love.rev

Our New Year’s Eve wedding came as a surprise to many and honestly, that was the best part for me. There is just something about working quietly and planning something big without others knowing. Keeping wedding deets a secret can also create a little stress because you can’t vent openly about it because people will know your plans. Regardless, it was the best decision we could have made!

I told my good friend that if I pull off a wedding without breaking the bank or going into debt, I would write a how to blog about it. So here I am, staying true to my word :) 

I know nowadays people hate long wordy pieces, but if you aren’t here for details then IDK what to tell you but you may want to stop reading now. If you find yourself sitting with more questions please do not hesitate to reach out to me! 

1. When planning a wedding on a budget my first tip is to make sure you are doing what YOU and YOUR PARTNER want, NOT what your family and friends may want. Weddings get expensive when you start adding things you didn’t even want because your great great granny wants to include a tradition or your best friend thinks you absolutely need a tequila and taco bar. Seriously. We avoided this because we kept our wedding plans and details limited to just close friends and family. So we did not have a lot of input from others. It was really about what we wanted to do. That alone, cut out a lot of unnecessary costs.

2. Early on in the wedding planning, decide on what you want to spend the most on. It is important to not compromise on things that you already have your heart set on. If you knew since you were 5 that you needed a Cinderella dress for your wedding, don’t back down from that. Plan to spend the most of your budget on that because it is important to you. If you know photography or videography is something important to you, plan to spend the most of your budget on that. Sit with your partner and find out what is MOST important and agree on spending the money in that space. You do NOT want to eliminate something you are set on just for the sake of saving money or staying on a budget. You can cut costs in other ways I promise.

3. Alright, now that we have those things in place - this is where it gets good.

4. Venue - Your venue (and catering) is where most people spend the most money. To save money, find a venue that allows you to have total control of the space. So no outside help. Usually places like this will cost the least. We rented out a banquet hall at Pocahontas State Park for $500. The space had a full size kitchen, tables and chairs provided. The banquet hall could hold an event for up to 150 people.

 http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/document/wedpo-banquet-hall.pdf

We did not like the chairs so we could have paid for seat coverings which would have been more expensive than just renting some basic folding chairs. So we decided to rent chairs from Classic Party Rentals (Henrico VA) for less than $2 each.

For $500 we had the banquet hall from 10AM until 10PM. So we had time to set up, have the ceremony, the reception and clean up. For $300 extra you could have two days, in case you are too boozed up to clean up same day. You could come back the next day to clean or set up the day before. Which is still a very good deal. 

Another option(s) for saving money on the venue,  consider parks, bed and breakfast inns, or back yard weddings. Depending on the time of year you choose to wed, you could book any of these type of locations for very low costs. Obviously, a back yard wedding would be FREE if you know someone willing to let you use their yard if you don’t have your own.

5. Speaking of time of the year. This is big. If you plan to have your wedding when every other couple is planning to have a wedding, then expect to spend more monies. Off season weddings are best cost wise (also, your wedding is more memorable because you are having it when 9 times out of 10 no one else is having theirs). We chose to have ours on NYE. This is risky, because its right near major holidays. So if you are planning to get your family to help in cost, consider this. It would be best to let their help with the wedding be your Christmas present. We did not get any help from our families on wedding costs (because we did extremely well budgeting :) so we didn’t need it) but you DO want to factor in the people you care about when choosing to have a wedding near the holidays. Guests coming from out of state would be paying high rates for flights and hotel reservations as well. So definitely consider this. We did not have any guests traveling far for our wedding but it is something to think about. Off season costs for you would be low but possibly HIGH for traveling fam and friends. IF you cannot live without a May through September wedding, expect to spend more on the venue during this time frame. Be prepared for your venue to be a significant part of your budget.

6. Catering - Food is another big part of the budget. This is when you have to think about how many people you want to invite. Because the food per person, will drive your costs through the roof. The way I thought of it was like this, if I would not take that person out to eat on a regular day - would I want to pay for their meal at MY wedding? Sounds mean, but it is a good way for you to think hard about is this person invite worthy. You will have a lot of people that you want to invite or many that want to come and it is HARD cutting people out. But, it is your day and your money. Spend it how you see fit. 

I say buffet style is the best option cost wise. If you do plated meals, you have to factor in the cost of servers / wait staff. Buffet was the way to go for us. Find a local / small caterer. We went with baked chicken, penne alla vodka, green beans, mac and cheese, seafood salad, toss salad, for our buffet. We did not want fancy wedding food, because we just arent like that. We wanted people to feel love and soul in our meal, Sprinkle Factory did just that. People still talk about how good the food was and we had soooo much left over. My recommendation is to stick with a local caterer or a restaurant that can offer catering at a reasonable rate. If we did not go with Sprinkle Factory, Maggiano’s was our alternative. The rates were close BUT Maggiano’s would not have had any soul to it (just being honest). If you want to save even more money, get a family member or friend to cook. We stayed under $300 on food - With under 25 guests. Oh for drinks, we did sweet tea and lemonade. My in laws grabbed a few jugs the day before. Eazy Peazy. 

7. CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE. We love cake! But if you want to say I do on a budget, be reasonable here. As much as I love desserts, I don’t see how or why people spend THOUSANDS on a damn cake. I mean if you got it, have at it. But honestly, even if we had it, thousands on a cake would not be an option. BUT if this is one of the things you can not compromise on, then make it the largest part of your budget. For us we settled on cupcakes and it was perfect. Sprinkle Factory handled that for us as well. So one stop shop. We did red velvet cupcakes and yellow cake cupcakes. About $50. Boom. Can’t beat it. 

