How to Plan Your Own Wedding and Save Thousands - Without Going Crazy

How to Plan Your Own Wedding and Save Thousands

Without Going Crazy

By Tracy Leigh

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How to Plan Your Own Wedding and Save Thousands—Without Going Crazy

Copyright © 2007 by Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.

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ISBN-13: 978-1-60138-007-4 ISBN-10: 1-60138-007-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Leigh, Tracy, 1969-

How to plan your own wedding and save thousands : without going crazy / by Tracy Leigh.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60138-007-4 (alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1-60138-007-0 (alk. paper)

1. Weddings--Planning. I. Title.

HQ745.L435 2008

395.2’2--dc22

2007028925

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A few years back we lost our beloved pet dog Bear, who was not only our best and dearest friend but also the Vice President of Sunshine here at Atlantic Publishing. He did not receive a salary but worked tirelessly 24 hours a day to please his parents.

Bear was a rescue dog who turned around and showered myself, my wife, Sherri, his grandparents Jean, Bob, and Nancy, and every person and animal he met (well, maybe not rabbits) with friendship and love. He made a lot of people smile every day.

We wanted you to know a portion of the profits of this book will be donated in Bear’s memory to local animal shelters, parks, conservation organizations, and other individuals and nonprofit organizations in need of assistance.

– Douglas and Sherri Brown

PS: We have since adopted two more rescue dogs: first Scout, and the following year, Ginger. They were both mixed golden retrievers who needed a home.

Want to help animals and the world? Here are a dozen easy suggestions you and your family can implement today:

•  Adopt and rescue a pet from a local shelter.

•  Support local and no-kill animal shelters.

•  Plant a tree to honor someone you love.

•  Be a developer — put up some birdhouses.

•  Buy live, potted Christmas trees and replant them.

•  Make sure you spend time with your animals each day.

•  Save natural resources by recycling and buying recycled products.

•  Drink tap water, or filter your own water at home.

•  Whenever possible, limit your use of or do not use pesticides.

•  If you eat seafood, make sustainable choices.

•  Support your local farmers market.

•  Get outside. Visit a park, volunteer, walk your dog, or ride your bike.

Five years ago, Atlantic Publishing signed the Green Press Initiative. These guidelines promote environmentally friendly practices, such as using recycled stock and vegetable-based inks, avoiding waste, choosing energy-efficient resources, and promoting a no-pulping policy. We now use 100-percent recycled stock on all our books. The results: in one year, switching to post-consumer recycled stock saved 24 mature trees, 5,000 gallons of water, the equivalent of the total energy used for one home in a year, and the equivalent of the greenhouse gases from one car driven for a year.

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1: Budgeting and Organization

Chapter 2: First Things First

Chapter 3: Who Does What When?

Chapter 4: Location, Location, Location

Chapter 5: Attire for the Bride

Chapter 6: Attire for the Groom & Wedding Party

Chapter 7: Invitations, Thank You Cards, and More

Chapter 8: Wedding Day Flowers

Chapter 9: Decorations and Accents

Chapter 10: Your Wedding Cake

Chapter 11: Food and Beverages for Your Reception

Chapter 12: Entertainment at Your Reception

Chapter 13: Renting Equipment

Chapter 14: Photography and Videography

Chapter 15: Little Extras That Mean A Lot

Conclusion

Resources

Author Biography

More Books

Foreword

By Xaviera Pepe

Congratulations on your engagement!

Planning your wedding can be one of the most enjoyable experiences of your life, but it can also be one of the most stressful. Having anticipated this moment for so long, you may find yourself excited, overjoyed, or perhaps even overwhelmed — all of which are perfectly natural. Whatever mixture of emotions you are experiencing, just remember that planning your wedding is a wonderful rite of passage into your new life. Welcome to the wedding planning process; best wishes and, most of all, do not forget to enjoy the ride.

You may have picked up this book because you are planning your wedding on a budget, or perhaps you are interested in finding some creative ways to save money on your big day. As a wedding planner, I have good news for you: With a little ingenuity, you can plan a beautiful wedding on a modest budget. The truth of the matter is that it is not how much money you spend on your wedding; it is how you spend it that counts. This book, How to Plan Your Own Wedding and Save Thousands — Without Going Crazy, will show you how to make the most of your money and still create a memorable wedding.

Whether you are on a strict wedding budget or you are one of the lucky few for whom a budget is only a minor consideration, one thing holds true: You will need to dedicate a considerable amount of time to planning all the details of your special day — so start getting organized early. When it comes to ideas or decision-making, waiting too long invariably leads to rushed decisions, costly mistakes, and sometimes even regrets.

First things first: Create a financial plan for your entire wedding, regardless of the size of your budget. Construct a budget with everything you consider a must-have at your wedding, and then add in your wish list. Here is where you will decide which items need to be included in your budget and which items do not. For example, if your parents are paying for photography as a gift, you may choose not to include this expense as part of your budget. Some couples do not include their wedding rings or even the wedding dress as part of their budget, but my advice is to include everything for which you will need to take financial responsibility.

