Almost nobody blows a wedding budget on the venue. They blow it on eighteen small lines that were never on the spreadsheet — a service charge that is not a tip, sales tax applied per line rather than once at the bottom, an hour of overtime, a fee for cutting a cake you already paid for. Here is every one of them, priced against the same 120-guest budget, so you can see exactly how far over a finished-looking plan really is.
These three are percentages rather than fixed amounts, which is why they are so easy to miss and so expensive when they land — they grow with everything else on the page. Together they are $6,640 on a 120-guest budget of $43,725, more than twice the 8% buffer that was supposed to absorb them. Every figure below is national pricing at standard service.
Catering service charge · 20% of the catering line Catering & bar $11,950 Service charge (20%) $2,390 Your 8% buffer lifts to $3,425 Total $43,725 → $46,290 · $2,565 over Not a gratuity: a mandatory charge is treated as wages, and the venue decides who receives it.
Source: Revenue Ruling 2012-18 — mandatory service charges are wages, not tips — Internal Revenue Service, Internal Revenue Bulletin 2012-26, 2012
Sales tax on food, drink and rentals · 7% Taxable subtotal $40,475 Sales tax (7%) $2,835 Your 8% buffer lifts to $3,475 Total $43,725 → $46,785 · $3,060 over The US average combined state and local rate is 7.53%. Some of your lines are exempt and some are not — apply it line by line, not once at the bottom.
Source: Combined state and local sales tax rates — 7.53% population-weighted national average, 8.875% in New York City — Tax Foundation, State and Local Sales Tax Rates, 2026
Vendor tips · 3.5% of the subtotal Taxable subtotal $40,475 Cash set aside (3.5%) $1,415 Your 8% buffer lifts to $3,350 Total $43,725 → $45,240 · $1,515 over Customary, never owed, and separate from the service charge above. Read each contract before you set the number.
Source: Text My Wedding budget model, reviewed August 2026 — Text My Wedding, 2026
The calculator below is preset to 120 guests with all eighteen of these switches off, exactly like the spreadsheet you already have. Flip them on one at a time and the total climbs in front of you, in your browser.
This is the group people find most annoying, because every one of them is a charge for handling something you bought elsewhere. They are also the group you can most often negotiate away, or at least find in the contract before you sign it rather than on the final invoice. Five switches, $3,195 together at 120 guests.
Cake-cutting fee · $2.50 a guest Guests 120 Cake-cutting fee $300 Total $43,725 → $44,025 · $300 over Charged for plating a cake you bought from someone else. Ask what it is before you order, not after.
Source: Text My Wedding budget model, reviewed August 2026 — Text My Wedding, 2026
Corkage · $12 a guest Guests 120 Corkage $1,440 Your 8% buffer lifts to $3,350 Total $43,725 → $45,265 · $1,540 over The fee for pouring alcohol you supplied. Compare it against the bar package before you decide buying your own is cheaper.
Source: Text My Wedding budget model, reviewed August 2026 — Text My Wedding, 2026
Delivery, setup and strike · flat Tables, chairs, linen, glassware, staging Delivery and setup fees $450 Your 8% buffer lifts to $3,275 Total $43,725 → $44,200 · $475 over Rental quotes are for the items. Getting them there, standing them up and taking them away at 1am is a separate line.
Source: Text My Wedding budget model, reviewed August 2026 — Text My Wedding, 2026
Rental damage waiver · 1% of the subtotal Taxable subtotal $40,475 Damage waiver (1%) $405 Your 8% buffer lifts to $3,275 Total $43,725 → $44,155 · $430 over Usually non-optional and usually not insurance — it caps what you owe for a broken glass, nothing more.
Source: Text My Wedding budget model, reviewed August 2026 — Text My Wedding, 2026
One hour of vendor overtime · flat Scheduled end 11pm Actual end 12am Overtime $600 Your 8% buffer lifts to $3,275 Total $43,725 → $44,350 · $625 over The venue, the band, the photographer and the shuttle each bill their own overtime rate. Get all four in writing before the day.
Source: Text My Wedding budget model, reviewed August 2026 — Text My Wedding, 2026
None of these appear on a single vendor's quote, because none of them belong to a single vendor. They are the cost of putting 120 people in one place for eight hours and getting them home again — and four of the five scale with the guest list, so they move every time the list does.
