I'm home sick today and particularly fuzzy headed, so I didn't think it was wise to try to write anything coherent. Fortunately, I had a request recently for a topic I already covered in the past, so I am going to reproduce the old diary. I've tried to update it, but I would ask for your help in the comments as well. I wrote this diary on wedding planning almost 3 years ago and any new information you all have on how to plan an affordable wedding, and specifically on the following points, would be greatly appreciated, I'm sure:
- How to control the guest list from growing too large?
- Is a buffet really is less expensive than a sit-down dinner?
- What would you do differently or skip if you had to do it over?
Before we get to the good stuff, I have an administrative note: I recently revamped the mailing list for announcing these diaries. If you want to get an email announcement each week when a new diary is posted, send me email: frugalfridays (at) gmail.com and I'll add you to the list. If you didn't get an email this week, you are not on the current list.
Since the biggest expense in the wedding is the reception, and that's is really just a big party (maybe the biggest party you will ever throw) please feel free to extend this discussion to parties in general.
I'm addressing my advice towards future brides, since I'm basing it on my experience, but this is not at all to imply that I think that grooms should be excluded from the planning process (or even that my advice is limited to heterosexual couples), quite the opposite. One of the best weddings I attended was completely planned by the groom (his fiancee was working full time and he wasn't). He's also the guy who gave me the priceless line I used often, "If I could just have a valium the size of a frisbee to nibble on for the next week, I just might make it."
I was never one of those little girls who dreams of her perfect wedding. I hadn't given it much thought until I got engaged in my mid-thirties. If you are in this state of blissful ignorance, as soon as you get engaged and try to start planning a wedding, you discover that there is an entire industry of people whose business is catered to people (mostly women) who are in an emotionally vulnerable state and who are trying to purchase goods and services they have never used before and thus have no basis to evaluate the quality they should be getting or the price they should be paying. Not everyone is out to rip you off, but when you have no basis for comparison, it's hard to separate out the good folks from the bad. When I was going through the planning process, I got lots of advice and there were two pieces I found particularly valuable:
- Weddings Bring Out the Weird in People
Maybe this won't happen to you and your family and friends, but most likely it will. Suddenly you will stop and realize that you are deathly concerned with whether you are wearing gold or silver toned jewelry and whether that will match fiance's cufflinks. Or you find yourself listening to a full on rant from your mother about what kind of flowers are appropriate for wedding bouquets. Treasure these moments of madness. They will make great stories later on and you will chuckle for years when you look back. Just don't get so swept up in the moment that you forget that this is just wedding induced madness and it too shall pass.
- Make Your Own Traditions
There are a lot of things you are going to be told you must do because they are traditional. Feel free to disregard most of these. For example, if you are not comfortable taking your underwear off and throwing it around the room at a crowded party, then maybe you should omit the garter toss. If you don't want to wear the white-dress-and-tux combination, then find something that works for you. One huge caveat here: don't purposefully do things that are going to make your guests grossly uncomfortable. If you want to have a nudist wedding, fine. Just don't invite your straight laced eighty-year old aunt (having the EMTs tend to her coronary would put a damper on the day in any case).
Now on to more specific money advice:
Prioritizing
One of the first things you will see when starting planning is something like, "the average cost of a wedding in America today is $25,000," (or $30,000 or $50,000 depending on your source and your region). Before you hyperventilate and say, "screw it, we'll just go to the courthouse!" there's two things to note about these figures. First, this total price includes costs that most people don't really associate with the actual wedding, for example the rings, the honeymoon, and the apparel for not just the entire wedding party, but the mothers and fathers as well. Second, these averages are put out by wedding professionals, so they often don't include couples who went a more non-traditional route such as having a small ceremony in their backyard.
