A wedding budget that keeps up with reality
A spreadsheet works until the first deposit is paid. Then come due dates, balances, contributions from parents and the question “what is this actually costing us per head” — which a spreadsheet answers badly, because it does not recalculate when you cut three guests.
Plan beside reality, by category
Every line has an estimate and an actual price. You see where you are under and where you are over — by category and in total. Per-person lines, typically catering, recalculate live from the guest list: a family of four drops out and the budget moves by itself.
Deposits and balances with dates
Each line can carry its payments: a deposit on signing, the balance a week before. Every dated payment appears in the wedding checklist on its own, and a reminder goes out by email the day before it is due. “We forgot to pay the venue” does not happen.
Who pays for what
Weddings are often paid for by three parties: the couple and both sets of parents. Every line has a payer, so “what is this costing us out of our own pocket” is visible separately from the total cost of the wedding — both numbers, no guessing. A contribution can be recorded under a name (“the bride’s parents”, “grandmother”), because a contributor usually has no account and does not need one.
Per-person prices work themselves out
You mark a line as per-person — catering, cake, welcome drinks — and give a price per head. The total is then computed live from the guest list: a family of four declines and the budget moves without anything being retyped. While the list is empty the line honestly says it does not know the total yet, rather than showing zero and implying it is free.
Overdue looks overdue
An unpaid payment whose date has passed is highlighted — and “has passed” is measured in the wedding’s own time zone rather than wherever you happen to be. Paid and unpaid are two states, not one field with a note in it.
Overspend sits with the line that caused it
The estimate and the actual are side by side, so going over budget is not a discovery at the end — it is visible on a specific line. Per-person lines are compared against the recalculated estimate rather than the original figure, so catering does not surprise you merely because more people are coming.
Money promised and money received are two numbers
A family that pledged a hundred thousand and has sent nothing has paid nothing. A budget that added those together would let you sign for a venue against money that never arrived — which is exactly the mistake this separation exists to stop. Every contribution carries both the pledge and the amount actually received. The share each side has funded — the sensitive “how much did which family give” — is computed from money received, not from promises.
Common questions
- Do I have to fill the whole budget in up front?
- No. You start with what you know — venue, catering, photographer — and the rest arrives as quotes do. A line without an actual price simply does not have one yet; nothing forces you to invent a number you would only overwrite.
- What happens to the budget when the headcount changes?
- Lines marked per-person recalculate themselves; the others stay. That is why it pays to enter catering as a price per head rather than a total: the guest list moves throughout the planning, and the budget then moves with it.
- Can I record that our parents are paying for part of it?
- Yes. Contributions are tracked separately from spending and can name who they came from — “the groom’s parents”, say. That gives you the total cost of the wedding and the amount coming out of your own pocket as two distinct figures.
- Will it remind me when a deposit is due?
- A dated payment appears in the wedding checklist by itself and an email goes out the day before. Unpaid payments past their date are highlighted in the budget as well, so they are not discovered at the next one.
- What if I do not know exactly who a contribution came from?
- Leave the party blank. The contribution stays as its own row rather than being folded in with the others — inventing an attribution you never made is worse than admitting one is missing. You can fill it in later.
- Do the family shares always add up to a hundred per cent?
- Not necessarily. Shares round down, so three parties at a third each show 33, 33 and 33, and one per cent is missing. That is more honest than handing the remainder to whoever sorts first: a number nobody actually gave would then look like a fact.
- Is the budget free?
- You can read it for free. Writing to it is part of the full version, a single payment of 490 CZK — one payment, with no automatic renewal.