Wedding Budget Spreadsheet by Guest Count, Per Head Costs Update, Excel

A wedding budget built around one number: your guest count. Change it on the Setup tab, and every per-guest, per-table and per-invitation line recalculates, along with the total.

Budget tab: 27 starter lines, such as Dinner, Bar, Linens and Invitations, and room for 60. Each line has a cost basis: Flat, Per guest, Per table or Per invitation. Type a planned price, a quoted price and what you have paid. The sheet shows units, planned cost, quoted cost, working cost and what is left to pay. A Minimum units column handles a caterer with an 80-guest minimum. A Service and tax % column adds those to the line.

Guest Count Compare tab: type six guest counts, such as 80, 100 and 120, and see every line, the total and the cost per guest at each one.

Budget Summary tab: working total, budget left, paid, left to pay, a table by category, a chart, and your next 12 payments in date order.

The Check column on Budget names what needs a look, such as Quote over plan, Payment late or Overpaid.

The Example file has made-up vendors and prices, and they are not a guide to what anything costs. The Blank file has the starter lines and no prices.

WHAT'S INCLUDED
- Wedding-Budget-by-Guest-Count-Example.xlsx, filled in with made-up vendors and prices
- Wedding-Budget-by-Guest-Count-Blank.xlsx, with starter lines and no prices

Tabs in each: Start Here, Setup, Budget Summary, Budget, Guest Count Compare. Digital download. Nothing is shipped.

COMPATIBILITY
An .xlsx workbook with ordinary formulas. No macros and no add-ins. A script recalculated it in LibreOffice 26.8 and compared the results with a separate Python calculation. Another script confirmed it uses no LAMBDA, LET, XLOOKUP or spill formulas. A script also opened this file in Microsoft Excel for Mac 16.114.3 and ran a full recalculation: every cell matched the values stored in the file, with no error cells. That test did not type new data into Excel or look at the screen. Excel for Windows and Google Sheets have not been tried, and the menu steps below have not been tried in Excel or Google Sheets.

QUESTIONS AND HOW-TO
How does it know what follows the guest count?
Each line has a Cost basis. Flat stays the same. Per guest uses the guest count. Per table uses guests divided by guests per table, rounded up. Per invitation uses guests divided by guests per invitation, rounded up.

A vendor gave me one total, not a price per guest. What do I do?
Set that line to Flat and type the total in Quoted price. It will then stay the same when the guest count changes.

Does a quote replace my planned price?
In Working cost, yes. Planned cost stays on the row, and Quote minus plan shows the difference.

What about a caterer's minimum?
Type it in Minimum units. If your count is 60 and the minimum is 80, the line charges for 80.

Which currency does it use?
It shows plain numbers with no currency sign, so you can use any one.

Using this file in Excel
Open the .xlsx file. If a yellow bar says Protected View, click Enable Editing.
Type only in the colored input cells. The other cells hold formulas and are locked so they don't get overwritten by accident.
The Example file has made-up entries so you can see how it fills in. Start your own work in the Blank file.
Before you type anything, use File > Save As and give the Blank file a new name. That keeps a clean copy for next time.
To change a locked cell, go to Review > Unprotect Sheet. There is no password. If you edit a formula, the totals may stop being right.

Copying this file to Google Sheets
Open Google Sheets in a browser and start a blank spreadsheet.
Go to File > Import, choose the Upload tab and select the .xlsx file.
Under Import location choose Replace spreadsheet, then click Import data.
Your copy now lives in your own Google Drive. Name it with File > Rename.
Sheets may not keep the locks from the Excel file, so type only in the colored input cells.

HOW AI WAS USED
AI helped write the listing text, the how-to text, the task lists and the code that builds these files. Scripts tested units, planned cost, quoted cost, working cost, left to pay, the Check column, the category table, the payment list and the Guest Count Compare tab, on 10 sets of test data including the guest count changed on the same lines, a count of 0, tables on the exact boundary, a minimum above the count, a free quote and a full 60 lines. No person is claimed to have checked it unless stated here.

PLEASE NOTE
This file adds up what you type. Prices in the Example are made up and are not a guide to real costs. It gives no financial advice. License: for your personal use only. No resale or sharing of this file.