One problem is that a wedding serves many different functions to different people:
- an expression of a lifetime commitment between two people
- a religious rite
- family reunion that brings widespread family members together so they can socialize
- a chance for two sets of friends and family to meet and blend for the first time
- an opportunity for people to express their good wishes for the happy couple's future
- a big party with food, drink and dance
- an occasion to get all dressed up
- an opportunity to photographically record family groups who are rarely together (and dressed up)
It's impossible to mix all these disparate goals together into one day and have a success at all of them. I'm convinced that the "weirdness" people exhibit is due to the stress of trying to satisfy competing requirements at the same time. Pick which goal (or set of goals) is important to you and concentrate on those. Be warned that whatever you decide to do, you may encounter complaints from someone who felt you should have done differently. Smiling and saying "thank you for sharing," can be a pretty good way to shut them down. Also, you may find that separating out the event into different days could help satisfy conflicting objectives. For example, if having portrait quality photos of the happy couple in front of an amazing backdrop is just as important as spending time with your guests at the reception, then perhaps you could arrange a photo session a week after the wedding rather than trying to take them while the reception is going on. Just be sure to take the group photos with the wedding party and family members the day of.
Making a Budget, and Sticking to It
Before you start picturing what your wedding will look like, you need to figure out how much you can afford to spend. Then you can try to figure out how you can meet your goals with that budget. If you start with the vision first, you will end of tens of thousands of dollars in debt before you know what happened. I'm a big fan of the happy couple paying for the event themselves, possibly with some assistance in the form of gifts from their families. If the person who is paying the bills is not the one who is making the decisions about how the money is spent, resentment is inevitable and sometimes long-lasting. Since I think it's kind of nice if couples get to plan their own wedding, the best way to avoid this resentment is for them to pay for it themselves as well.
Once you have a total amount in mind you'd like to spend it's time to allocate it to different tasks. Here is a list of are the major budget items I grabbed from a wedding planning site listed roughly in order from biggest to smallest expense. I've left off any actual numbers, because you need to figure out how much you are willing to spend on each of these, not how much other people spent:
- Wedding Reception (Caterer, Cake, Site, Etc.)
- Honeymoon
- Engagement Ring
- Photography
- Bride's Gown
- Bridesmaids' Apparel
- Music (DJ, Band, Etc.)
- Rehearsal Dinner
- Videography
- Flowers
- Wedding Rings
- Groom's Rental Tuxedo
- Officiant & Ceremony Site & License
- Transportation (Limo, Carriage, Etc.)
- Invitations, Announcements and Thank You Notes
- Gifts for Attendants & Wedding Favors
- Wedding Veil & Headpiece
- Groomsmen's Rental Tuxedos
- Incidentals (cake topper, toasting glasses, guestbook, planning books, unity candles, etc.)
Every time you spend anything, write it down and make sure you are sticking to the plan. As you go through the planning process, you may find you need to adjust some category up or down. If you do go over budget in one part, you need to immediately sit down and reassess the entire budget to figure out what category can be cut.
Reception, Cake and Alcohol
This is the single biggest expense and usually takes 1/2 to 2/3 of the budget. If you concentrate most of your money saving energies here, they will be the most effective. Since most of the costs with the reception scale directly with the number of guests, the best way to keep the costs low is to limit the number of guests. You are not going to have time to visit with these folks much in any case. If you have 180 guests and try to talk with each one for a minute, that's three hours right there. When you take into account that most receptions last about four hours, and you haven't even accounted for time spent eating, dancing, cutting the cake and posing for pictures, you can see how little time you may actually have with each guest.
Look into non-traditional wedding reception venues if you can. For example, public parks or campgrounds may be a very low cost option for groups of 50-100. If you are still in college or live near your alma mater, check if they have discounted rates for students or alumni for their facilities. Check out restaurants that you've tried and like. Often they have banquet facilities that can hold 50-100 people with no problem. If you are getting married in a church, find out what group of ladies provides the food at church functions, they may be a very reasonable option. You can also self-cater or just pick up food from a restaurant and serve it, but I strongly recommend you enlist friends and family to handle this. You are going to be way too busy the day of to do much yourself, no matter how much you'd like to. When you are calling around to check prices, don't mention it is a wedding, at least at first. Call it a "family gathering". The costs for a "wedding" package can be more expensive, but sometimes it includes extras that may be worth it, so ask about that after you get the initial quote.
Even if you are using a more traditional venue, find out if you can provide the cake and/or the drinks yourself and have them served. If they charge a prohibitive serving fee, you may want to look elsewhere. Rather than having an open bar, serve only beer and wine. The cost is much lower. Unless you are religiously opposed or on an extremely tight budget, try not to cut out alcohol completely. It will make some of your guests very grumpy if they can't even buy a glass of wine at the bar, trust me.
