Every wedding has a budget. Some budgets may be larger than others, some are smaller, but there is always a limit of how much can be spent. For that reason at any budget range or price range it is necessary to sit down and have some trade-offs.

Unfortunately, people rarely think in advance about what they want to accomplish with the wedding itself. As a result many people spend a very large amount of money but they are then disappointed afterwards that they didn't earmark or allocate the money differently.

Let's think about the various options that are available. They include the following, but of course this is not a complete list. You might have different ideas of what is important to you. However, these are typical issues raised by people after the wedding.

• Luxury. Some people want to have a wedding so that people will see how beautiful it is. The reasoning is usually along the lines of "you only get married once so let's do it right this time."
• Consideration. Some people want to spend extra money on being considerate to their guests. They would therefore go to a place which meets the highest levels of kashrut so that every guest would be able to eat. A place perhaps that offers also special diets for people who require them.
• Memories. Some people might want to the wedding to be memorable so they will give out fancy souvenirs that are worth keeping for an extended period of time, such as a serious book that somehow is relevant to the period of time or the season rather than a small bentcher. Their reasoning would be something like "you only get married once so I want people to remember this wedding."
• Guests. Some people might feel that the most important part of their wedding is the crowds, the number of people who come, and they don't want to leave out anybody. They want all of their friends and relatives to be able to come. Their reasoning might be "you only get married once and I want everybody to be there."
• Home. Some people might feel that once the wedding is gone, finished, and it's just going to be several hours, 4-5 hours in one evening, then it's gone but their home is forever and they would like to be able to spend as much money as possible from the limited budget on furnishings that will last for them or on a down payment for their home.

None of these possibilities are better or worse than any other. They are all a matter of personal style and the decision has to be made between the couple and the parents who are paying for the wedding in order to be able to find a happy meeting place.

There will be compromises in this list. But once you have a list, once you know what you want to accomplish with the wedding then you can allocate the money in a wiser manner. Indeed, some people might say that a very fancy invitation would get thrown out, whereas a bentcher would be saved. So it would make a lot of sense to have an invitation that costs much less, but a bentcher that costs much more. This is a tradeoff that they would have to consider.

Unfortunately, most people do not think about these options. Others might indeed say that a five hour wedding is forgotten afterwards. When you think of it from the point of view of the guests, guests go to many weddings and there really isn't that much that can possibly be different from one wedding to another, they might say. Is it worth investing to make a wedding more memorable? So perhaps more should be spent on the souvenir that is remembered and the people will think of you each time they use it or refer to it or on their own needs when they are setting up their home. After all, most couples are young and they do not yet have enough money saved up in order to be able to set up their home properly. This might be a way to get a head start in that direction.

In the excitement of the moment of the wedding preparations, these plans are often forgotten. Somehow people spend a great deal of time on the color scheme for the flowers, but much less on what they want to accomplish with the wedding itself.

Perhaps some planning would change these priorities and result in a more satisfying result from the wedding.