kellinator (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kellinator) wrote2006-07-19 03:45 pm
kellinator) wrote2006-07-19 03:45 pmbridezilla freakout
Be honest -- is there any way I can have 120 people without completely going broke or turning the wedding into a keg party?
kellinator) wrote2006-07-19 03:45 pm
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I will be honest with you, she's only inviting 70 people and has already been forced to up her wedding budget from $5,000 to $10,000. :/
It is teh expensive.
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I suspect if you want that many people and want to keep it below $10k you'll have to for-go (forego?) a sit-down dinner and open bar. Maybe think about a buffet-style dinner? Or give up on a full meal and make it a "desserts and drinks" function with assorted cakes/pastries/candies, coffee, tea, and maybe some dessert wines/spirits? You'd want to have a mid-afternoon or after-dinner wedding in that case to allow people to have full meals before going to the ceremony.
I think my wedding cost between $4-5k. That included (in no particular order): the engagement ring, the invitations (I made them), the paperwork with the gov't, material for my dress (a friend sewed it for me as her gift), custom wedding bands, the wedding favours (again, I made them), renting the hall, two nights at a B&B local to us as well as a hotel room onsite for the men of my family to get dressed in, pre-ceremony dinner (family, out of town folks, the officiant and his family), my shoes, Steve's suit and a special shirt and vest, having a dress made for my daughter, buying an outfit for my son, all the decorations (I decorated the location myself with the help of my mother and two friends) and then after the ceremony we served cake and mulled wine and coffee (served by the location). That was for a wedding planned for 40 people (including me and Steve).
Ideas
2) Host the reception at a winery; you'll be able to likely cut a deal if the winery's products are the only booze available.
3) Cash bar.
4) BYOB reception (yes, I've been to one, and no, it's not as bad as you'd think -- the request was, informally, "bring stuff to share.").
As for food... talk to the caterer. There's a ton of recipes that can be made with simple, inexpensive ingredients that don't require a ton of work to cook (ie, lemon chicken with a side of steamed hericots verts and garlic mashed potatoes; 6 ingredients -- chicken, lemon, beans, potatoes, garlic, cream -- and that's assuming that the potatoes are from scratch). You could also have a light dessert luncheon (ie, chocolate fondue and fresh fruit, finger cakes, etc) instead of a formal, sit-down reception.
You could also take a cue from my Aunt Shiela's wedding -- she had the reception outdoors at her sister's house (they had a big, flat backyard, and plenty of on-street parking available), under a big pavilion, and she asked family to help with the food; not a potluck, more of "Hey, Paul and Tina, could you get a roast beef for 50? Donna, Walt, would you mind doing 2 sides -- say, beans and potatoes? Marjorie, can you arrange chocolate fondue?"
True, not as high-end as a fully catered reception, but not nearly as expensive, and since she and her husband already had household goods (they were in their late 30's), it cut down on the number of toasters they received (people who provided food were doing it as their gift).
Relax, enjoy yourself -- it's your wedding, you don't have to live up to other people's expectations of how it should be!
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Go for a smaller reception and have a kewl-assed post honeymoon party that you can invite all the MF ppl.
Works for me.
:-)
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The winery option is also a good idea.
Figure out how much you can afford to spend per person for the reception and then figure out how to do it. *hugs* I know it is a stressful time! You can do it!
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I had a wedding in New York (well, Staten Island, but still, a NYC boro) in 2001 and spent about 6K for everything including the dress. 50 people in a restaurant, so no dancing or DJ. We ended up spending about $65 per person for a really good dinner. So a restaurant might be an option if you decide that you want to cut the whole music/dancing thing.
We also had a friend do the photography for about $300 and did the invitations and programs ourselves. There is a *lot* you can do with a computer and printer and Kinkos!
(ohhhh that sounded bad...)
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B) Seats in the church aren't very expensive.
C) OK, you need slightly more than seats. But honestly, you can do cake and champagne. Everything else is optional. Heck, you can do cake and sparkling grape juice but cheap champagne isn't much more expensive.
Set a budget, figure out the essentials (location, preacher, dress, rings, flowers, cake) and then allocate what money is left (including extra on the flowers, etc. if you desire). If you have $5 / person for food, then go with aunt so-and-so catering or cake and desserts only. (Or see what kind of a deal Mexico Lindo will give you. :-)
It is SO not worth it to start your marriage in vast amounts of debt. Spend the money on the honeymoon you'll remember. Or use the savings to buy a house. But unless you REALLY want to, don't spend the money on a party that 80% of the guests will forget within a month. (They'll hopefully remember the wedding, but the party, enh!)
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If you want to provide alcohol, scale back on food. Maybe do an appetizer pass? Or you could keep a decent amount of food but limit the alcohol served. (Offering wine/beer versus a full bar)
Time of day is very important. If you have an evening wedding and reception, people may expect dinner. Mid-afternoon, you could do a lighter spread (tea sandwiches).
We were 100 people (we could afford 125) and we hit 12k. That's with a full buffet dinner (flank steak, bbq chicken, cheese/bread) and open bar. Ours was at Primrose Cottage in Roswell. Wedding was at 7:30, reception from 8-midnight. Loved it. I had to use their inhouse caterers and florists, but that was okay for me. It was less hassle, and it didn't break us.
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I have no advice but I freakin' LOVE your icon!
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What we're doing with teh booze is this: Wine's on us, signature drink is on us, everything else is paid for by the guests. We also don't anticipate there'll be many drinkers, because Chris' friends and family are lightweights who barely ever drink, ever. So I am not too worried. If they drank as much as my family, it'd be a different story ...
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You might want to give serious thought to doing something like Jay and I did. We had a small wedding with about 35-40 and then we threw a party the following Saturday and we had about another 120 people over here at our house, I put together some finger foods, I set up the chocolate fountain (that you can get for about forty bucks) and we brought in lots of BBQ from Williamson Brothers, which everyone devoured. We got a couple of kegs and I made some wicked rum punch and people had an absolute blast. We didn't have to worry about people getting uncomfortable in their wedding clothes (or me in a dress), we had live music and it was comfy and laid back...it was so much more fun than a traditional wedding reception would have been and the wedding AND the party together only cost about $5000. The best thing about it, was I was able to actually enjoy myself. It's very hard to enjoy yourself on the day of your wedding because you're too busy stressing out about how everything is going.
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You can always try to find a place that does package deals. Publix makes great and cheap wedding cakes.
Have part of your bridal shower a "favor making" party - or enlist five friends and get tham baked and have them tie all the little almonds and bubble bottles in tulle netting and ribbon and you can be done in a couple of hours.
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You want I should ask her to visit with advice?
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Dry wedding
Friday night (half the cost)
Hors Devours instead of a sit down, or a buffet instead of a sit down
that link i sent you last night actually has a few good places. One place you can do all the food, the rental, and the ceremony for $3500 on a Fri nite.
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Have something simple for all those folks, then a few weeks later throw a proper bash for the folks you really like.
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and LOVE your icon =)
my love
I think a lot of the suggestions above were good. Make a party out of the invitations, invite your most creative friends and make them. Creative tastful invitations are awesome! And unique!
the winery also sounds like a superb idea.
Remember my dear that this is your wedding and while it's always going to be stressfulto plan, you don't want to be too stressed out. If you plan a too extravagant wedding then you get a crappy honeymoon.
Then again I'm the girl that plans on being married by an Elvis Impersonator because that would be totally sweet.
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