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mitztronic posted:I got married in Black Rock City, NV on Sept 1st. it was the most beautiful thing I've ever been apart of. Congratulations, you two look incredibly happy and I love the color-coordinated group picture. One of my favorite things about weddings is seeing how each couple celebrates differently.
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Sep 19, 2015 04:00
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smackfu posted:No family? Well, you see, that would be too traditional for Burning Man.
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Sep 19, 2015 11:28
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mitztronic posted:I got married in Black Rock City, NV on Sept 1st. it was the most beautiful thing I've ever been apart of. Killed it. Congratulations.
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Sep 20, 2015 07:28
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smackfu posted:No family? As a consolation, we had a videographer and are doing a second small ceremony for the family early next year.
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Sep 20, 2015 19:14
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Reality check, please. My partner thinks it should be possible to have a big wedding with a 150 person guest list (invited, not necessarily rsvping) for like $5000. I know he's wrong but can some of y'all share your budgets to show how wrong he is? (To be fair I don't want any flowers and we have friends for photographers and I don't want posed photos, but he seems to think catering for 100 with open beer/wine bar can be cheap, like $20 a head cheap. And cash bar is absolutely out of the question.) Nicol Bolas fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Sep 22, 2015 |
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Sep 22, 2015 17:18
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Etiquette question about the program/wedding party. My grandfather will be processing with his wife, who is NOT my grandmother. I love her dearly, and want to honor her as my grandfather's wife, but she is not my grandmother; I don't like the term "step-grandmother" either. She's my grandfather's wife and that's how we relate to her. So the question is how do I list them in the ceremony program? I don't want to leave her out entirely as she is processing, but I don't like the idea of listing her under "Grandparents" or similar. Any suggestions? Related but different question: My partner's grandmother will be processing with her son, my fiance's uncle, who has a reading in our ceremony. Do we list him as her escort under that same problematic "grandparents" section or just leave him out entirely since he's listed elsewhere as having a reading?
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Sep 22, 2015 17:24
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Nicol Bolas posted:Reality check, please. My partner thinks it should be possible to have a big wedding with a 150 person guest list (invited, not necessarily rsvping) for like $5000. I know he's wrong but can some of y'all share your budgets to show how wrong he is? I had a 90 person wedding with a buffet from a local barbeque dive. On food alone, we spent $2600. This was not plated, there were no wait staff, and I had to provide my own serving utensils, plates, forks, napkins, etc. I had my invitations designed on Etsy and printed them myself at Staples. To save on cutting fees and make sure everything was perfect, I spent several nights at my kitchen table with a papercutter. I ordered bulk envelopes and hand addressed everything. Still spent $100. Both of us wore jeans. I had a cute tank and cardigan and he wore a shirt and tie. Matching Chucks. $300 total. IF I had wanted a dress, any kind of dress at all, not a bridal gown, I'd have spent closer to $500. We made a custom spice blend and packaged it in cute tins for favors. Between spices, packaging, cute tape, etc etc, $350. My dad made a customized homebrew that he paid for entirely. He spent easy $500 and several long weekends. Otherwise we bought fancy soda and bottled water. $200 for my part. Because cake prices are stupid, I had an ice cream truck. $350 for an hour and a half, all ice cream included. You would definitely spend at least $350 on cake for 150. DJ was a friend and a local radio personality. At a huge discount, he did 10 hours for $500. Knowing I'm forgetting a ton of stuff, the total is already over $4k. This was a super casual, very cheap and fun wedding. IF that's your tone and what you would be happy with, at your guest list size, you'd be at like $6k-$7k for the same setup.
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Sep 22, 2015 17:48
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Our wedding is only for 80 people and is going to cost well over 5K, seems like that would be a pretty tough feat to me.
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Sep 22, 2015 18:21
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Nicol Bolas posted:Reality check, please. My partner thinks it should be possible to have a big wedding with a 150 person guest list (invited, not necessarily rsvping) for like $5000. I know he's wrong but can some of y'all share your budgets to show how wrong he is? I'm working in GBP but that sounds... very cheap. Possibly doable if you try and book non wedding venues/suppliers and ignore a lot of the things that people tell you 'should' be done for weddings. One option we looked at was doing a registry wedding and then hiring the upstairs of a bar we like which would only have cost a couple of hundred, and the food there was pretty reasonable depending what we went for, obviously would have been super casual food. Things you can ignore and people probably won't care - flowers, favours, lots of decorations, super fancy invites, wedding programmes, full three course meal, huge 'wedding' cake, buying expensive gifts for everyone in your wedding party (pro tip, have a very small wedding party!) This might be helpful for working out open bar costs, the way to reduce the costs would definitely be restricting choice: http://www.thealcoholcalculator.com/ The only thing I'd say is that all of the little costs REALLY add up so it's important to list out every single wedding related thing you want or need, and then break down the minimum costs for those things and see where it gets you - and then research how much those things actually cost and see if you were kidding yourself (which I definitely was!!)
