Milestone Events

When you are wedding planning it seems like everytime you turn around some one has their hand out for more moolah.  This installment of Diaries is going to help you figure out what is necessary and what is not.  There will be two installments of this one: I have an awful lot to say about this topic so be sure to check back next week for part two.

There is a saying that my dad always said to me growing up: “take care of your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves”.  Growing up, I always thought this was the most rediculous thing I had ever heard.  I mean, really, in this age of hedonistic entitlement and the ‘I have to have it all and I have to have it now’ attitude of our generation, do you really care about your pennies?   I sure didn’t.  I hope my dad doesn’t read this but I have a dirty little secret to admit: I used to throw my pennies in the garbage when my wallet got too full of them!  He would have a coronary if he knew that.

Now that I am in my early thirties, have a few kiddies running around and have been running a household and a business for years I have gained that all important and proverbial knowledge of time=prospective.  And here is something that just kills me to admit.  Dad was right.  (I was totally just choking there when I typed that, by the way).

So here is the point: when you are planning your wedding run it like a business.  Bottom Line = Top of Mind.  The wedding industry has done an incredible job of creating things for weddings, marketing them so well (thank you SLICE & TLC, wedding mags and celebrity weddings on TV) that brides are brainwashed into thinking they MUST have IT! 

Every bride has a different idea of what IT is: $10K+ for photography, invitations made of silk, phaelenopsis orchids, 16 piece band, 9 course plated choice menu, celebrity planner.  Really, being so inundated with so much wedding fabulousness who wouldn’t want the big celebrity day?

In the spirit of my dad’s sage advice the following is a list of things that you do not need.  They are inexpensive (in the grand scheme of all things bridal) but it all adds up. If you follow this advice you can probably trim a couple grand from your bottom line!

1. Favors.  You don’t need them.  Period.  I have cleaned up enough weddings in my life to know that I will pick up a tonne of favors that guests leave behind.  Guess where the delightful little chatchkas end up?  Answer: THE GARBAGE! Do something edible if you must have a favor; at least you will have a better chance of guests taking them or eating them.  The other issue that I have with favors is that it is often not just the favor you need to pay for.  Packaging, tags and ribbon all add up. 

2. Cake:  If your venue is serving you a dessert, why do you need a big cake?  Why would pay the cake cutting fee venues impose on cakes brought in if people are already full of the delicious dinner you just spent 50% of your budget on.  Alternatively, if must have cake for the photo op then have the cake for dessert and have the caterer or venue decrease the price per plate.  It is totally redundant to have both.

3. The Cocktail Hour:  In the last decade it has become very fashionable to have pre-dinner snacks and cocktails (I call it the sip and nibble hour).  I am a huge advocate for cocktail hour.  It allows guests to socialize before their bums are chained to their seats for three hours for dinner and speeches.  It also has likely been a considerable amount of time between the ceremony and the wedding reception and your guests will be hungry and thirsty.  I also enjoy the element of class this brings to your event.  It shows your guests that you care about their comfort.  So, yes, I believe you should absolutely have a cocktail hour.  But what to serve?  It is definately nicer to have passed hors d’oeurves but if you can’t swallow the $1000+ for 150 guests to have a nibble (and I have not even included the ’sip’ portion of this yet) then have destination platters.  Destination platters is the fancy way of saying big hunks of cheese on a platter with some fruit and maybe a veg tray all on a buffet.  This is considerably less expensive and still a good way to look after your guests.

For the ’sip’ bit of the cocktail hour have sparkling wine.  Do not open the bar.  People can throw back rum and cokes like nobody’s business (if your family is like mine you will know this to be true!).  You will be lucky to get 5 glasses of wine out of a bottle but you can get 6+ out of a bottle of sparkling and people drink it slower that they would a highball or even a martini.  And here is the best news: there are some very lovely bottles of sparkling on the market that are the same price as a bottle wine.

4. The Late Night Buffet: is just a waste.  You don’t need it.  People are full.  And that’s all I’ll say about that.

I have received a lot of positive response from this series of blogs.  Keep your comments and e-mails coming!  I love to hear about your trials, tribulations and your joys and snafoos as you plan your way to wedded (and hopefully financially solvent) bliss!

For this next installment of Diairies we will talk about how to work your negotiations with vendors to get the biggest bang for your buck.  Sorry all you vendors out there: everyone will be targeted today…even the planner types like me!

1. Venue: Here’s a newsflash: Friday is the new Saturday.  Same with Sundays.  Guess what?  Most venues do not have those obnoxious food and beverage minimums that they require you meet on Saturdays on other days of the week(by the way, taxes and gratuities are usually on top of the minimum, not included in it).  So what does this mean for you?  Super cool venue, that you probably couldn’t afford on a Saturday is very eager for your business on Fridays, and Sundays and Wednesdays…you get the picture.

2. Photographers: find yourself a photog that gives you the high res negatives as a part of the package.  This way you can print your own photos and not pay the exorbitant printing costs.  Another option is to find a photog that is willing to sell the high res digital negs to you.  $500 seems to be a fairly consistent number for this.  Another way to save is not do the album through your photographer.  There are a tonne of great websites that will allow you to design you own book for as little as $40 and they ship it to your door.  One of my favorites is www.photoworks.com.  If I can do it (I am completely technologically illiterate) then so can you.

3. Videographer: Seriously folks, a worthwhile investment.  But you don’t need all the fancy bells and whistles in terms of editting, and titling.   Keep it basic.  2 cameras for your ceremony, 1 for the reception.  Don’t have the videographer there all day either.  Pick a later start time…or an earlier end time.  Skip the bridal prep.  Do ceremony, 1 photo shoot location, reception.  Also, make sure you get some one good and not some one cheap.  You will hate your final product and it will be a waste of money.  See if they will film in raw and then edit at a later time when financial times are better.  What a great first anniversary gift to each other.