I've never found that the food at a sit down dinner was demonstrably better than a buffet serving and buffets tend to be a lot cheaper. Most folks like to be able to serve themselves the portion size they want.
A lot of reception venues will offer discounted rates for days other than Saturday. If you schedule your wedding on the Sunday of a three day weekend, everyone will still have a day to recover before they have to head back to work. Another good way to cut meal costs is to have a morning wedding and then serve a lunch. You could even do a mid-afternoon wedding and just serve cake afterwards, but that is probably not good enough if people have traveled far and incurred great cost to come. You owe it to them to serve them a meal in that case.
Honeymoon
Suffice it to say that this is really no different than any other vacation you plan, although you can sometimes get special discounts or upgrades when you mention it is your honeymoon. Stay away from any kind of "honeymoon upgrade" you have to pay for, they usually aren't worth the extra cost.
Engagement and Wedding Rings
Do not buy into the diamond industry's sales pitch that you much spend N months salary on a ring or else it proves you don't love her and your wedding will collapse. You don't need a diamond or even a ring at all if you don't want one. Also, don't think that either or both of you need to wear wedding rings to show your commitment. I know some very committed couples who don't, or where only one partner does and I know some cheating dogs who proudly wear their rings.
Photography & Videography
There are two basic styles of wedding photography: photojournalists who just sort of shoot what happens like papparazzi and portrait where they take shots of posed groups and individuals. Photographers generally try to do both, but emphasize one style or the other. Figure out which kind you prefer before you start looking for photographers. Then you need to interview these folks carefully before you hire them. Look at their portfolios, find out not just what their lowest cost package is, but also how much do average couples end up spending (which could indicate a hard sales pitch may come down the line). Most important, evaluate their personality. Is this someone you can stand following you around all day and telling you what to do and where to stand?
If you can't afford a professional, you could ask a friend to take special photos of the day. They may not be professional quality, but if you are just going to stick them in an album (that you will rarely look at, trust me) that may be plenty good. Instead of, or in addition to an official photographer, you can put disposable cameras on each table and invite the guests to take pictures of each other. You may get some really nice shots. (And you may get pictures of butts, it kind of depends on your guests.)
Bride's Gown & Veil & Bridesmaids' Dresses
If you are on a strict budget, stay away from bridal salons. I would say stay away from them in general, because I think they have a lousy business model. I mean really, first you need to make an appointment before you go, and then you can't try on the dress you want in the size you want (because they don't have them in the shop in all sizes) and then you need to order the dress 6 weeks ahead of time, pay for it in advance, only to have it altered when it comes in? It's ridiculous.
If you are looking for a traditional wedding dress, there is a chain of discount bridal shops David's Bridal. Check out if there is one near you. Jessica McClintock has several outlet store locations. Use the "store locator" on their website and look for locations labeled "outlet". You can get last year's styles at deep discounts and it is also a good source for bridesmaid or formal dresses for other occasions as well. Search on wedding dress outlet to find other sources near you or over the web. You can also check out Craigslist or Ebay, but make sure the dress is really going to fit and look right on your body type before you buy. I guess you could always resell it if it doesn't work. You can also look for a nice white dress in a department store formal wear section.
The markup on bridal veils is tremendous. With a little time you can easily make one your self with a kit from a craft store like Michael's or a party store like Diddams. Look for sales and coupons for these places.
Music
For ceremony music, you probably want someone live who can time the processional and interlude pieces to match your ceremony. You may have a friend who would be willing to do this, in lieu of a gift. For other low cost options, look to local music schools or high schools. If you can get a child prodigy, they're both cute and cheap.
For the reception, the advantage of a DJ is that the quality and variety of music can't be matched by any live group. A DJ is generally a lot cheaper too. On the other hand, a live band can be much more energetic and entertaining. If you really want a band, you may try looking for one that performs as a second job and who wants to build their reputation. Colleges are also a good place to look for groups like this. Or you can just load a few hours of your favorite music into an MP3 player, hook it up to a speaker system and hit play.