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Sep 22, 2015 18:36
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Nicol Bolas posted:Reality check, please. My partner thinks it should be possible to have a big wedding with a 150 person guest list (invited, not necessarily rsvping) for like $5000. I know he's wrong but can some of y'all share your budgets to show how wrong he is? My total attending is 150. Just the reception hall, food and fees for security, bartenders, mixers for drinks and the insurance we are at $15,000. That doesn't include decorations, center pieces, cake, dresses, tuxes, DJ, alcohol, photographers, videographers, photobooth, limo, or anything else we wanted to have as well.
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Sep 22, 2015 18:39
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Can you explain the "security" a bit?
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Sep 22, 2015 18:48
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boquiabierta posted:Etiquette question about the program/wedding party. My grandfather will be processing with his wife, who is NOT my grandmother. I love her dearly, and want to honor her as my grandfather's wife, but she is not my grandmother; I don't like the term "step-grandmother" either. She's my grandfather's wife and that's how we relate to her. So the question is how do I list them in the ceremony program? I don't want to leave her out entirely as she is processing, but I don't like the idea of listing her under "Grandparents" or similar. Any suggestions? Do you have to identify who everyone is? Can you just have a general heading of "Wedding Party" or "Processional" and list everyone under it in pairs? Alternatively I guess you can do, "Grandfather & wife" and "Grandmother & son" next to their names in the grandparents section? Sorry I can't visualize your program so not sure how helpful that is.
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Sep 22, 2015 18:57
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Massasoit posted:Can you explain the "security" a bit? We had to pay $175 for an off duty police officer since alcohol was being served. He just stands at the door for 5 hours to make sure no one steals or breaks the law/goes crazy.
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Sep 22, 2015 19:06
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OssiansFolly posted:We had to pay $175 for an off duty police officer since alcohol was being served. He just stands at the door for 5 hours to make sure no one steals or breaks the law/goes crazy. Prohibition is alive and well it seems. The town in our venue doesn't allow cash bars or tip cups so we're thinking of not doing alcohol. It's going to be brunch so hopefully that will work.
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Sep 22, 2015 19:10
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Massasoit posted:Prohibition is alive and well it seems. Can you just buy a few bottles of champagne and put them on the tables? Cheaper than hiring a bartender anyway.
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Sep 22, 2015 19:12
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If alcohol is served a licensed bartender must be present and they need to have some outrageous insurance policy.
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Sep 22, 2015 19:13
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Re: the budget, there are just too many things that go into it to really compare. 150 guests is probably 120 attendees or so. So your $5000 ends up being $40 a person. Wine and beer if you provide is probably $5-10 per person, so you have $30-35 per person for everything else. So you better have a drat cheap venue, and food that is not on the fancy side. But I've been to a wedding like that, and it was perfectly fine. It didn't feel swanky, but they weren't swanky people. You have to have no problem with calling in favors from friends and family though.
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Sep 22, 2015 19:16
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Nicol Bolas posted:Reality check, please. My partner thinks it should be possible to have a big wedding with a 150 person guest list (invited, not necessarily rsvping) for like $5000. I know he's wrong but can some of y'all share your budgets to show how wrong he is? What kind of wedding are you planning? And where? We had a very traditional semi-swanky wedding for 100 people. Buffet style food, open bar, in the DC area. Here's our numbers: Reception Venue: $7500 (this was the base price for just the reception hall, we opted to rent out the whole place (a B&B) for the whole weekend so our price was higher but totally worth it) Food: $6700 Booze: $800 DJ: $1800 Cake: $860 Invites: $800 (in hindsight I could've done these way cheaper though) Dress: $1500 That's right about $20k right there. We paid $3600 for photography and $1280 for flowers (church flowers and bouquets/boutonnieres only, I did reception centerpieces myself) so there's an extra $5000 on top of that. I didn't include it in the budget but I bought hair/makeup services for all my bridesmaids for the day of and that cost another few hundred bucks. Little poo poo will sneak up on you, too, like postage. You're sending out 150 invitations at 49 cents a pop that's $75 in postage alone for the invitations themselves, assuming you don't have heavy invitations that require additional postage (hint: most standard cardstock wedding invitations weigh over and need extra postage). Then that's an extra $75 for the RSVP stamps. There's an extra non-negotiable $150+ on top of what you've already budgeted for invitations. Once you've got your dress you'll need alterations, some places include one or two free rounds of alterations, some don't. Then you'll also need shoes and accessories which can add up depending on what you're wearing. IME dress shops will cut you a good deal on the dress itself then absolutely gouge you on additional alterations and accessories so watch out for that. If you want to do any DIY decorations you'll likely want to experiment with some stuff beforehand to figure out what exactly you're going to do and that can add up pretty quick BUT you can sell a lot of craft supplies afterwards and recoup some of your money. Massasoit posted:If alcohol is served a licensed bartender must be present and they need to have some outrageous insurance policy. The caterer will usually provide one or two bartenders included in their cost. We just needed to procure a special event ABC license, we didn't need to take out any additional insurance policies.
