, if your wedding will not take place in Naija, be sure to use the wedding budget percentage breakdown for the country of your wedding location, provided by the local wedding planners.
The Nigerian wedding scene is much different from that of the USA and UK, and so the percentage allocation for Nigerian weddings vary quite significantly from theirs. This is because traditionally, their priorities for wedding elements vary from ours.
For example, in most Nigerian weddings, a top priority is on the bride and groom’s outfits and in Western countries live flowers and table decorations (fancy linens and more) are on their top priority. Also, for them, the quality (usually expensive) of the wedding ring is a priority.
There are other reasons why the percentages in Nigerian wedding budget breakdown is different from that of other countries, but those are just some. Therefore, if you’re planning a wedding that will hold in Nigeria, using other countries’ budget percentage allocation will not work.
WEDDING COST SAVING GUIDES
- Practical Ways to Save Money During Wedding Planning
- 11 Ways to Save Money on Wedding Cakes in Nigeria
- 7 Costly Wedding Planning Mistakes & How to Avoid Them
- Have Small Money but Want a Big-Looking Wedding? Follow these Tips
Don’t Sweat with Math, Use NaijaGlamWedding’s Free Nigerian Wedding Budget Calculator
If you hate math, our wedding budget calculator will do the calculations and breakdown for you (automatically and auto-magically).
All you need to do is follow the steps above to download and use NaijaGlamWedding’s wedding budget calculator and allocator.
Once you download it, the only thing you have to do is type in your overall wedding budget, and your wedding budget breakdown will display for you to copy and use.
If you find our Nigerian wedding budget calculator helpful, please share this post on social media, leave a comment and join our GlamWedding community – that’s all we ask for.
There you have it on how to do a wedding budget breakdown. Now, tell me in the comments below – which of the 3 methods (above) have you used or prefer to break down a wedding budget? Do you like it? What do you think of the Nigerian wedding budget calculator?
Hello, my wonderful wedding planner, I need a budget for 800k traditional and white weddings, decorations, canopies, caterer bill, cake excluded, location ondo state
Hello Christianah, Lol. Below is a sample N700k wedding budget we already have on the blog. You can tweak it to change things up to get a starting budget breakdown for your N800k plan.
N700k Nigerian wedding budget sample.
OR, use your calculator with the percentages we provided in the above post, to break down N8ook budget.
Hope that helps.
Hello my dear wedding planner. Thank you for the calculation, is it possible to plan with N300,000 considering today’s economic in Nigeria? where can we see a reception hall for less than 100,000 and wedding attires man and woman for less than N80,000 in Port Harcourt.
Hello Gloria, welcome. Yes, it’s possible if you plan according to your money. We’ve written many posts that gave loads of examples and ideas of how to manage a small budget to plan a Nigerian wedding. But let me briefly answer you:
-First, know that price of event venues and wedding gown rentals is cheaper in outskirts than in GRA-like part of any Nigerian state, including Port-Harcourt. Just like shopping for anything, people go to outskirts to find things cheaper. I know someone who lives in Owerri, but went to Aba to rent more beautiful wwedding gowns cheaper (one of her bridesmaids took her there).
You don’t have to go that far, but if you ask people around you (church people, neighbours, colleagues) or ask wedding items shop owners in the market for places that rent affordable gowns. Next is for you to go and check.
-Cheaper-than-n100k reception hall: Again, you have to ask people around you. People are hiring schools and gardens/ fields during the weekends to use as wedding reception venue. Some also have their reception inside their churches – because that is what they can afford.
Finally, you have to ensure to invite only a few people that your money can feed. Small weddings are in-vogue these days, and it’s better to invite 50 people and have a fantastic wedding, than invite a crowd of everybody you know and have a rowdy wedding that guests did not enjoy.
So, like I said – the only way your N300k can be enough for your wedding is if you decide that you will be okay with a small wedding, a not so popular venue, and that you will go somewhere far to hire your wedding gown. If you live in the expensive part of PH, go to other parts to check for wedding gown rentals within your budget.
I know you may have your eyes on N100k halls and not-so-cheap wedding gowns, but if all you have is N300k and do not want to postpone your wedding, you can still plan something good with what you have. You can still have a fun, small wedding.
Budget weddings are not for everyone, and it’s okay to wait a while and save up more money to afford the type of wedding you always dreamed of.
Hope that helps.
Why is souvenirs only 6 percent
Hi Dave, that is a suggestion and you are free to spend more on souvenirs, IF you have plenty money.
We suggest 6% because it is not a main requirement for a successful wedding. The idea is to spend more on the more important wedding-things, and less on others. Food, drinks and venue are top priority, and no wedding can happen without them, hence they have the biggest percentage spending.
By the way, some couples skip souvenirs, especially if they are planning with a tight budget.
Thank you for this article and the wedding calculator I thought I was going to be working for life the way she was explaining it
Hahaha – no, you would not need to work for life in order to save for a wedding.
Hi Victor, thanks for reading and especially for letting us know that our wedding budget calculator has helped you in allocating the amount you already have. >>Be sure to read our other helpful posts for grooms planning a Nigerian wedding.
I love it
good work
Thank you, Emeka. It’s my pleasure knowing that our Nigerian wedding budget calculator has helped you.
I think this is amazing, good work.
Thanks, Fisayo. I’m glad that you liked our Nigerian wedding budget calculator. Please tell your friends about it:)