Hey all,

I'm getting married summer (looks like June 20/21) 2009. We just started researching venues and making a preliminary guest list. I think it would be awesome to get some general wedding planning advice going. My own situation is we are young and are trying to stay around 12K, no more than 15K. Inviting ~100, expect ~80-85 at this point. Beach wedding in SoCal.

What does everyone think about Sunday weddings. Its cheaper for the venues (and maybe the vendors?), but I really want to throw a big kickoff bash and don't want a lame reception either.

So lets get this ball started.

Saturdays are more expensive because the ratio of supply/demand is different than Sundays.

There is more demand for Saturdays because they are better.

Thus, you need to consider the value to you of holding a reception on a Saturday, and look at the comparable prices. For something as personal as a wedding, which requires value judgments on your behalf, you'll need to determine your own values.

at my wedding, we held down the cost by working an arrangement with the restaurant where we supplied our own wine and beer and they provided the glasses (essentially, we paid a flat corkage fee). since no one at a wedding is really going to notice what brands they're drinking (as long as it's not swill), we could buy cheaper decent wines by the case and our own beer in kegs to save. an added benefit was that, since there was no hard alcohol served, no one got totally wasted, but most had a nice buzz on.

I was married on a Sunday and it was great. People coming from out of town would've taken Friday off for the rehearsal dinner anyway, so no big deal to take Monday off instead.

My biggest piece of advice is to resist every temptation to get stressed about it. This is a party to celebrate being in love and starting a life together, letting annoyances get you or your fiance down would be a crime. One way my wife and I did this was to exclude family from planning. Of course, that means you have to pay for it yourself, but IMO it's well worth it. Also, if you say "Thanks but no thanks" to the offer of money, they'll probably give you money anyway and you'll keep control over your party.

Depending on where in SoCal you are we got our flowers from a place in Commerce that was super-cheap and really good. I think we spent like $1800 on flowers for a formal 130-person wedding, I know people who spent 4x as much on similar flowers.

Just remember: it's your party. How people dress, what the music is like, the food, etc etc etc, it's all up to you. Don't let other people tell you how your celebration is supposed to be.

Congratulations.

See, at my wedding we had different choices. The venue was pretty restrictive, so they let us choose whether we paid by the glass or by the guest, and whether we had beerwine, beerwine&liquor, or good beerwine&liquor.

For the paying, we went with per guest. Even disregarding the economics calculation, knowing what we were going to pay BEFORE we paid it (instead of being surprised afterwards) + not having to trust the bartender not to swipe any booze = lower stress.

For the booze, we went with liquor but not the top shelf liquor. We wanted guests to be able to order what they wanted, but nobody's pompous enough to get snippy about brand at a wedding.

I got married on Labor Day weekend, so we had easy travel automatically. My parents were married on Independence Day weekend, which is just as convenient, but a little ironic.

edit: Congrats.

We had a Sunday wedding and it worked great. We saved a good amount on the base per-person price for the reception, and used the extra money to pay for some extra amenities we wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise -- full open bar, a really good band, etc.

We had a lot of out-of-town guests, and our impression is that it wasn't a huge inconvenience for them. We scheduled the ceremony in the very early afternoon, and the reception began a little earlier than usual, so people who needed to be on the road to get home that night were able to do so.

A couple of general tips that helped us out: I looked at it as the biggest party I'd ever have the chance to throw, and just concentrated on doing whatever we could to make it fun for the guests and for us. It sounds like you have this attitude too, which is great.

We were paid almost the whole bill ourselves, so we didn't feel any obligation to do certain things just because other people told us to. It made things financially tight, but reduced stress tremendously. If you can swing it, I'd highly recommend this approach.

Also, make sure you take some time that day to appreciate and participate in the fun. I've been in wedding parties where everything was (over)scheduled down to the last minute, and it's no fun for anybody. I told all our photographers, etc. that my wife and I would be "untouchable" for two hours during the reception so we could just enjoy our meals, have some drinks with friends, etc.

Share!!

What I mean by that is find other couples that are getting married (through the florist or bakery, etc etc) and split costs of items for the wedding. Example: They have wedding on Saturday night and you get all the decorations and flowers to use on Sunday. It's only the next day so it's not like the flowers are dying already and you chip in less since you're getting the "leftovers".

Sounds corny once I typed it out, but trust me, this is something that all the Wedding Planner's suggest to save money.

T

If your fiancee will go for this, you've got yourself a real keeper. My wife is great, but there's no way she would have allowed this for our wedding.

We are getting a little help from our parents, although we are footing the bill ourselves. I'm a grad student so we are on a tight budget and definitely don't want to put ourselves in debt just to get married.

I think MissT74's idea is great and we'll see if we can make it happen. If you had a Sunday wedding, did you have an early ceremony (12:00?) and a lunch-type reception? Or typical night-time reception just on a Sunday?

How did everyone go about finding venues? When you looked at a possible venue, what are the types of things I need to ask about?

I've never been married, but have a little wedding experiece in various capacities of "working" at weddings (muician, videographer, soundman, etc...). Also, my mother is a musician and has probably played at close to 1,000 weddings.

My only advice is pay for stuff or don't have it. In other words, don't have your fiance's cousin's friend sing for free, or whatever. I've seen these types of things backfire more than once.

Here's some general tips/advice:

1. Offer free advertising to some of the vendors. I'm not talking about anything crazy, like having corporate logos sewn onto the wedding gown or anything. However, if you build a website (there are free ones out there, too), you can offer free advertising on the website. You can also come up with a sponsor sheet to have at all the tables at the reception with free advertising space on that as well. Sounds hokey, but it will definitely give you some haggling room.