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Sep 22, 2015 19:25
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Massasoit posted:Prohibition is alive and well it seems. That kind of stinks...my friends kind of need alcohol at weddings or they would riot.
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Sep 22, 2015 20:12
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OssiansFolly posted:That kind of stinks...my friends kind of need alcohol at weddings or they would riot. The #1 question we got from friends when our invites went out was "will there be an open bar?" If it's a brunch wedding can you just get some champagne and offer mimosas?
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Sep 22, 2015 20:15
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:The #1 question we got from friends when our invites went out was "will there be an open bar?" It seemed like the main concern was having guests into the venue and offering money for alcohol by the wording in how post... Sounds like he could just do it for free as long as no one tips (super weird to me).
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Sep 22, 2015 20:50
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I initially said our wedding budget is $20k and we wouldn't go over. We are already over. 115 invited, so probably 100 will show up. We are buying our own alcohol, having a BBQ buffet and it's still incredibly expensive. Venue alone is 25% of the budget. Doing something for that many people would require having it at a free venue, no alcohol, a whole bunch of stuff comped (i.e. friends do some food, decorations, invites, photography, etc.) and basic food.
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Sep 22, 2015 20:55
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OssiansFolly posted:It seemed like the main concern was having guests into the venue and offering money for alcohol by the wording in how post... Local town ordinance prohibits "sale of alcohol" and doesn't allow tip jars - probably as a way to avoid using a tip jar as de facto cash bar. We can have alcohol, there just has to be a liscenced bar tender with adequate insurance.
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Sep 22, 2015 21:01
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Omne posted:I initially said our wedding budget is $20k and we wouldn't go over. We are already over. 115 invited, so probably 100 will show up. We are buying our own alcohol, having a BBQ buffet and it's still incredibly expensive. Venue alone is 25% of the budget. Doing something for that many people would require having it at a free venue, no alcohol, a whole bunch of stuff comped (i.e. friends do some food, decorations, invites, photography, etc.) and basic food. Could you share your budget? I'm imagining that we could do a $20k wedding for more than twice as many (225) people. Wedding-spot.com quote: http://imgur.com/qqs2pSd
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Sep 22, 2015 22:46
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Mandalay posted:Could you share your budget? I'm imagining that we could do a $20k wedding for more than twice as many (225) people. That quote doesn't include things like photographer, band, invitations, attire, transportation, right? Or am I missing something?
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Sep 22, 2015 22:56
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Hi_Bears posted:That quote doesn't include things like photographer, band, invitations, attire, transportation, right? Or am I missing something? Hrm yeah, that's true. Also doesn't include dress, etc that people seem to lump into the cost of a wedding. (or rings)
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Sep 22, 2015 23:28
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Rough budget for 60 guests: Venue/ceremony location/food/alcohol = $12,000 Officiant = 200 Dress/alterations = 1100 Photographers 8 hours = 2000 DJ equipment (borrowed laptop, bro-in-law as dj) = 300 Flowers (5 bouquets, decorative rose petals/baby's breath, 5 boutonnières, 2 corsages) = 700 Cupcakes = 275 Cupcake stand (DIY) = 30 in materials Guestbook (DIY) = 30 in materials Centerpieces (DIY) = 200 for materials Cardbox (DIY) = 20 Favors (DIY) = 350 in materials Wedding rings (custom made) = 2100 Groomsmen gifts (custom made) = 600 (more than average, for sure) Bridesmaids gifts = 450 Parent gifts = 300 Hair/makeup including trial = 320 Shoes (DIY glittered) = 45 including materials Invitations = ????? I have no idea because we designed/printed/cut them all ourselves including the envelopes and our ceremony programs. I spent at least $30 on paper alone not to mention all the ink. Seating chart = 20 (got it from Vistaprint with a promo code as a lawn sign) Tux rental = 200 My wedding was just 2 weeks ago so I'm trying to remember literally everything we spent anything on. This doesn't include the hotel we stayed in that night, or the honeymoon, and I'm sure I'm forgetting things. This also doesn't include the weeks of work we spent doing most of the things ourselves.
