If you're like most brides, your fantasy wedding is going to require some cold hard cash. It's an unfortunate fact of life that ice sculptures and chocolate fountains aren't free. That's why you need a budget from the start.

Planning your budget might bring your wedding fantasies into reality, but it doesn't have to ruin your big day. You can still have the wedding you've always dreamed of - even if you have to make some small sacrifices.

Here is our list of things that you should remember when sitting down to plan your wedding budget. We also have a template for planning your wedding budget available for download as an Excel spreadsheet in our Premium Content. Our spreadsheet will help you estimate how much of your budget should be spent on each item based on the typical budget allocation at a wedding.

If you want to plan the budget without the spreadsheet, start by making a list of everything that you need to spend money on and have two columns - one column for the budget and one for what you actually spent. You'll probably want to sit down and plan this with the people who will be paying for it.