After you have your list, assign a price point for each item before you start meeting with potential vendors. Putting your wedding must-haves and your wish list up against your budget will be vital in helping you realistically decide the number of guests you can invite, the location of a reception you can afford, the food you will serve, the photographer you will hire, the floral arrangements you will design, and the many other wedding components you will need to consider. After assigning realistic price points to each item on your list, start visiting venues and meeting with vendors, but stick to the figures you have committed to. My experience as a wedding planner has taught me that the fastest way for a bride and groom to overspend on their wedding is by not creating a firm budget up front and blindly spending their funds as their wedding plans progress.

For many couples, the mere idea of translating their wedding dream into a no-nonsense budget is more overwhelming than the planning process itself. If you fall into this category, then hiring a wedding planner may be the answer for you. Maybe you think you cannot afford one. Think again: I say you cannot afford not to have one. Believe it or not, the right wedding planner can save you money, time, and endless amounts of stress. Consider the process at our own company: we first help our couples create their must-have and wish lists. Then we help them assign the realistic price points to each item, based on the overall budget amount that they have given to us. The most important thing we do for our clients, however, is to help them set up consultations with only the venues and vendors who are reputable and whose prices will fall within the right budget range. Because our business is to know all the wedding vendors in our particular area, we are able to refer our couples to the vendors who will be able to give them the best level of services for the money they have to spend.

A bride and groom without wedding planning experience will likely spend countless hours researching potential locations, photographers, caterers, florist, etc. — many of whom may not even fall within their budgetary constraints. In the saddest cases, couples find and fall in love with a venue or vendor, sometimes make the required commitments in haste, and then realize that they now need to make cuts in other, potentially vital areas of their wedding plans to stay within budget. This is when it is all too easy to become overwhelmed by the whole experience and begin to feel that you can no longer have the wedding of your dreams because everything costs so much.

My best advice for planning and ultimately having the wedding you both dreamed of is to hire a professional wedding planner and include the planner’s fee as part of your overall budget. Aside from keeping you from overspending and overstressing, hiring the right wedding planner will often pay for itself by helping you understand the various services you are buying, educating you as to the appropriate pricing for those services, and often, even helping you negotiate discounts or extras with no additional fees. Working with the best vendors in the industry (and having seen some of the worst) equips every great wedding planner with a level of knowledge and experience that is invaluable to any engaged couple. Moreover, the peace of mind it ends up buying you throughout the whole planning process is priceless.

If you elect to plan your wedding without professional assistance and have already created the budget (and vowed to follow it), then here are some tips, in addition to those included throughout this book, on how to spend your money wisely:

1. Consider that about half of your budget needs to go toward your ceremony location and reception venue, which often includes food and alcohol (assuming you are hosting an open bar).

2. Photography is often the next highest wedding expenditure, and it can be quite costly to hire a quality photographer. Spending over budget on your photography is all too easy to do after you have met a photographer (whom you cannot afford) whose work you end up falling in love with and, despite being out of your budget, you end up hiring him or her anyway. If this happens, you may be forced to cut significant aspects out of your wedding. To prevent making this mistake, pre-screen photographers on the phone before meeting with them in person to make sure their fees will work with your budget; this will prevent you from wasting their time or yours. However, remember that it is crucial to hire a reputable photographer or risk having poor or no images of this once-in-a-lifetime event you have planned.

3. Flowers and décor should account for at least 20 percent of your overall wedding budget because these are the elements that will set the overall style, mood, and tone of your wedding. The look and feel of your wedding will be what your guests remember for years to come. The flowers, candles, lighting, and overall aesthetic design will provide the dramatic visual that will create the sensational, romantic, or modern setting you have dreamed of.

Naturally, you want your wedding to be visually stunning. The floral aspect of your décor will be one of the first and most important elements you will need to consider. The most popular choices for table centerpieces are tall, round floral arrangements that sit high above the table. Whether on a candelabra or a trumpet vase, the centerpieces alone will be around 50 percent of your entire floral budget. Since these flowers are a significant part of your overall budget, you will want to use them as effectively as possible. So consider using these same arrangements as décor for your ceremony. Simply place your reception table centerpieces on tall, beautiful stands down the aisle, and use your two largest pieces at the altar. If you still have extra centerpieces, place two more at the front of the church or aisle as welcoming arrangements. Doubling up your reception flowers at your ceremony will give you a celebrity-style wedding with no additional cost.

4. If you need guidance on where you can trim costs from your budget, consider the area of favors. Allow me to share that, as a wedding planner, I collect more than 75 percent of the favors at the end of the evening. Although these heartfelt tokens may be sentimental to the bride and groom, I must regretfully say that, in my experience, most of your guests will leave their favors behind or discard them on the way out, even if they are edible. What this tells me is that most people would not mind forgoing the small favors or trinkets but would rather receive a heartfelt note or card instead.