Vendor and band meals · flat Photo team, videographer, DJ or band, planner Vendor meals $340 Your 8% buffer lifts to $3,275 Total $43,725 → $44,090 · $365 over About ten meals at the reduced vendor rate. A nine-piece band plus a photo team of three is twelve on its own — count the heads your contracts actually cover.
Source: Food away from home price index, used to age catering figures forward — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index, 2026
Parking and day-of transportation · $9 a guest Guests 120 Parking and shuttle $1,080 Your 8% buffer lifts to $3,325 Total $43,725 → $44,880 · $1,155 over Valet, paid parking or a shuttle loop between the hotel and the venue. Every rural or no-parking venue turns this on.
Source: Text My Wedding budget model, reviewed August 2026 — Text My Wedding, 2026
Weather backup · flat Tent, sidewalls, flooring, heaters Rain plan $1,400 Your 8% buffer lifts to $3,350 Total $43,725 → $45,225 · $1,500 over Reserved weeks out, paid whether it rains or not. An outdoor ceremony with no indoor room that fits everyone is not a plan.
Source: Text My Wedding budget model, reviewed August 2026 — Text My Wedding, 2026
Event insurance · flat Liability, and cancellation if you add it Event insurance $220 Total $43,725 → $43,945 · $220 over The cheapest line on this page and increasingly a condition of the venue contract rather than a choice.
Source: Text My Wedding budget model, reviewed August 2026 — Text My Wedding, 2026
Day-after brunch · $24 a guest Guests staying over 120 Day-after brunch $2,880 Your 8% buffer lifts to $3,475 Total $43,725 → $46,830 · $3,105 over The single most expensive optional line here. Cap the invitation list or make it coffee and pastries — this is where a whole-weekend wedding stops being one budget.
Source: Food away from home price index, used to age catering figures forward — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index, 2026
Individually these are the smallest switches on the page — $60 here, $220 there. Together they are $1,370, which is most of what a couple sets aside for flowers, and they are the ones that get paid on a credit card in the last three weeks because nobody wrote them down.
Marriage licence · flat County clerk fee $60 Total $43,725 → $43,785 · $60 over Set by the state or county, not by anyone in the wedding industry — Texas publishes $60, and $100 for out-of-state applicants. One phone call confirms yours exactly.
Source: Published marriage licence fee, used as the anchor for the licence line — Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Manual of Accounts, 2026
Alterations · flat Dress or suit, two to three fittings Alterations $480 Your 8% buffer lifts to $3,275 Total $43,725 → $44,230 · $505 over Quoted on the garment, never included in it. Bustles, hems and a second fitting are each priced separately by most shops.
Source: Text My Wedding budget model, reviewed August 2026 — Text My Wedding, 2026
Hair and makeup trials · flat Trial for two, ahead of the day Trials $220 Total $43,725 → $43,945 · $220 over Billed on top of the day-of rate, and usually twice if the first one is not right.
Source: Text My Wedding budget model, reviewed August 2026 — Text My Wedding, 2026
Postage, both directions · 65 households Save the date $0.82 Invitation suite, 2 oz $1.11 RSVP reply stamp $0.82 Square-envelope surcharge $0.49 Per household ~$3.20 65 households $210 Total $43,725 → $43,935 · $210 over Priced per address, not per guest — and the reply stamp is postage you buy for envelopes that mostly never come back.
Source: First-Class Mail prices: $0.82 first ounce, $0.29 each additional ounce, $0.49 nonmachinable surcharge, $0.65 postcard — U.S. Postal Service, Notice 123 Price List, effective 12 July 2026, 2026
Welcome bags and wedding party gifts · flat Hotel welcome bags, gifts for the party Bags and gifts $400 Your 8% buffer lifts to $3,275 Total $43,725 → $44,150 · $425 over Bought late, in a hurry, in a quantity nobody agreed on. Decide the head count for this one the same week you decide the guest list.
Source: Text My Wedding budget model, reviewed August 2026 — Text My Wedding, 2026
You will not be hit by all eighteen. Which ones land depends almost entirely on the kind of venue you booked and who is allowed to bring what through the door. Find yourself below and start with that number.
