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TheRealJuliane
Guest
Costco has LOVELY fresh flowers!!! And cheap!!! I don’t know if you can order them ahead of time but every time I go, I am so tempted to buy myself a large bouquet!
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Gordon_Sims
Guest
As far as the caterer goes, call around to places you normally wouldn’t think of as caterers–grocery stores, smaller restaurants, etc. You may be able to save a ton of money. We had a friend who was a caterer who was going to give us a “huge” discount. The discount was nowhere near what was promised. After a lot of research, by dumb luck we had someone tell us that a local grocer had a catering business. The food was great and it cost us something like 1/3 the cost per person as our friend’s discounted rate.
We had a horrible DJ and would have done much better making a few mix-CD’s and letting those play. Nowadays you should be able to find a DJ who can rent you an mp3/iPod compatible sound system if you wanted to make up your own playlist and go that route.
Call your local beer distributors and see if they have any deals for weddings.
As far as flower goes, I know this sounds morbid but a friend of mine was also looking to keep things as cheap as possible so he contacted a local funeral home and got a ton of beautiful flowers for next to nothing. Yes, they were leftovers from viewings, but his mother and aunts took just the flowers and rearranged them in more festive vases. Again, a little on the creepy side, but they had more flowers at their wedding than any I’ve ever seen, and paid something like $25-50 for the lot.
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Gordon_Sims
Guest
I also second the notion of not skimping on the photographer. Yes, we got to keep all our negatives at no extra cost but all the pictures looked like an amateur took them, and a lot of the pictures were of the attractive young girlfriends of a few acquaintances. We didn’t know the girls, but for how many pictures we have of them, you’d think they were our oldest friends.
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Kelfa28
Guest
Congrats!
We did a very budget wise wedding…we spent less then $4000 on our wedding.
We spent the most on the Church and the food…but since you’re not intending on marrying in a Church…I’d spend the money on the food.
We had our reception at our favorite restaurant…both for the food and the views. This restaurant is situated on the harbor with amazing views of the open ocean. They didn’t charge that much and the food was delicious…everyone loved the food.
My dress was cheap, my sister did my hair, I did my own makeup…and the makeup of the bridal party.
No limos, my DJ was a good friend of both of us, flowers were at Stop and Shop (regional grocery store) and cheap but very pretty, cake wasn’t a wedding cake but a very good bakery that does all kinds of tasty cakes, decorations were VERY sparse.
We wanted the view of the restaurant to be the highlight of the reception. So we just had the staff cover the tables in a crisp, white table cloths. Sure enough…just about everyone rushed outside to enjoy the day…no many people hung around inside except to eat and get more drinks.
The biggest let down was not having a photographer…we got into a bind with the photographer we wanted…who was a friend of the family…it ended up falling through at the last minute and we had no photographer.
We didn’t know what to do…and almost dropped two grand on a last minute professional photographer…but I talked my husband out of it.
My husband’s Godmother took tons and tons of pictures…plus I ended up getting a lot of nice picture collages as house warming presents from my family.
The pictures came out great…but we were just lucky in that regard…
We did a very budget wise wedding…we spent less then $4000 on our wedding.
We spent the most on the Church and the food…but since you’re not intending on marrying in a Church…I’d spend the money on the food.
We had our reception at our favorite restaurant…both for the food and the views. This restaurant is situated on the harbor with amazing views of the open ocean. They didn’t charge that much and the food was delicious…everyone loved the food.
My dress was cheap, my sister did my hair, I did my own makeup…and the makeup of the bridal party.
No limos, my DJ was a good friend of both of us, flowers were at Stop and Shop (regional grocery store) and cheap but very pretty, cake wasn’t a wedding cake but a very good bakery that does all kinds of tasty cakes, decorations were VERY sparse.
We wanted the view of the restaurant to be the highlight of the reception. So we just had the staff cover the tables in a crisp, white table cloths. Sure enough…just about everyone rushed outside to enjoy the day…no many people hung around inside except to eat and get more drinks.
The biggest let down was not having a photographer…we got into a bind with the photographer we wanted…who was a friend of the family…it ended up falling through at the last minute and we had no photographer.
We didn’t know what to do…and almost dropped two grand on a last minute professional photographer…but I talked my husband out of it.
My husband’s Godmother took tons and tons of pictures…plus I ended up getting a lot of nice picture collages as house warming presents from my family.
The pictures came out great…but we were just lucky in that regard…
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twk001
Guest
When I was young I did wedding floral work. I still do, but not as much as when I was in college. I started out working for a florist, so i witnessed a LOT of weddings.
i took all the best ideas from each one and molded myself a dream wedding. With a nightmare pricetag…we spent tens of thousands of unnecessary dollars.
a few days before the social event of the year (in my town anyways) i tripped on the stairs at my parents house and broke my entire leg, ankle joint, and femur. i spent the next 24 hrs in the hospital with doctors deciding if I would lose my leg. it brought things WAYYYY into perspective.
if i could do it again, i would have an early morning ceremony in the chapel of our church, or in the garden of our beautiful cathedral (this is OK’ed by our bishop and still ‘counts’ within what is allowed) with our most immediate friends and family, followed by a brunch at the golf club or something similar. we actually priced this out for a 20 yr vow renewal and it would cost us less than $1000 vs about $20k we spent for the big event.
