The Knot Budget Advisor: Your Realistic Wedding Budget Planner

Feeling stressed about making a budget and not sure where to start? Put down the paper bag, because there's a free, easy-to-use wedding budget planner tool that'll quickly become your budget bestie. The Knot budget tool (or officially, The Knot Budget Advisor) is a smart spending estimator that makes it easy to discover average wedding costs in your area and learn about factors that influence prices. This localized cost data from real couples will help you be as informed as possible before you craft a spending plan.

What are you waiting for? Let's get started on exploring local wedding prices with one of the best wedding planning resources on the market. Soon, you'll have a wedding budget breakdown that's totally custom to your needs.

Everything you need to know about the wedding budget planner: Why Use It? | Tool Overview | How to Use It

Why Use a Wedding Budget Planner Tool

Let's face it, it can be hard to stick to your wedding finances. Did you know that 71% of couples' top concern is knowing how to stay on budget? That's right, according to The Knot 2025 Economic Pulse Survey, planning with a budget continues to be a big challenge for to-be-weds. So, how can you work toward preventing that strain? It starts with setting realistic wedding plans that take into account what vendors really charge and how those figures vary regionally. That's where The Knot Budget Advisor comes in.

Learn About Factors That Influence Prices

Have you found yourself wondering: "Why are weddings so expensive?" The truth is that a lot of different factors contribute to the quotes you receive from potential vendors. From the scope of your event to vendor-specific nuances and even often-overlooked details like delivery fees, there are tons of hidden wedding costs you probably aren't aware of.

Get Educated to Set a Reasonable Wedding Budget

Just like you wouldn't visit a car mechanic or lawyer without researching them first, it's important to do your due diligence before you break out a wedding budget calculator to craft your spending plans. The Knot budget planner showcases average wedding costs in your area so you can rely on hard data instead of just guesstimating when deciding how much you want to spend on your wedding.

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See How Chosen Vendors Impact Your Total Estimate

According to The Knot 2025 Real Weddings Study, couples hire an average of 14 vendors for their wedding. But how do each of those vendors impact a budget? If you're booking a DJ rather than a band, how might that affect your total? Or what if you're hosting the wedding at home and won't need to pay for a venue? Our free wedding budget planner customizes estimates for you based on the vendors you plan to hire.

Get Pricing Estimates for Vendors

For every vendor, from catering to wedding planners, The Knot Budget Advisor provides a range of average prices that couples in your marrying location typically pay on any given vendor. This information is pulled from thousands of recently married couples in the US who shared their reported spending in research studies conducted by The Knot. In short, we did the hard work of asking all your friends what they paid so you don't have to wonder.

On-the-Go Planning You Can Rely On

Gone are the days of relying on rogue sticky notes to capture your wedding finance plans. This wedding budget planner app is just one of many useful assets you can access online and from the palm of your hand via The Knot App. Are you bored in the waiting room at the doctor's office? Now's the perfect time to explore pricing in your area.

See How Much You're Under or Over Your Budget

See how your goal budget stacks up to the amount you would realistically pay for your desired vendors. This helps you understand which vendors are a priority as well as what adjustments you need to make to your budget to accommodate those top vendors. Making these priority-based tweaks with ease is key when it comes to how to save on your wedding.

The Knot Budget Advisor Overview

Now the part you've been eagerly waiting for: an up-close look at how to use The Knot Budget Advisor. Think of this as your very own free, online wedding budget planner that offers customized price points for nearly every wedding vendor.

Design: Falak Khoja

How to Use The Knot Budget Advisor

Here's a step-by-step look at how to easily navigate one of the best wedding budget planners. After you have fun editing the colorful pie chart with your selections, check out our favorite wedding ideas on a budget and learn how to make extra money for the wedding.

1. Create an Account on The Knot

Did you know that, in addition to The Knot wedding budget tool, there's a whole suite of planning helpers for you to use? From The Knot Vendor Marketplace to free wedding websites, we have everything you need to plan your wedding successfully. So whether you utilize our tools via The Knot App while you're on the go or on your laptop as you wedding plan and chill, your account on The Knot will centralize all of your planning needs.

2. Enter Your Wedding Location

Perhaps you're trying to decide between two different potential wedding locations. Or maybe you've already picked a location and are ready to get down to brass tacks. Either way, you can enter a city into The Knot Budget Advisor and the tool will populate an average total spend for that location based on real couples.

3. Set a Goal Budget

Once you see the average amount that couples in your wedding location are spending, enter your goal budget on The Knot wedding budget planner. This will be the general cap you and your partner have in your heads for what you want to spend, but it doesn't have to be the final number, since you'll most likely adjust it based on the vendors you select in the next step.

4. Select Relevant Vendors and Add Custom Budget Amounts

In addition to the average total for your location, The Knot Budget Advisor will show an average spend for each vendor category you select in your marrying location and a graph that showcases the high-end and low-end costs that to-be-weds typically encounter. For example, if you want a photographer in Portland, Oregon, to-be-weds typically spend $1,060 to $3,030. Upon seeing that price range, you can input how much money you're willing to put towards your photographer budget. After you add this info for all of your vendor selections, you'll see a number to the left of your goal budget. This is the total of your custom vendor budget amounts. From here, you can see if you're over or under your goal budget.

5. Discover Price Estimates and Recommendations

The app and online wedding budget planner takes the guesswork out of applying the average spend amounts to the vendors you can afford by showing price estimates. These estimates are available for venues, photographers, videographers and florists, and appear under each vendor type. This makes it easy to see how they compare to the budgets you set for each specific pro category.

Additional reporting by Chapelle Johnson