Add the service charge and the tax before anything else: $2,390 plus $2,835 at 120 guests, or $5,225 on top of a $11,950 catering line. Both are contractual, and neither is a tip.
The surprise lands on the venue line, not the catering line — delivery, setup and strike are $450 in this model, the rental damage waiver another $405, and power, water and restrooms are quoted separately at an at-home wedding.
Price the corkage before you celebrate: $12 a head is $1,440 at 120 guests, which cancels a large part of what buying your own bottles saved you.
Do not budget both at full rate. The service charge is a contractual fee the venue distributes as it chooses; a tip is discretionary. Set aside a smaller cash figure — $1,415 at this budget — rather than stacking 20% on 20%.
Budget the rain plan as a real line, not a maybe: $1,400 for a tent, sidewalls and flooring, and it has to be decided about a week out whether you use it or not.
Four extra names is $775 at 120 guests, and ten is about $1,850 — roughly $173 a head once the buffer moves with it. Re-run the total whenever the list does.
Two of the eighteen switches are worth more than the other sixteen put together, and both are percentages written into a contract you can read today. Work down this list in order — by the time you reach the bottom you are arguing about $60 fees, which is the right problem to have. Biggest first.
A hotel, club or full-service caterer adds a service charge — 20% in this model, or $2,390 on an $11,950 catering line — and then sales tax lands on top of it. That single pair of lines is 12.9% of the whole budget, and it is decided the day you pick the venue.
$2,835 here. The population-weighted average combined state and local rate is 7.53%, but what is taxable is not uniform: prepared food and rentals almost always are, professional services often are not. Apply it per line, not once at the bottom, or you will be wrong in both directions.
Four names added after the budget was signed off is $775; ten is about $1,850. Nobody experiences this as a decision, which is exactly why it lands — the list grows one cousin at a time between the venue deposit and the final head count.
$1,440 at 120 guests, and it is charged specifically because you saved money on the bottles. Get the corkage rate in writing before you compare BYO against the venue's bar package, because it frequently erases the difference.
The venue, the band, the photographer and the shuttle each have their own overtime rate, and an evening that overruns triggers all of them together. This is the only line on the page that can be bought back on the day, by ending on time.
A tent with sidewalls, flooring and heaters is reserved weeks in advance and paid for whether the sun shines or not. If the venue's plan B is a room that seats sixty and your list is 120, you do not have a plan B.
You cannot avoid most of these lines. You can stop them being a surprise, which is the whole difference between a budget that holds and one that does not.
The words are: what is the total I will pay, including the service charge, tax, delivery, overtime rates and anything billed after the event? Vendors answer this readily. The quote you were emailed is almost never that number, and the gap is the subject of this whole page.
The service charge and the sales tax are $5,225 of the $6,640 that the top three switches add. They are also the two you can confirm today, from a contract and a state revenue website, without asking anyone for a favour. Everything else on the page is arithmetic once those are pinned down.
Six of the eighteen are per-guest lines — cake cutting, corkage, parking, brunch and the two that scale through the subtotal. A guest list that drifts from 120 to 130 does not just add plates; it adds about $1,850 across a dozen lines at once.
Each of these produces a budget that balances perfectly on paper and is wrong by thousands by the time the last invoice arrives. The first two are the most expensive mistakes in this entire cluster.
A mandatory service charge is a contractual fee, not a gratuity — the IRS treats it as wages rather than a tip, and the venue decides how it is distributed. Budget it as a cost of catering. Then, separately and smaller, decide what cash you want to hand over on the day: $1,415 rather than another $2,390.
Tax is charged per line, at your state and local rate, on the lines that are taxable — food, drink and rentals almost always; photography and planning services often not. A single 7% swipe at the end of the spreadsheet overstates some lines and misses others, and the two errors do not cancel out.
A courtesy block costs nothing and carries no obligation. A contracted block often makes you liable for a share of the rooms your guests do not book. Ask which one you are signing, what percentage you are on the hook for, and by what date it releases — before you count the block as a guest perk that costs you zero.
