You get to decide how much to spend on your wedding

By Laura Giovanelli
Media General News Service
Published: July 31, 2008

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue...something overpriced?
The rings. The party. The flowers. Wedding bells?
That’s probably the sound of a cash register ching-chinging.
Tammy Caudill wasn’t trying to save money when she began planning her recent wedding.
But once she started looking into the price of bouquets and dresses, photographers and veils and venues, she started shaking her head.
Most outrageous of all was the $100 her florist wanted for a white-rose cake topper.
“For a cake topper,” Caudill said recently, lingering on every word.
She asked her florist instead to make one with white carnations mixed with three roses. It was $15.
“What’s really going to matter in the end?” she said. “I’m going to tell you that the cake topper isn’t going to last. And nobody’s going to remember it.”
She and her husband, Gary Szulczewski, were married May 24 in Kernersville. Caudill put their wedding together in about a month. They originally planned to get married in August, but then Gary’s house sold faster than they had anticipated and they didn’t want to live together unmarried.
But Caudill thinks that the time crunch helped save them some money. She hired a photographer who didn’t have a wedding booked that Saturday. She wanted just a CD with images and later had albums made from the photo files. She called a few photographers and let them know that they were bidding for the job. “I had two photographers willing to do it for $1,000,” she said. “I got exactly what I wanted.”
It’s easy to get caught up in the romance of wedding planning, says Barbara Cameron, the author of The Everything Weddings on a Budget Book, especially if you have celebrity-style aspirations - you know, the kind of wedding reception with ice sculptures spouting top-shelf martinis, a cigar-rolling station and a petting zoo for the kids?
What most of us don’t have is a checking account large enough to cover the designer dresses, cakes, photographer and all the other trappings. “That’s all fed to us from TV and the media from the time we’re little. People start to think that’s the way weddings are supposed to look,” Cameron said. “What about spending on the down payment of a house?”
The average cost of a wedding is $27,852, according to the 2006 American Weddings study, the latest available. That’s a 44 percent increase from 1999.
An increasing number of couples are paying for their own wedding, too.
Eloping isn’t the only alternative. Here’s some ways to creatively hold down costs and go into the wedding fray carefully.
n Set a budget and hold to it. It’s up to you to decide what proportion of that should go toward the reception, for example, or the dress. Maybe having a live band at the reception is important to you, or maybe its food that represents your background. “Your budget can be $5,000 or $500 or half a million, but you’re still working on a budget,” Cameron said. “It’s choices and it’s priorities.”
n Consider “off peak” times of day for your wedding, or even nontraditional days, seasons or venues. It may cost you less to rent a facility on a Sunday or even a weekday. Mornings and afternoons are generally cheaper than evenings. You might be able to cut deals with vendors if you’re willing to get married in “off-season” months such as March and February compared to the height of wedding season during the spring, summer and early fall.
There are also free and low-cost places to hold ceremonies and receptions, such as Grace Court, a pocket park in Winston-Salem’s West End neighborhood.
Lindsay and Jason Byerly got married in Tanglewood Park’s Mount Pleasant Church last September (it cost them $150). They had their reception in Jason’s parents’ backyard in Clemmons (that was free).
A good rule of thumb about venues is to get everything in writing, Cameron said. If you don’t, you could get surprised by hidden charges such as corking fees for wine, or locations that insist that you use their own (more expensive) in-house catering company.
n A reception doesn’t have to mean a sit-down dinner. Dainty box lunches instead of a five-course meal. A decadent dessert buffet instead of prime rib and salad. Brunch instead of dinner. There are all kinds of ways to save money on reception food. “I think that’s why weddings have become so expensive, the expectation that you will get a meal,” Cameron said.
The Byerlys had barbecue at their backyard party - it was a gift from a relative.
Tammy Caudill offered her guests a dessert and appetizer buffet at her 7 p.m. reception. People didn’t expect a meal so late in the evening, she said. And there was food and alcohol left over.
A big meal was served at Saundra and Daniel Mitchell’s wedding in 2005, but her family catered it. Family members brought dishes that they were good at making - mac and cheese, wings, potato salad. The potluck meant that her family could literally be part of the couple’s party, she said. It also kept costs between $1,000 and $2,000, she said.
“Of course everyone wants a big gorgeous wedding. Afterward you have bills to pay. You still have to live. I would have rather kept the money and pay the bills,” Mitchell said. “I’m just conservative (about) something that’s going to last one day.”
If you don’t want to do without alcohol, offer a limited selection of wine and beer.
n Don’t be afraid to bargain. Prices might not be set in stone, especially if a vendor needs the business. “The worst case scenario is that they can tell you ‘No,”’ Caudill said.
n DIY. Caudill saw a veil embellished with crystal beads that she loved - but not for $150. So she bought a plain one for $20 and with $1.25 worth of beads from a craft store, she spent one afternoon re-creating it.
With iPods, you can now DJ your own party.
Another possibility is getting friends and family involved. From the music to the photography to the cakes, their talents and hobbies can be their wedding gift to you. Just make sure that they can be counted on. If it’s worth your piece of mind to hire someone, it may be a less stressful way to go.
n Smaller means cheaper. Fewer guests and bridal attendants will mean less food, less booze, less gifts for the bridal party and on and on. “To me, it was much less stress to have a smaller wedding,” said Lindsay Byerly, who estimates that her entire wedding cost about $3,000. She and Jason each had one attendant and between 40 and 50 guests. “I felt like it could still be beautiful without spending a ton of money.”
n Get creative about flowers. Talk to a florist about alternatives. Use in-season blooms. Look online or consider buying some from the farmers market or discount store such as Costco and then arranging your own. Silk flowers can be cheaper, but sometimes they’re not, so don’t assume.
n Get creative about clothes. With the wedding average dress costing around $1,000, buying a used dress, or even renting one might be affordable alternative. Consider white or ivory (or any other color) evening dresses or bridesmaid dresses instead of ones that are specifically designed for the bride. Hunt online. Shop sales. Caudill bought her strapless gown for $99 during a sale at David’s Bridal. It was originally $899. Mitchell took her bridesmaids to Burlington Coat Factory, where they all agreed on matching $30 dresses.
n Send save-the-dates via e-mail, and accept RSVPs that way, too. That will save on printing, postage and paper, which is more environmentally friendly, too. Austin Pfeiffer and Erin Elmore, who have spent much of this summer planning their July 26 wedding in Winston-Salem, kept track of their guests through RSVPit.com, a free Web service.
n Do spend on wedding or travel insurance. Cameron recommends getting it if your wedding will cost more than $1,000. The travel insurance is for your honeymoon - especially if it’s to a hurricane-prone region such as the Caribbean.
n Don’t let others’ ideas of a wedding dictate how yours should or shouldn’t be. Do you really need to have that monogrammed silver cake cutter? Think about the things that you can do without.
n Laura Giovanelli writes for the Winston-Salem Journal.