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Sep 22, 2015 23:33
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All you folks spending 15-20k or more on weddings, are y'all just...going into debt for this stuff? Not judging, I'm just curious. I can't imagine coming up with 10k grand in a year to blow on a one day party, let alone double or triple that (factoring in a honeymoon and whatever else).
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Sep 23, 2015 00:51
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Rap Record Hoarder posted:All you folks spending 15-20k or more on weddings, are y'all just...going into debt for this stuff? 1) NYC, everything costs more 2) Parents helping some 3) We're having an 18 month engagement. We've been together 6 years, we can wait a little while longer.
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Sep 23, 2015 00:54
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Tater Love 
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I'll be using some money that I was going to use to buy a house. Also, Los Angeles isn't cheap either. Of course, I also think it's crazy to spend $20k+ on a single day. But my fiance's opinion is that having a nice wedding is non-negotiable. And since I have a big extended family that has invited me to their weddings in the past, the guest list will be huge. Our families alone will be over 100, and that's cutting out any U-21's that are not my first cousins. Add in about 40 family friends, then our personal friends, and now I'm thinking that we'll cap out over 200.
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Sep 23, 2015 01:06
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Rap Record Hoarder posted:All you folks spending 15-20k or more on weddings, are y'all just...going into debt for this stuff? Nope. We split it three ways between us and our parents. We're both from upper middle class families with good jobs and no debt so it wasn't a huge financial stretch for any of us. Wedding planning chat usually turns into a pissing match between who spent the least but if you can afford to throw a nice party why not? This is something you only do once (in theory...) so it's okay to splurge a bit. Also we were engaged for well over a year so we could spread out the spending a bit so our bank accounts had time to recover between initial deposits and final payments, it's not like we were dropping the whole total at once. Spending a couple thousand here and a couple thousand there over a year and a half is a lot more manageable than dropping 20k+ in one go and we recouped a lot of it in gifts (do not ever bank on this though). Absolutely no one should put themselves into debt for a wedding though, do what you can afford.
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Sep 23, 2015 01:21
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Hey, a wedding megathread. I should have used that search function months ago while we were still planning everything, but now my wedding is less than a week away and everything is squared away despite a major setback on the honeymoon front. I'm going to read some of the past pages and send this thread to my fiance, but I'll chime in to say that we've done everything under 10k. She's the one with all the spreadsheets and final tallies, so I don't have an exact number, but that total includes the rental of a park, catering, cake and desserts, a professional DJ, a pizza truck (classy, I know it), rings, tux and dress, and the honeymoon (plus a bunch of things I'm forgetting). It took some negotiating, especially with the caterer, and it took a chunk of our savings, but I plan on having one wedding in my life so I didn't want to cut corners. Our honeymoon hitch should be a lesson to everyone: check the weather. We got pumped because we got a great deal on an all-inclusive stay at a Cancun resort, only to check the weather and realize that it's smack dab in the middle of hurricane season. In retrospect it seems incredibly obvious and something that we could have researched in very little time, but when my fiance checked the weather and it was thunderstorms for weeks straight her heart just dropped. We were all set for time on the beach, and even though I bought the traveler's insurance or whatever it is from Travelocity, it'll take five days for the cost of the resort to be refunded to my account and the airfare is now a voucher for a different flight with the same airline. Only it costs an extra $200 per person (which will be refunded in five days) to make changes, and I have to stick with the same airline and book through their services instead of a third-party. We tried to change gears to go to San Diego, but the extra costs plus not having the $1500 in my account right now put that a little out of reach. We decided on going to a couple's resort in the Poconos, which is a little more my speed anyway, but I'm still a little bummed that our dream of relaxing in the sun and sand was literally washed away. Anyway, I'm excited about getting hitched to this lady and I'm glad I found a thread focusing on this specific part of my life. I hope everyone's special day goes off without a hitch, mine included, and I'm looking forward to reading stories about everything that went wrong so I can properly get stressed out. I feel inappropriately zen about it right now, which is the perfect time for the other shoe to drop.
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Sep 23, 2015 03:05
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Rap Record Hoarder posted:All you folks spending 15-20k or more on weddings, are y'all just...going into debt for this stuff? Nah, we had a 2 year engagement so everything was bought cash over time. We don't make a lot by any stretch of the imagination, but saving $500/mo for 2 years adds up. My fiancé doesn't make much so we just went easy on the spending for a couple years, saved, put bonuses and Christmas gifts towards it and we are now just 10 days away.