We did set up a dessert bar area with the cupcakes. We had donut holes and cookies, purchased from Food Lion, about $15. This gave people options and allowed them to make a goodie bags of treats to take home for those late night cravings (and to soak up wedding booze).

8. Booze. Ok, booze is important at most weddings. I mean really. In America, we love our booze. People spend A LOT of their wedding budget on alcohol. In VA it is about $50 for an ABC license. So get that checked off of the list. Then decide how you want to do the booze. We initially said beer and wine only, which would have been ok but I decided I wanted a signature cocktail. So we did white wine,  rosé, two beer options (Corona and Red Stripe -  representing where we got engaged and where we were going for the honey moon) and the signature drink was “Mai Tai The Knot” which I made in a jug and poured in glasses before the wedding. The Mai Tai was a super cute idea because I drank so many Mai Tai’s when we went to Jamaica. So it was perfect to tie it into our wedding ideas. The wine was in carafe dispensers for easy self serving, the cocktails already available on the table, it was easy and convenient. We spent about $80 on alcohol and had PLENTY left over. Which is ok, because you can always use left over wine *sip sip hooray*.

I recommend buying a bottle of wine or two each month leading up to the wedding. So you aren’t spending a lot up front. Also consider returning any unopened alcohol for a refund. We purchased from Total Wine and the VA ABC store. Also, Total Wine offers discounts and coupons all the time, when possible take advantage.

Not sure how much booze you will need? Well, there is a site for that. It is better to have too much than too little, keep that in mind.

http://www.thealcoholcalculator.com/

9. Photographer - These days everyone has a side job or a creative skill. If you know of a friend or family member who would offer photography services you can save money here. But there are several photographers in RVA that offer various packages to fit your budget. We chose Joi Donaldson with Right Side Reign. My heart was racing when I finally saw our pictures. They are PERFECT.

10. EXTRAS! We had a singer (Darrelle Brown) do our wedding song, he is awesome. He charges per song. We paid around $50 for our one song that we walked out to. We had signs and name plates custom made ( TCT Designs ). We had wine glasses customized on a special $5 per glass by Kris Woods with Individual Creations (find her on FB), my beautiful BEAT was done by Tiffany Woods (Just Tiff’s Makeup on FB) under $100 on special, my glitzy wedding dress - AMAZON. Speaking of Amazon, we got alot of our wedding items off of Amazon. If you have a rewards program with your credit card where you can get gift card pay outs, gift card rewards through your employer or just receive gift cards as presents ALWAYS CHOOSE AMAZON if you have a wedding coming up. We got table cloths, plates, cloth napkins, utensils, drink dispensers, AND my wedding dress off of Amazon. Dollar Tree is also your best friend. I used $1 vases and tea lights for decor, shopped around for the lowest cost hydrangeas ($2 a stem from Vogue Flowers) and dropped the white flowers into some water and added the tea light for a simple elegant table piece. We also got champagne flutes, cocktail glasses, cups from the dollar tree. Thank you cards, ivory and gold napkins - HOBBY LOBBY during the wedding item sale. $1 each pack. Music - We did not have a DJ. I made a poppin a** playlist and we used her uncle’s equipment to play the music for FREE. I highly recommend this. DJs were charging over $100 per hour and maybe that makes sense for larger weddings but it wasn’t something we needed. Invitations ordered from Vista Print. Instead of making people waste time and money on mailing back the RSVP we set up a wedding email address. They could email back the yes or no to attendance. That was about $30! As far as wedding favors, we did Hershey kisses in our wedding colors. Very cheap - got it from Walmart. About 8 pieces per guest. Don’t waste money on cutesy favors. Most people trash them or are so drunk they forget them. But you can’t go wrong with favors that can be eaten, I promise. Two big bags of Kisses at Walmart was about $6 a bag. I ate more than I bagged up as favors :( 

Overall, we spent $500 on the venue, close to $300 on food, $150 on photography, $80 on alcohol, about $60 on folding chairs, ZERO on plates, utensils, napkins because we used gift cards, $60 on 7 black floor length table cloths (cheaper than renting I promise and you can use them again), about $60 on dollar tree items, $20 on flowers (we did not even use them all). Also, important to note I did not have a bouquet - we saved money here. 

Always go local or with people trying to get exposure to save the most money but don’t compromise on things most important to you. If you see a MUA that is just getting out there, use her. If you find a baker having a special, try it. Cut costs where you can without missing out on important pieces. 

Biggest tip, keep the guest list small. If you plan to have 100 people this post isn’t going to help you. Sorry Sis (or Bro). But if you plan to keep your nuptials intimate with just close family and some friends, I promise it can be done UNDER $1500 (not including attire, hair, jewelry, etc - But it is possible to do that as well). 

We did have a post wedding party to celebrate with our friends that we did not invite which was so important to us. We wanted to keep our wedding low key and intimate so inviting all of our friends just could not happen. We were able to do a post wedding open bar event also on a budget (I may do a blog on that later). So if you cannot invite everyone and feel bad about it, think of doing a post wedding party. A cookout, happy hour, or maybe wait a year and do a big a** anniversary party. Do whatever makes sense for you and your partner, but whatever you do; don’t go broke trying to impress someone else. It is not worth it. While I am mentioning going broke, don’t put a lot of wedding stuff on your credit cards or take out loans. It doesn’t make sense to enter a new marriage with MORE DEBT. I was paying off credit cards WHILE planning our wedding. You do NOT need loans or lines of credit to plan a wedding. I read an article about most weddings averaging over $20k (unbelievable), don’t feel it is necessary to hit your max.

I hope you found this helpful. I am always available if you have questions or need contact info for businesses we worked with! 

Happy Wedding Planning!