Can I expense my own wedding as part of marketing material for my wedding planning business?

[MeltedIceCream]

Hi All,

My fiance started her own wedding planning business in 2024. It also happens that we also are going to be married in 2025, but have incurred a lot of our own wedding expenses in 2024. These expenses relate to photography, deposits for the catering/venue, and flights to go meet certain vendors. We hope to use all the content from our own wedding as part of the marketing material for her wedding planning business.

My question is - how much of the wedding are we allowed to expense for this? There doesn't seem to be any rules, and it appears to be related to her ordinary course of business.

Expense Categories

1. Cost of Venue

2. Flights/Lodging to meet with Vendors

3. Photography

4. Business meals to meet with Vendors

[xmasbaby0]

You are not yet legally married----so there is no "we" in regard to your 2024 tax return.   You cannot file a joint return or use your spouse's business expenses on your own tax return.   You are Single for 2024, and so is your GF.   Nothing related to your GF's business can go on your tax return.    If you are not legally married at the end of 2024, you can only file as Single.  

As for whether your GF can use any of those 2024 personal wedding expenses on HER  2024 tax return-----we can gather some thoughts from some other Champs....

@DoninGA      @Mike9241    @rjs 

[rjs]

My feeling is that none of the cost of your fiancée's own wedding is a valid business expense. I'm sure that having the business pay the cost of your own wedding is not "common and accepted in your field of business." Her wedding is a personal expense that she would incur even if she were not in the wedding planning business. If her purpose for getting married is to produce marketing material for her business, you should probably rethink the relationship.

For the travel and meals in particular, IRC Section 162(a)(2) says you can deduct travel expenses "while away from home in the pursuit of a trade or business." But she is not away from home in the pursuit of a trade or business. She is away from home to arrange her own wedding. And if any of the travel expenses are for you, they are certainly not business expenses.

[Mike9241]

please see this link and look at the discussion under "promotional event" and later. There are other blogs about deductibility of wedding expenses but few discuss the situation when one is in the business of wedding planning. 

https://bizfluent.com/can-wedding-costs-be-deducted-as-a-business-expense.html 

There is no right answer in your situation. if audited facts and circumstances would be taken into account. I also have to agree that since you are not married in 2024 it's not your business (you say it's her business) so you have no deductible expenses. I strongly recommend consulting with a tax pro when doing each of your 1040's for 2024 and also get advice for 2025.

being too aggressive in deducting expenses, COULD result in IRS disallowance.