A backyard has no kitchen, no restrooms for 120 people, no power for a band and a caterer, no parking and no liability cover. Generators, restroom trailers, a tent, flooring and event insurance routinely take an at-home wedding past what the venue you rejected would have charged — and none of it appears in the catering quote.
Four extra names is $775 and ten is about $1,850 at this budget, and it never arrives as a decision — it arrives as one more cousin, twice. Lock the list, then price it. If it moves after that, re-run the total rather than assuming a few more people cannot matter.
The 8% buffer on a 120-guest budget is $3,250. The three contract lines at the top of this page are $6,640. If the buffer has already been reallocated to flowers, it was never a buffer — and it was never big enough on its own anyway, which is the reason this page exists.
120 guests is 65 mailing addresses, and each one is a save the date, an invitation suite at two ounces, a reply stamp you buy for envelopes that mostly never come back, and a nonmachinable surcharge if the envelope is square. That is about $3.20 a household, not per person — and the reply half is pure loss.
Preset to 120 guests at national standard pricing, with every hidden cost on this page switched off — the budget as your spreadsheet currently has it. Turn them on one at a time and watch the total climb past the 8% buffer that was meant to cover them. Everything runs right in your browser — no account, no saved budget, and your guest count and dollar figures never leave this page. We do record anonymous, coarse usage: a size range rather than your number, and which options you picked, so we know the tool is working.
Change anything — the allocation rebuilds as you go.
Last updated 2026-08-10
The eighteen that land most often are the catering service charge, sales tax, gratuities, vendor and band meals, overtime, delivery and setup, cake cutting, corkage, the rental damage waiver, the marriage licence, alterations, hair and makeup trials, postage both ways, welcome bags and party gifts, parking and shuttles, event insurance, a weather backup, and a day-after brunch. On a $43,725 budget for 120 guests they add between $5,600 and $10,800.
No. A mandatory service charge is a contractual fee — the IRS treats it as wages rather than a tip, and the venue decides how it is distributed. A gratuity is discretionary and goes to the people you choose. Budget the service charge as a cost of catering, then set a separate, smaller cash figure for tips: about $1,415 on this budget rather than a second $2,390.
In most states, yes — prepared food, drink and rentals are almost always taxable, and the tax is usually charged on the service charge too. The US population-weighted average combined state and local rate is 7.53%; at 7% on a $40,475 subtotal that is $2,835. Professional services such as photography and planning are exempt in many states, so apply the rate line by line rather than once at the bottom.
An 8% buffer — $3,250 on a $43,725 budget — is the usual advice and it is not enough on its own, because the service charge and the tax alone are $5,225. The reliable approach is the opposite one: price the specific lines rather than holding back a percentage, then keep the 8% for things nobody could have listed.
It is a per-slice charge for plating and serving a cake you bought from an outside baker — $2.50 a guest, or $300 at 120. Some venues waive it if you order the cake through them, some drop it if you ask during the contract negotiation, and a dessert table or a cake you cut yourselves sidesteps it entirely. Ask what the fee is before you order the cake, not after.
A per-guest or per-bottle fee for serving alcohol you supplied yourself — $12 a head in this model, or $1,440 at 120 guests. It exists to recover what the venue loses on its own bar, so get the rate in writing before you decide that bringing your own is cheaper. Quite often it is not.
Budget about $600 for one hour past the scheduled end, and remember that the venue, the band, the photographer and the shuttle each bill their own rate — one late evening triggers several invoices at once. Ask every vendor for their hourly overtime rate at contract stage and write all of them in one place.
Liability cover is around $220 and is increasingly required by the venue contract rather than optional, particularly for at-home and raw-space weddings. Cancellation and postponement cover is a separate, larger policy and is a judgement call. Check what your venue actually requires before you shop for either.
Seventeen of the eighteen costs on this page are non-negotiable. The paper one is not. Text My Wedding sends the save the date, the invitation and the reminders, collects the RSVPs and the addresses, and chases the people who have not replied — so the reply stamp on 65 envelopes stops being something you buy and lose.
At 120 guests you are mailing 65 households: $1,675 of printed stationery plus $210 of postage in both directions, and the reply half is money you spend on envelopes that mostly never come back. Sending the same three mailings by text — and collecting the replies — is $87, once, for up to 1,200 messages, which is three each to about 400 guests.
