As a professional wedding planner, I can safely say that one of the biggest sources of wedding planning stress for engaged couples comes from the wedding budget. Wedding budgets are personal and vary with each couple. Sure, you may be spending the same dollar amount as another bride, but your specific priorities as to how that money is allocated is unique to you and your fiance.

If you're newly engaged, you've probably already learned in these first couple weeks of bling bliss that your budget is not going to cover every piece of inspiration you've pulled from the bridal magazines and wedding blogs. Over the coming months, the topic of money as it relates to your wedding will cause stress. Realizing that fact now, at the beginning of the process, and taking steps to keep a realistic outlook will help you tremendously in dealing with this stress.

I recently read this quote by Ben Stein in a piece he wrote for The New York Times, addressing the financial events of 2008, and I wanted to share it here:

"We are more than our investments. We are more than the year-to-year or day-by-day changes in our net worth. We are what we do for charity. We are how we treat our family and friends. We are how we treat our dogs and cats. We are what we do for our community and our nation. If you had $100 million or $100,000 a year ago and now you have a lot less, you are still the same person. You are not a balance sheet, at least not one denominated in money, as was explained to me recently.

Losing and making money are not moral issues so long as you are being honest. You may have a lot less money as this year ends than you did two years ago. But you are just as good or bad a person as you were then. It is a myth that money determines who you are, and if you have gotten over that myth by now, then 2008 will have been a very good year. " (emphasis mine)

I am going to take the liberty of adding a wedding-related twist to Stein's wisdom: It is a myth that your wedding budget determines who you are.

When you get wedding envy because another bride on another blog has something you'd love but just can't swing, repeat the newfound mantra above.

Whether your wedding budget is $10,000 or $100,000, when all is said and done, you will have married the person you can't imagine spending life without.  And that is what it is really all about anyway.