The budget
A wedding budget app that knows what you have actually paid
Quotes, deposits and balances against one total. Shared with your partner. Reads the number out of the quote for you.
Most wedding budget tools are a spreadsheet with a logo: a planned column, an actual column, and no idea what has been paid.
UNSTAGED tracks the budget the way the money actually moves. Every category holds line items; every line item holds the quote, the deposit and the balance, with dates. The total on screen is the real total, quoted and paid, not the one you wrote down in month one. And because it is the same wedding your partner is signed in to, the number is the same on both phones.
Attach a supplier quote as a PDF or a photo and the amount is read out of it for you, with a note on how sure the read is, so the line in the budget is the line in the document.
One
Set the total once
What you have, what others are giving, ten percent held back. The total is the number every line answers to, and it stays on screen.
Two
Split it into lines
Venue, food and drink, photography, flowers, the long tail. Each category holds line items, and each line item holds its quote, its deposits and its balance.
Three
Attach the quote and let it read the number
A PDF or a photo of the quote goes on the line. The amount is read out of it and the document stays where you can find it in month eleven.
Four
Record payments the day they happen
Deposit paid, balance due, both of you can see it. The real total updates as it moves, not at the end of the month.
Questions couples ask
- Does it track what we have actually paid, or only what we planned?
- Both, per line. Every category holds line items, and each line item carries its quote and its payments with dates, so the app shows planned, quoted and paid side by side and the real total as it moves. A deposit paid today changes the balance owed today.
- Can it read a supplier quote?
- Yes. Attach a quote as a PDF or a photo to a vendor or a line item and UNSTAGED reads the amount out of it, with a note on how confident it is, so the number in the budget is the number on the document. The document stays attached to the line.
- Do we both see the same budget?
- Yes. One wedding, both of you signed in, the same lines and the same total on both phones and in the browser. When one of you adds a payment the other sees it.
- What happens when a line goes over?
- The line shows it, and the total shows it. The app does not hide an overspend inside a category; the remaining amount against the total is always visible, which is the point of tracking it as one number.
- Which currencies does it work in?
- The budget is kept in the currency you choose at setup. Most couples using UNSTAGED plan in US dollars, pounds, euros, or Canadian or Australian dollars.
- Is the budget separate from the rest of the planning?
- No. The same wedding holds the vendor list, so a quote attached to a florist is the florist line in the budget; the guest count feeds the per-head lines; the to-do list follows the same categories. It is one plan, not a budget tool beside one.
Setting the number first? Read how to set a wedding budget, the budget breakdown and where the wedding money actually goes.