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About this tool
Split a wedding budget by category, get cost per guest and a phase checklist, then copy a planning prompt built from those numbers.
Wedding Planning Prompt Builder divides a fixed wedding budget across categories, derives the all-in cost per guest and the per-plate catering budget, and places you in a planning phase based on the months remaining. The category percentages are planner rules of thumb — including the 10% contingency most planning guides advise holding back — applied to your own total rather than to national averages. The output is a planning prompt that already carries those numbers, so an AI assistant answers about your wedding rather than a generic one.
Open Wedding Planning Prompt Builder on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Add your input to the workspace.
Adjust the options until the result looks right.
Copy or download the output and put it to work.
Turns a headline budget into the per-head figure caterers actually quote against.
10% is held back before the plan is made, so the committed spend figure is honest.
Shows only the work that belongs to the months you have left.
Venue and catering is usually the largest single line, commonly around 40 to 50 percent of the total, with photography and video near 10 to 12 percent. These are planning rules of thumb rather than fixed rates, and they shift for multi-event weddings where outfits, decor and guest accommodation take a bigger share.
Hold back about 10 percent of the total. Overruns come from guest-count creep, extra service hours, delivery and setup fees, and last-minute additions, and a plan built on 100 percent of the budget has no room for any of them.
Divide the total budget by the confirmed guest count for the all-in figure, then divide only the catering allocation by the same count for the plate budget. The second number is the one caterers quote against, and it is always much lower than the first, which is why headline budgets feel bigger than they are.
Vendors who take one booking per date — venue, caterer, photographer — go first, ideally nine to twelve months out. Outfits, invitations and decor follow at six to nine months, menu tasting and RSVPs at three to six, and the final headcount, seating and outstanding payments in the last month. Confirm your own caterer's headcount cut-off, since it varies by contract.