Your wedding budget—Let’s be REALISTIC!
This information is aimed at the brides who are frequenting the wedding boards with budgets and DIY projects for their special day. Go to any of the bridal and wedding boards, and you’ll see the overwhelming number of brides who are planning their wedding, many of whom have extremely unrealistic expectations for their special day. Here’s what I mean:
Sally from Connecticut wants to DIY her wedding and has a $5000 total budget. She wants her reception at the local hotel reception room, and has invited 200 of her closest friends and family. She expects the hotel staff to do a buffet serving with 40 round tables, covered with white table clothes, and she’d like music for 5 hours with a dance floor, two bartenders and a keg of beer. Sally wanted two choices of meat, vegetables and dessert. Do you see any problems yet?
Yuppp! Sally is already $10,000 over budget, and she hasn’t even started her DIY projects. Let’s see… Sally had the following “wants” for her fairytale dream day: Flowers on every table, photography of the wedding and reception, soft dinner music with dance music later on. Wedding party arrival at the reception in a white stretch limo, room décor lighting, covered chairs and colored ribbons, ostrich feather centerpieces, and a photo montage of her and her FH while they are dating and falling in love. Don’t forget the rings, wedding dress, tux, cake, officiant, bridesmaids gifts, makeup, invitations, stationary, wedding album, napkins, candles, hairspray, lipstick, dress train, etc etc etc… See where this is going?
The national average for a “normal” run of the mill wedding in the US is over $35,000. Sally is going to have to do some SERIOUS DIY, to pull this off. So, where does Sally begin? Being “realistic” is a good starting point so that Sally isn’t “disappointed” with the outcome of her “dream day”. Sally has been dreaming about this day, since she was a little girl, and that “picture” in her head is what she wants! Sally… get ready for a “brick to the forehead” realization of what your actually going to get for $5000.
First, Sally needs to sit down about a year and a half (or more) before her wedding, and start planning with a notebook of paper. First write down “MUSTS” and then “WANTS”. You see, Sally has been doing this all wrong from the beginning. She started with her total budget, then tried to plug each of her “musts & wants” into the total pie chart. Can’t be done that way! Sally needs to consider a LOT of other aspects first, then come up with a “total budget”. She needs to “DO HER HOMEWORK”!
First and foremost, Sally needs to know how many people she wants to invite. The difference between 100 people and 200 is substantial. Unless Sally and her “entourage” are cooking fried chicken and potatoes and baking her own cake, she better calculate at least $50 for every guest sitting down for dinner. Venues charge for every plate, and charge anywhere between $50 to $100 for each guest (and sometimes more). Some of the major exquisite venues get a lot more. So, how does Sally save money on food? Can she use the venue kitchen, herself? Can she cater the food with family contributions? Does she need to hold her reception at a hotel, or would a church basement work? How about her back yard? Will Sally use paper plates or white china?
OK, so Sally has narrowed her invite list to 100 guests. At $50 per plate, this will cost $5000 (there goes the budget). She has reduced her brides maids list to 3 of her closest friends. She’s holding her reception in the back room of the local VFW, and she gets to use the kitchen as long as it’s completely cleaned and all dishes are put away. The VFW will sell her the first keg at cost, but will charge extra for additional kegs, and the liquor is at cost, but Sally needs to pay for the bartender. Sally has elected the “closed bar” so she won’t have to pay for drinks (not so many folks will drink and will probably party less with a closed bar). Who will Sally have to start the cooking in the kitchen, and be in charge? Mom, or Grandma? Will they miss all the fun of the “party” if they are spending all night back in the kitchen? Who will decorate, and are “dollar store” decorations going to be OK? Did Sally do her homework? What’s the total cost of this DIY project? Add it to the list.
Will aunt Betty bake a cake for Sally, and will Uncle Henry drive the wedding party to the reception in his Cadillac (two trips or more)? Are the tables going to be covered with linen tablecloths or will bed sheets, cut in half, do the job? Is Sally going to hire a professional photographer for the whole day, or just for the wedding… or will Sally put disposable cameras on every table (hope there are not too many pictures of little Billy making faces and throwing up, or cousin Sarah dancing on the table after too many beers). Did Sally do her homework on this DIY project? What’s the total cost of this DIY project? Add it to the list.
OK, so Sally’s FH went to college with his BFF, Ben, who happens to know how to DJ some tunes. Will he play from his iPod Will the “pause” between every song be a “party kill” for the dance? Are the home stereo speakers loud enough to 100 folks in the back room? Will Ben play his favorite music (Country Western) or dance music for everyone to get up and party to? Will Ben spend the night watching the music so no one sneaks in to play their favorite song, somewhere on the iPod, and will Ben make announcements all night or announce the wedding party on time… or was he out having a cigarette at “that moment”? Did Sally do her homework for this DIY project? What’s the total cost of this DIY project? Add it to the list.
Did Sally purchase her dress on e-bay, and have it altered by her sister Louise who is attending a sewing class? Did she print her STD’s on the home computer, and PhotoShop out the image of the old BF on her favorite Disneyland picture? Did she remember to hand address each invitation and put a return stamp on every RSVP? Did Sally do her homework for this DIY project? What’s the total cost of this DIY project? Add it to the list.
All right, so you are probably getting my point in all of this. Did Sally do her homework, and address each and every detail of the aspects of her DIY wedding? Is everything covered? Sally WILL save a lot of money doing it all herself, or having friends and family help. But, has she prepared for all of the contingencies? Are the details covered, and did she plan events in the right order, with the proper steps? If she did her homework, then this event will save her tons of money, but what was all of her time and effort worth? Did Sally bring her $35,000 wedding down to $5000? Will her guests care that the flowers were from Kmart and put in dollar store vases? Will they even notice? Will anyone care that the cake came from isle 9 at Walmart? Will they notice? Does Sally care, or does she want to sit back and relax, and hire it done? All things to consider!