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Sep 23, 2015 13:38
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Rap Record Hoarder posted:All you folks spending 15-20k or more on weddings, are y'all just...going into debt for this stuff? That wasn't the plan, but unfortunately it ended up happening that way. We were engaged for 2 years and booked the venue about 16 months in advance with a plan to save but there were some unexpected periods of unemployment, landlord issues that forced us into an unexpected move, etc which all happened after paying a hefty deposit on the venue so we did end up having to cover part of the costs on credit card. Not that anyone should count on it, but we did get gifted enough cash to cover a large part of what we covered by credit.
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Sep 23, 2015 14:11
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Rap Record Hoarder posted:All you folks spending 15-20k or more on weddings, are y'all just...going into debt for this stuff? Yeah, long engagement is the key. 2 years for us. My fiance makes much more than I do which helps, but he is also paying a ton of student loans off. Our goal was to get married without any wedding debt. Ours is adding up to $30-35k pretty quick but that's pretty much what we were aiming for. Just under a year out now and I'm getting all my vendor searching and booking in gear. It was nice to have so much time to relax and enjoy it though!
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Sep 23, 2015 14:19
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Rap Record Hoarder posted:All you folks spending 15-20k or more on weddings, are y'all just...going into debt for this stuff? Parents paid for most of it, we probably spent about 10k of our own money (we had savings, but also ended up recouping most of this in gifted cash). If parents were not paying I would have eloped, or done something very lowkey like a casual dinner at a bbq joint.
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Sep 23, 2015 15:12
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AbandonShip posted:Yeah, long engagement is the key. 2 years for us. My fiance makes much more than I do which helps, but he is also paying a ton of student loans off. Our goal was to get married without any wedding debt. I was about to post literally the same message only with the genders reversed. How's it going wedding doppelganger? Yes, being able to save up in advance is the key to any wedding. Having a discretionary fund is also a really good idea as no matter how well you budget there will always be a hidden cost or something you forget to account for.
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Sep 23, 2015 15:25
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Mandalay posted:Could you share your budget? I'm imagining that we could do a $20k wedding for more than twice as many (225) people. Going from memory on this (my work thinks Google Docs is a security threat...) Reception Venue: $3800 Ceremony Venue: $800 (can likely avoid this, but she wanted a specific place) Food: $2300 Rentals: $2000 Photographer: $1300 Alcohol: $2000 estimated....large Irish family on my side, large Latin family on hers Her dress: $1600 Flowers: $1500 Officiant: $500 DJ/Ceremony Music: $1000 Invitations/paper needs: $250 Cake: $500 We are at $16,800 with that so far. Does not include my tux/other groom stuff ($500), transportation ($1500), her beauty stuff ($500 - alterations, veil, shoes, jewelry, hair, makeup, etc.), day-of wedding coordinator, gifts for groomsmen/bridesmaids/other important people ($500), tips ($500) plus all the random odds and ends. That's over $20k right there. You could certainly cut in different areas, particularly the venue costs. We tried to do both at the same place, but it just didn't work. Our photographer and flower budgets are very low and it was difficult to find someone willing to work with us for those prices, so shop around a lot. If you don't drink, you don't need to pay for alcohol. Food for 225 people is going to cost a lot, though. Our food is a BBQ buffet from a local company and that price includes the mandatory # of servers, the alcohol service license and bartender, and a few other things. Rap Record Hoarder posted:All you folks spending 15-20k or more on weddings, are y'all just...going into debt for this stuff? We are paying for everything ourselves, in cash. We thankfully have savings, decent salaries that aren't blown each month on random stuff, and plenty of time to save up.
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Sep 23, 2015 18:48
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Omne posted:Going from memory on this (my work thinks Google Docs is a security threat...) Looking at your list I am happy about some things I paid for and really unhappy about others...my officiant charged us a case of Miller Lite, $50 and naked pictures of Betty White, and our venue was $25 for 2 hours. On the flip side my venue and food was $15,000.
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Sep 23, 2015 19:34
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Speaking of going into debt, I was surprised at how many vendors are willing to take credit cards, without even a fee. I was expecting to write a lot of checks. That $10k catering bill is going to get us a lot of rewards points. Mandalay posted:Could you share your budget? I'm imagining that we could do a $20k wedding for more than twice as many (225) people. Incidentally, one part of that quote seems a bit off. $2013 meal cost for 225 people? That's $9 a person. smackfu fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Sep 23, 2015 |
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Sep 23, 2015 19:43
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