2. Give out creative, non-expensive bridal party gifts. Every groomsmen in my wedding party was either current or prior military. I ended up giving out flags that had flown above the White House on the 1st anniversary of 9/11 for about 8 bucks each. They appreciated that more than a $50 engraved flask that they'll probably never use.

3. Also consider a Friday wedding. They're comparable in price (if not cheaper) to a Sunday.

4. See if you can bring in any food yourself to the reception. You can save money on deserts/appetizers this way.

5. Plan out as far in advance as you can and try to lock in a price now. Prices don't get cheaper as time goes by.

6. No matter how well you plan, something will go wrong the day of your wedding. Most likely the only two people who will notice is you and your wife. No one else will have a clue, so don't worry about it. They all make for good stories later on, anyway.

7. Check with a local high school for recommendations on cheap DJs. Yeah, this is a gamble, but high schools aren't known to spend money. Just make sure you check them out beforehand and make sure you know what songs they will be playing. No matter who you go with, you're in charge. Tell them what songs to play and more importantly what songs NOT to play. Some DJs still think it's cool to play the "Macarena".

8. You don't need the extras. No one is going to care or notice the white covers on the chairs at the reception. No one will notice if you don't have an ice sculpture, either.

9. I personally think paying to have a video made is a waste. I've watched my wedding video once.

10. Register for things that make sense. Most people don't actually need an expresso machine or a quesadilla maker. And, if you think you do, you don't. It'll sit in a cabinet somewhere never used. So, don't make it a wish list. You'll end up getting things you don't really need or want. Also, register for things in a range of prices. Don't make everything $100+ dollars. Your parents are the only ones who will buy you that.

10a. Also, register somewhere that makes sense. If you have a lot of out of town people coming, do they have that store in their area of the country? Does this place offer online, as well as in store purchases? This is your wedding, too. You'll never use fine china, but I guarantee that you'll need a cordless drill.

11. Make your own invitations. However, good luck convincing your fiancee to do that.

12. Have a friend(s) take pictures of your wedding, especially if one is an amateur photographer with a nice digital SLR camera.

13. If you really want the disposable cameras at the tables, go with an off brand one. Avoid the actual pretty wedding style ones. You're paying for packaging, the functions and quality are the same.

14. I think the dollar dance is an odd form of begging, but it's effective for raking in some cash. Expect to dance with some your "funny" guy friends, though.

15. Politely ask for kids to stay at home in your invites. The parents (generally) don't have as much fun with them there.

16. Borrow a friend's really nice car instead of getting a limo. Especially if you know someone who has a classic car. Of course, they can drive you around, too.

17. Have some food/snacks waiting for you at your hotel room. Most likely, you'll either be too busy or nervous to eat at the reception. Sex will come much later than you expect, because you'll have to spend 20 minutes getting undressed and pulling all the hair pins out of your wife's hair. Might as well eat. Let's hope your wife isn't too tired/drunk to have sexy time, too. Although, this will soon become the norm, anyway...

18. Skip the hotel and go back home that night.

19. Make an attempt to go around to each of your guest's tables as a couple and thank them for coming/being there for you. Also, send out thank you cards as soon as possible. It's common courtesy, and the longer you wait, the more chance you'll never do it.

And, the best way to save money:

20. Elope.

I hate this. I wasn't invited to my only cousin's wedding because they wanted a childless wedding/reception, which also prevented my Dad from going (couldn't travel and leave kids at home). I'm still somewhat bitter about it, at the time my cousin was like God to me.

To bad. everyone else had more fun without kids falling all over the dance floor. We did this and it pissed some of our family off, and I'm certainly glad we did.

Another great thing we did is register at Bed bath and beyond. After your wedding you can return anything on your registry for cash, no questions asked. We returned almost everytihng we got because we decided we wanted new living room furniture instead of a number of small things.

Ken

It's probably helpful to first decide on a type of venue- whether you want to have your reception in a traditional ballroom-type setting (hotels are easy places to look for these), outdoors (in a garden? public park?), or something funky (everything from museums to redecorated barns to converted train stations are becoming more and more popular these days). Also, you'll want to consider what you're doing about your ceremony- do you want your reception venue to be able to double as your ceremony venue? (in that case you'd want a reception venue that either has two separate spaces, or can change over the space easily/quickly) Or are you having the ceremony somewhere else (like at church) and thus probably want to have the reception somewhere close by?
Things to ask your venue: what they take care of (some venues are all-inclusive, meaning they provide the food, the cake, the flowers, the tables, the chairs, the linens, etc.- most provide some combination of the above); what kind of restrictions they have for vendors/services that they don't provide (do they only work with certain approved caterers? do they have restrictions on what kind of decorations you can put up?); cost, including food/drink minimums if relevant; and what kind of staff time/assistance is included in the venue rental (do they hand you a key and leave? will they set up the tables and chairs for you? do they have a coordinator that will work with you throughout the night, even doing things like telling you when to cut the cake?); and how many hours are included in the rental fee (both for the actual party, and also when any outside vendors can get in to set up).
A lot of venues are pretty good about letting you stop by either before, or sometimes even during, events that they're hosting that are similar to yours so that you can get an idea of what a place is like when it's all set up and ready to go.
Good luck with the planning!

this should probably be in BBV, but after 6 months of planning a california wedding (wine country) we said f&ck it and we will be here in 2 weeks from today to get married:







wedding + wedding coordinator + honeymoon = under 15k

i may never come back.

We got married on a Friday, which i guess is different. Her parents thankfully paid for the whole thing, so i can't really comment on money saving things. I will say that if they had not paid, there is no way we would have had a big wedding and likely would have had a destination wedding.