Lots of good tips here. ask around and you may find somebody like me who does floral work with the same quality and a portion of the price, a photographer (call local colleges-ask for a grad student in photography or Arts who can do it for really cheap!), Sam’s club for a cake is a wonderful suggestion too, you’re already on the right track for a dress. you may also find that if you have a parish hall, and you choose to have a reception there, you might be able to get some of the women in the parish to cook for you vs catering.
it took me way too long to realize that it’s about the marriage, and the wedding is just one day in a lifetime together! God’s richest blessings to you and your groom!
i took all the best ideas from each one and molded myself a dream wedding. With a nightmare pricetag…we spent tens of thousands of unnecessary dollars.
a few days before the social event of the year (in my town anyways) i tripped on the stairs at my parents house and broke my entire leg, ankle joint, and femur. i spent the next 24 hrs in the hospital with doctors deciding if I would lose my leg. it brought things WAYYYY into perspective.
if i could do it again, i would have an early morning ceremony in the chapel of our church, or in the garden of our beautiful cathedral (this is OK’ed by our bishop and still ‘counts’ within what is allowed) with our most immediate friends and family, followed by a brunch at the golf club or something similar. we actually priced this out for a 20 yr vow renewal and it would cost us less than $1000 vs about $20k we spent for the big event.
Lots of good tips here. ask around and you may find somebody like me who does floral work with the same quality and a portion of the price, a photographer (call local colleges-ask for a grad student in photography or Arts who can do it for really cheap!), Sam’s club for a cake is a wonderful suggestion too, you’re already on the right track for a dress. you may also find that if you have a parish hall, and you choose to have a reception there, you might be able to get some of the women in the parish to cook for you vs catering.
it took me way too long to realize that it’s about the marriage, and the wedding is just one day in a lifetime together! God’s richest blessings to you and your groom!
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FullOfThought
Guest
We also got married in December, New Years Eve actually. The church was covered in flowers and trees and fairy lights… it was stunning I never could have done anything nearly as beautiful even if we had an unlimited budget.Catholic wedding ceremonies need to be INSIDE a church, though…
Receptions are a different story…
But, to save on flower costs we chose to have our wedding around Christmas… so the church was already beautifully decorated. We didn’t pay for ANY flowers at the church and MADE all our table decorations (simple candles decorated with ribbons)…
The other way we really cut back was not having flower center pieces but having tall crystal candlabras… they were gorgeous and we rented them for $20 each!
Also, we made great use of tree christmas lights… add a huge romantic feel!!
Another great thing about getting married in the winter is that we got 20% off all of our vendors as they were really slow and fighting for our business!
Congratulations, being married is amazing!!!
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TheRealJuliane
Guest
I always planned to marry in the winter, and wear a red velvet dress with white fur trim.
I got married on May 5, in a pink knit dress from Land’s End.
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Musician
Guest
We married our beautiful daughter off to a wonderful man five years ago yesterday!
Anyway, the wedding cost $2500.
A friend made the cakes, which were absolutely delicious.
We made snacks like fruit salad, nuts, mints, etc. on our own the day before. We served some great punch, nothing alcoholic.
We decorated everything ourselves using sale items from Hobby Lobby and Walmart.
My daughter got a $900 dress for $150. Her fiance just wore a dark suit, and didn’t rent a tux. He looked just fine and so did his best man.
While my daughter and her matron of honor had real flowers, the rest of the place was decorated with silk flowers we found on sale half-price.
The music at the reception was from my daughter’s Ipod with some speakers…a lot of Beatles. It was way cool!
Since it was an outdoor wedding, we rented a white canopy tent for the reception as well as lots of white chairs and tables; cost: $600. We hung twinkling lights around the edge of the tent (it was an evening wedding, right at sunset). $15.
This is a good time to get lots of wedding stuff on sale, now that the main part of summer has passed. Have fun!
Anyway, the wedding cost $2500.
A friend made the cakes, which were absolutely delicious.
We made snacks like fruit salad, nuts, mints, etc. on our own the day before. We served some great punch, nothing alcoholic.
We decorated everything ourselves using sale items from Hobby Lobby and Walmart.
My daughter got a $900 dress for $150. Her fiance just wore a dark suit, and didn’t rent a tux. He looked just fine and so did his best man.
While my daughter and her matron of honor had real flowers, the rest of the place was decorated with silk flowers we found on sale half-price.
The music at the reception was from my daughter’s Ipod with some speakers…a lot of Beatles. It was way cool!
Since it was an outdoor wedding, we rented a white canopy tent for the reception as well as lots of white chairs and tables; cost: $600. We hung twinkling lights around the edge of the tent (it was an evening wedding, right at sunset). $15.
This is a good time to get lots of wedding stuff on sale, now that the main part of summer has passed. Have fun!
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