I noticed a few people in the "Overheard at Work" thread that have been married recently, or are planning a wedding right now! I am in the latter category, and thought it might be fun/helpful to share our experiences and costs.
- My fiance and I are overspending on an officiant ($600!) because it is really important to him and his parents.
- My dress was $50. It needs alterations, and I would like to find a shrug or sweater and new shoes.
- We are emailing out our invitations because the wedding is in 4 months and also we just don't want to spend $50+ on mailing things.
- I'm getting two rings I already own re-sized, and they will be my stackable wedding bands. My fiance is looking for a silver ring under $200. Any fave men's weddings bands out there? Link me!
- We found a venue we can afford :) It will cost $2500-$3500 for venue + food for 20-35 guests.
- How to keep costs on alcohol down, when it takes place in a restaurant? Ideas?
- I think I will be doing my own hair and make-up. Risky? Smart? At least I'll look like ME...
What are you scrimping on? What are your splurges?
I think you may have bookmarked one of my earlier threads, but my fiancée and I are set to be married this summer.
We are also emailing out (most) of the invitations, both for cost reasons and for environmental ones. Ultimately an invitation is just a piece of paper conveying information. That can be done electronically just as easily. We decided to get about 10 invitations for a few folks who really wanted them (entirely people over 40).
Our venue is an education/conservation center that allows us to bring our own food and alcohol. We'll be ordering the food from a nearby restaurant and have hired someone to help with service, and total cost should be around $25/person, for venue, food, beer & wine.
her dress from consignment. I don't know the exact cost - know it was more than $50 but much less than $500. She's hoping to re-consign it after the wedding, so we might be able to recoup most of the cost and keep it in circulation. She's also doing her own makeup but having it cut the day before. I don't see why that would be risky - you do your own make-up already, right?
for other ways we've kept costs down; we have guests coming in the day before and we rented a park pavillion on a lake nearby. we're going to have a cook-out for all of our friends. Since several of my friends are in the food service industry they're helping me with sides and prep. we've budgeted $300 to feed our friends the night before.
my soon to be BIL is brewing beer for the event - he's an avid brewer and his cost should be under 50¢/beer. We'll also have wine we're buying by the case at Trader Joes. Not $2 chuck but they have some decent wines for <$8/bottle when you buy them by the case.
My idea for you for keeping alcohol costs down is to first ask them if they'll let you do beer/wine only service, and if you can select the beer/wine yourself. If they allow that you might be able to keep the per-drink cost under $2. Also, our experience is we saved more money by not trying to have four different kidns of beer and five different wines. We're skipping the champagne toast and opting to let people toast with whatever they want because we've heard that about 1/2 the champagne for a toast goes wasted, since many people feel obligated to have it in hand but don't really want to drink it.
I'm also setting up my own photobooth for guests with the enthusiastic help of my BIL. I spent years as a photographer and he's in film, so it fit. It's easy to do and we have all the equipment already; beats the estimates of $1000-1500 for a company to set one up. I'm taking care of the setup and he's doing props. Afterwards we're going to post pictures online that people can order and we'll also print pictures ourselves to include in thank you notes to make them more personable (without needing to write a huge amount either).
I guess our splurge (if you can call it that) is having catered food (well, technically it's more take-out from a restaurant and we've hired a mother-son team to help with service). But we love food and wanted to do this. We're also hiring a photographer, by far our biggest line-item expense. However, we know the person and discovered that if you ask for the "junior" photogrpaher and most studios they cost about 1/2 as much. Since we're supplimenting her photos with a photo-booth (not to mention *everyone* has a digital camera these days, and several of my friends have photogrpahy backgrounds) we're not worried about the images we will get.
We've scrimped on the pre-wedding entertainment by inviting everyone to hang out in the park. We're also organizing a free hike the morning of (more like a casual stroll through the woods, nothing difficult). Also a group is going flower-picking at a nearby flower farm; we found out that for $5 you can get a whole basket of flowers, so that will be our decorations. One of our friends is going to be the officiant. He's honored and the cost to us will probably be a really nice bottle of bourbon as a thank-you to him.
We also found a vacation rental that we rented for the weekend to house most of our out-of-town family and people in the wedding. It's no cost to us (everyone is paying us for their portion) but it worked out to about 1/3 the cost per night per room than hotels in the area. Plus it means we get to actually spend more time with our family, which has been the most important thing. Also, it has a full kitchen so the more mustachian (and/or poor) of our family and friends can save on breakfast each morning. I'm going to make a few coffee cakes before the wedding and make sure the fridge has things like eggs, milk and cheese and cereal, and of course plenty of coffee.
Love to hear any other things you are planning. Sounds like we're getting married at a similar time (this summer, right?)
Cheers