4. Stationery: One website to tell you about: www.weddingpaperdivas.com.  Fabulous invites, and pricing that you AND your fiance can handle.  A lot of invites for $1.00 + per piece. Custom = expensive.  Also, Staples is my new best friend.  CHEAP printing for those DIY girls.  Do not get a pocket fold.  This is where things start to add up.  Use text weight instead of cardstock where you can. 

5. Transportation: Here is the best kept secret in the whole wide world.  Airport limousines are usually cheaper than any other company.  Also, call around for a company that does not have a 4 hour minimum…they do exist in Vancouver believe it or not. 

6. Decor: Lots of ways to save here: For your linens, get an overlay as opposed to a floor length linen for  a splash of colour.  Spend some money on uplighting…it makes all the difference and it is a super cheap way of masking ugly walls or creating some ambiance.  (Drape = $$$)  RENT YOUR DECOR!  Do not buy vases.  What will you do with them after?  RECYCLE: plan on ceremony decor that can easily be repositioned for use at the reception.  You should NOT pay for a repositioning fee.  That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of.    Find yourself a decorator that you love.  Get the proposal from them and if it exceeds you budget then start a conversation.  You will be pleasantly suprised to know how open and flexible we all are.  Just because the first quote come back with a little sticker shock (which happens sometimes…we get excited when the ideas start flowing) take it back to them and say, “hey, this is more than what I was expecting.  What can we do?”  You will be surprised what comes out of asking.  The point is BOOK the person that you love.  TALK about the money. 

7. Flowers: All right, girls.  This is not rocket science.  Buy in season, locally grown.  FROM A REPUTABLE FLORIST!  I cannot express this enough.  Even in times where we are pinching pennies and tightening belts bouquets come from florists, not places where you can buy bad jeans, enough peanut butter to feed a small country, and tires.  Go in with a budget.  Give it to the florist first and see what she can do within that budget.  Also, this is not an area where I would recommend DIY.

8. Planning:  Definately invest in one…but here I recommend that you customize your package to suit you.  Maybe you know that you are terrible with money.  So get a “day of” package and add budget management.  Basically, what I am recommending to my brides right now is get the minimum so that you can at the very least relax on you day and know that all will fall into place…an you won’t be the one making it all happen.  If you need more than that, pick and choose what’s important.  Do you need your planner to walk you through making your seating arrangement?  Probably not.  Also, it never hurts to ask if pricing is flexible.  Sometimes it is.  The other thing is that if you have a “day of” only package and you sometimes need to ask us a question outside of what is normally included in a day of package about a vendor or even need a recommendation or two, I know that I certainly don’t mind giving you a little bit extra help.

So here is the moral of the story: we’re all in same economic boat, as it were.  Vendors want your business right now so feel empowered to ask questions.  The first price may not be the final price.  Find people you love and ask the question.  If the answer is no then move on, and that’s totally ok.  But if you get a “yes”, a “maybe”, or a “let’s talk about it”, you are ahead of the game.  Work the system girls…you will be glad that you did.

Every one has budget on the brain these days it seems.  So to that end we thought we start a weekly blog about ways to save all of your hard earned money while still having a fabulous wedding day.  Make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed and you can follow along too!  We promise we can save you a bundle if you follow these steps!  (When was the last time you heard “save” and “wedding” in the same sentance???).

Today’s lesson will be about your guest list since this is usually one the first places brides will start when planning their big day.  Guest lists can spriral out of control pretty easily if you let it.  Here is a set of guidelines to keep it all managable:

Rule 1:  If you are pretty sure you are not going to know some one in 10 years then they don’t need to be at the biggest day of your life.  This will likely include work colleagues (invite your boss, if it makes sense for you politically), your casual acquaintances and their dates. 

Rule 2: Your friends do not need to bring a date unless they are in a serious relationship or are engaged or married.  You really don’t need to have random people that you don’t know help you celebrate your marriage.

Rule 3: Invite your family.  People have a long memory.  Friends forgive but family never forgets a slight…especially when it comes to special celebrations.  Also, this is YOUR day but be sensitive to your families needs too.  They are excited for you and they want all the people they love there to watch you take the next step in your life.  This is a proud moment for parents so listen to what they would like too…they have been dreaming about this day just as long as you have.

Rule 4: The WHOLE family doesn’t need to come though.  Second cousins, their spouses and children can be left off unless you are close with them, of course.  Also, it is ok to have an adult only wedding.  Leave the guilt at the door.

Rule 5: Be smart about the venue you pick.  Don’t take on a venue that allows you more space than what you need.  If you are inviting 120 people and the place can seat 200 I can pretty much guarantee that you will have more people than you planned on having…the “we’re already spending so much money what’s two more people?” mentality will take over.  Times that by four and you have added a whole new table you weren’t expecting.  That table will need food, liquor, decor, linens, favors, cake…the list goes on.  Just keep in mind IT IS NOT ONLY FOOD THAT YOU NEED TO PAY FOR WHEN YOU ADD GUESTS!

Rule 6: Do not do an A list and a B list and wait to see who see who is coming.  If the guest didn’t make it onto the A list in the first place then why would you want them there at all?

Rule 7: For the people you do invite make sure you show them a really good time.  The food should be plentiful, the bar should be open, the room should look stunning and all of it should be a reflection of you and your fiance.  If you can’t do this then take a red pen to the guest list again.