Rehearsal Dinner
Consider expanding this to include not just the wedding party, but also the out of town guests who have already shown up. It's a nice chance to visit with some of them before the hectic wedding day. To save costs with this expanded guest list, you might opt for a picnic in the park or a backyard barbecue. You could even have a very nice dinner privately catered in your home for much less than the cost of a restaurant event.
Flowers and Decorations
When you are picking your ceremony and reception sites, look for places that won't need much decorating. If you are getting married in a church, consider doing it around Easter or Christmas, when they are already decorated. I would avoid using flowers for table centerpieces since they usually tend to be big enough to inhibit conversation across a table. Tea light candles or balloons (a combination of both may not be a good idea) can be a very pretty and affordable alternative. If you live near an Ikea, wander through their candle and silk plant department and you'll come up with a plethora of affordable centerpiece ideas.
If you are using fresh flowers for your bouquet, pick flowers that are in season, not just flowers that you like. Be straightforward with your florist with your budget constraints and see what creative solutions they can offer. You can save a lot of money if you do a lot of the arranging work yourself. You can buy fresh flowers from a local wholesaler or over the web, but as with food, this can turn into a labor intensive task on a day that you don't have the time. You can also consider using silk flowers rather than fresh. One big advantage is that you can do the arranging work ahead of time.
Men's Formal Wear
You don't need to wear tuxedos if you don't want to. The wedding police will not arrest you if you are married in a suit. If you do go the tux rental route, look for coupons or sales. Often you will see offers where if you rent five you get one free. Before you commit to a place, talk to someone who has used them and look at the photos if at all possible. This is particularly important if your groomsmen are not available for local fittings. I have seen some really poorly fitting tuxes in some weddings, and it doesn't have to be like that.
Officiant & Ceremony Site
If you want to be married in a church, they often have discounted rates for members. Some religious sites will only perform marriages for their own members. You have to respect them for this. This is their place of worship, not a stage for your production. If you are not looking for a religious location, check out places that won't require much decoration, like a garden, a park, a historical home, a winery, etc. Anyone can become an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church for free by filling out an online form. In many states, that makes you certified to perform marriage ceremonies. In some states, you may need someone who either is a religious leader with a congregation or is sanctioned by the state as a justice of the peace. You can find out the regulations for your state on line.
Transportation (Limo, Carriage, Etc.)
This is one of those costs I think can be eliminated with the least impact on the quality of the event, but you have to decide that for yourselves. No one is really going to notice if you show up and leave in a limo or in your own car, except you, so hire one if it's that important to you. Since I've never in my life had to rent one, I have no idea how to do it frugally.
Invitations, Announcements and Thank You Notes
I'm not going to say that no one can tell engraved from raised printing or from computer laser printed (they can), but only you can say if your guests really are going to care, and most people don't. Usually, the best and cheapest solution is to buy some nice paper and print them out yourselves. If you are really trying to put on a formal event and think that engraving is the only acceptable option, remember that engraving is actually considered less formal than handwriting them.
Gifts for Attendants & Wedding Favors
While it is nice to acknowledge the help your attendants have provided by giving them something special, I'd stay away from wedding related gifts (like jewelry they are supposed to wear for the ceremony). Don't spend a lot of money on wedding favors either. People take them home and toss them immediately. Occasionally, you will see a cool and useful favor that people treasure, but in general, they are just wasted.
Incidentals
Keep track of things you spend that don't belong in the other categories. This is where your budget is most likely to creep. If you are looking for wedding related items that are only ever used once, check on Craigslist, Ebay and garage sales for used ones. You can save a tremendous amount. You can even find unused guest books and photo albums from second hand sources like this. Dollar stores and discount stores can be another really good source for things like this.
Miscellaneous Notes
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- You may want to check out the book Bridal Bargains for more money saving ideas. I found that the authors had a pretty jaundiced view of the entire wedding industry and I'm not sure their cynicism is entirely justified sometimes.
- Keep in mind nobody (with the possible exception of your mothers) cares about this event as much as you do. Your friends are not going to be pleased if you expect them to rearrange their lives for weeks and pay hundreds (or thousands) of dollars for the privilege of being in your wedding.
- Don't turn your reception into a fundraiser. Unless it is a widely accepted in your culture (and if all your guests are from the same culture) stay away from things like the dollar dance, the money tree or otherwise shaking your guests down for extra cash.