When your budget is not substantial, ingenuity is an asset that you should definitely put to work for you. In what would at first seem like a wedding no-no, cutting the cost of an exorbitant wedding cake is something that can save literally thousands of dollars. I am still astonished that my wedding cake cost $1,200 — and that it was not covered in gold for that price! Several of my brides who have been on extremely tight budgets have asked their mothers or bridesmaids to host a baking event for the bridal party the day before the wedding where they have made a cupcake for each wedding guest. When placed on beautiful silver cupcake tier stands, your cupcakes can have the appearance of a beautiful wedding cake and be an extremely cost-conscious alternative. In addition, memories and photographs of and for the bridesmaids and the soon-to-be mothers-in-law will be priceless.

Engaged couples often find that family members are excited about their impending nuptials as well, and they are always honored to be asked for their help with the big day. For instance, when one of my couples realized that the wedding day transportation costs were excessively high, they asked the bride’s cousin to play the part of their wedding day chauffer with his Hummer. He was delighted to be included as part of their wedding party entourage, and the couple ended up paying only for a pre-wedding car detail and a small thank you gift for the cousin’s generosity — quite a savings and they still traveled in style.

Your wedding day is a once-in-a-lifetime affair, and there is not a bride or groom who does not want the day to be perfect in every way. When planning a wedding on a budget, countless compromises can be made with little to no effect on your or your guests’ enjoyment of the event. Whether you opt to have your invitations made at an offset printer instead of having them engraved, whether you hire a disc jockey instead of a band, or whether you choose a cash bar over an open bar, your goal is to make priority what is important to you. Focus on the aspects of your wedding celebration that will best commemorate this day and ones that you will carry with you into your new future. Most of all, keep things in perspective — whether you serve chicken, fish, or filet mignon at your wedding is not what matters. It is the fact that you and your new spouse will be sharing your first meal together with the friends and family who love you.

By reading this book, you are taking the first step toward creating a budgeted but still beautiful wedding. Here, you will find countless tips to help save you money while at the same time creating the wedding you always dreamed of. Best of luck to you as you begin your journey.

Warmest Wedding Wishes,

Xaviera Pepe

Petals by Xavi

www.petalsbyxavi

www.bestweddingcompany.com

4496 Torrey Pines Dr. Chino Hills Ca 91709

949-307-1918

866-551-2199

Table of Contents

Introduction

Becoming engaged is one of the most exciting times in our lives, and you have likely thought about this moment many times. Now you get to plan the wedding of your dreams.

You can picture yourself in your beautiful flowing gown, walking down the aisle toward your handsome groom — all decked out in the finest of tuxes —

with your friends and family watching in awe. After the ceremony, you want a reception that includes the best champagne, wonderful music, delectable food, and the pièce de résistance — the perfect wedding cake.

Or perhaps your dreams are to get married on the beach at sunset, in a short, swingy dress, with the waves lapping in the background. Maybe your dream has always been to have the ceremony in your parents’ backyard, with a barbecue and pop music for dancing the night away under the stars. It does not matter — whatever your dreams are, they have become the standard for your wedding day.

Whether your vision of a perfect wedding is a small, casual gathering with a limited guest list or a grand formal affair with hundreds in attendance, you want your wedding to be glorious. As the bride, it is your right. This extremely special day should live up to every expectation you have.

With the average cost of a wedding in the United States in 2007 approaching $30,000, you may be stressed about how you are going to afford it. But even with an unlimited budget, wedding planning is not for the weak at heart. There are multitudes of details, from the tiny to the immense, that need to be taken into consideration. When you have to stick to a budget, these details may seem overwhelming. You want the wedding of your dreams, but money is tight.

You must consider your attire and the wedding party’s attire, but you will also have to think about the ceremony, flowers, photography, reception, drinks, food, cake, music, and transportation. Those items are just the basics. In addition, you have to worry about all the little extras: centerpieces, memorabilia, Web site, invitations, gifts, tables, chairs, dishes, glasses, place cards. It can be a long list.

The first advice this book offers you is to not become overwhelmed. In this book you will find all the tips and information you need to break down each item into a manageable process. You will learn ways to save money and how to hunt for bargains in every step of the wedding planning process so that you can have the wedding of your dreams, regardless of your budget.

Whether your budget is $1,000 or $50,000, your wedding day dreams can come true.

Wedding Facts

There are a few facts about weddings that you should know before planning your wedding:

• Face it — Your wedding is not all about you and your fiancé. Your relatives and friends have opinions about your wedding. Listen courteously, but this is your day; focus on what you want, and do not give into what you do not want.

• Larger than life — Weddings tend to become twice the size of the original plan. Realizing this to begin with will help you recognize the probability of a bigger guest list than you are anticipating. Chapter 2 covers planning your guest list and how to limit the ever-expanding number of people invited.

• Degrees of perfection — Although this book shows you how to get the wedding of your dreams on a budget, the perfect, nothing-goes-wrong wedding does not exist. Things happen. Perfectly planned weddings have gone awry because of the unforeseen. The flowers