Indian Wedding Budget Calculator
From intimate to destination — plan your dream wedding without the debt
This calculator helps you estimate your wedding budget based on the style and scale you have in mind, then shows exactly how much to save each month to avoid taking on debt. Wedding loans carry 12–18% interest — starting a dedicated wedding fund even 3–5 years ahead can save lakhs in interest.
Enter your wedding style, expected guest count, and how many years away the wedding is. The calculator applies general inflation to give you the future cost and tells you the monthly SIP needed.
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How this calculator works
The calculator applies two key financial concepts: inflation adjustment and compound interest. First, it takes your goal's cost in today's money and inflates it to the future year using the inflation rate you specify (or a sensible default for your goal type). This gives you the "future rupees" target — the actual amount you'll need to pay in the future.
Then it uses the PMT formula (standard financial planning math) to calculate the monthly SIP needed to accumulate that future target, assuming your investments grow at the expected return rate. It also shows the lump-sum amount you'd need to invest today (the present value at that same return rate) as an alternative to SIP.
All calculations are in nominal (future) rupees, not real (today's) rupees. This is the correct way to plan — you need to save enough future rupees to pay the future price, not today's price.
Frequently Asked Questions
It varies enormously by city and scale. A simple wedding (100 guests, 1–2 functions) costs ₹5–10 lakh. A traditional multi-day wedding for 300 guests in a metro runs ₹20–40 lakh. A grand big-fat wedding (500–800 guests) can cost ₹50 lakh to ₹2 crore. Destination weddings start at ₹50 lakh.
A destination wedding at a heritage hotel (Udaipur, Jaisalmer) for 100–150 guests typically costs ₹60 lakh to ₹1.2 crore including venue, décor, catering, accommodation for guests, and travel logistics. International destination weddings (Bali, Thailand) for similar guest count: ₹80 lakh to ₹1.5 crore.
Ideally 4–7 years before the wedding date. This gives you enough time to build the corpus via SIP in balanced or hybrid mutual funds, which are less volatile than pure equity over a 5-year horizon. Starting 2 years before forces you into either large monthly savings or debt.
Venue: 20–30%. Catering: 25–35%. Décor/flowers: 15–20%. Photography/videography: 8–12%. Clothing and jewellery: 10–15%. Entertainment/DJ: 5–8%. Catering is the biggest variable — per-plate costs range from ₹400 (simple veg) to ₹2,500+ (premium multi-cuisine).
Saving is far better. Personal loans for weddings carry 12–18% interest rates. On a ₹20 lakh loan over 3 years, you'd pay ₹5–7 lakh in interest — money that could have been your honeymoon or home down payment. Start a dedicated wedding SIP 4–5 years before the date and avoid debt entirely.
For a 5+ year horizon: equity-oriented hybrid funds or large-cap equity funds. For 2–4 years: conservative hybrid funds or short-duration debt funds. Avoid pure equity for timelines under 3 years — market volatility can hurt you when you need the money. Liquid funds for the final 6–12 months.