Goal: Eliminate Overlooked spending RED FLAGS

Objective: Account for all of your developing Project Blocks so expenses aren’t overlooked

Focus: Sheet 2

Instruction: Bookkeeping

Favors, Postage, Projects & Accounting for GEG!

This assignment is all about Sheet 2 of your Excel. Hopefully you were able to navigate Assignment 1 and clearly organize your spreadsheet to fit your wedding. All GREEN text should now be a different color and anything that is NOT part of your wedding should have been deleted or the row removed entirely.

1. Note: Never delete any “TOTALS SPENT” rows as you’ll fault the equations for the whole spread sheet. The balances can be $0 and everything will work out.
2. Invitations- We will talk more about invitations VERY soon!
3. Money Saver- Make sure your Save the Date is a POSTCARD so you can mail it for the postcard stamp price. Or, include it with Christmas cards! And HAND DELIVER as many as you can! *THIS IS AN OFFICIAL GEG MONEY SAVING TIP*
4. The estimate in the cell that says $2.50 comes from Sheet 3. This is the total cost of your whole ensemble before shipping. Once you know it you can fill it in.
5. Cake- This is the cost per person, and then there is a formula applied to it based on how many people typically eat cake so you don’t over order. If you are planning to SAVE your top tier it DOESN’T count! Fill that in on your Wedding Contents Worksheet.
6. Project Blocks- Here is the biggest bookkeeping showdown. This is a new habit to form….
7. Track every purchase per block like a receipt in this Excel. If you buy paper, colored pencils, etc it lives here! You’ll want to know how much you paid for it for spending later! I will refer to this receipt format when bringing your items into The Reusable Wedding Program!
8. If you’re not estimating and the item is BOUGHT already you can change PURPLE cells to the matching Quantity in Column C

Sheet 3: Budget Estimates

A few fun facts about Sheet 3. This sheet is where you can input your WHOLE figure and have it broken down for you into estimated spending amounts for your wedding spending. You can also get a big picture early by plugging in your estimated expenses from vendors.

Option 1 | Estimations

Where I have written text in GREEN, you can replace with your own numbers. This will then be totaled and put into a formula with your TOTAL INVITED count from Sheet 1. For this to be accurate though, you'll need your count on Sheet 1 to be accurate.

For Example: In my first row I'm estimating that my favors will be $0.34 per person, but I only have 9 people in my count. Your number will be much higher once your Guest List is filled in.

So the formula estimation is based on Cost per person estimate {the green text} x the Number people invited. If you love to fiddle with formulas and spreadsheets this is a really fun sheet to work on!

Option 2 | Set Budget to Breakdown

What that means is, say you have a nice round number like, $10,000 to spend on your wedding. You're going to want to know which percentages of that finite budget should be spent where. So before you even start looking for a venue, you know that you'll need to find one for $900 {per my green text} to stay in your budget. Enter your whole number where I have put the GREEN text $10,000. Maybe your number is $5,000 or even $20,000. You'll see how much you're budget allows for each vendor.

Guest List Count: In the right hand formulas you'll see again that Guest List Count of 9 invited guests. So obviously, since I'm only "inviting 9" I get to spend $66.67 on each of them at the bar. Hooray! Unfortunately that number isn't accurate yet. The more guests you invite, the less you get to spend on each of them in order to stay within your budget. This Option set of formulas is GREAT for looking into catering options. You will eventually learn that $28 per person for Dinner doesn't get you very far on those fancy menus. Knowing this before you sign any contracts will save you a lot of changes in the future!