Vendor Selection #1: The Venue!

We (well, I) knew that I had always dreamed of a city wedding. But, like you, my first thought was city wedding = $$$$. In a sense, that proved to be correct until I sought out an untapped and underutilized wedding venue: city business hotels.

Somewhere in my research of seven billion venue options, I stumbled upon a blog or wedding resource that suggested trying out hotels in business districts as a cheaper alternative for a city wedding. Immediately, I began to focus in that direction, and by God, it worked!

See, as it turns out, financial districts of major cities turn into ghost towns on the weekend. Business functions are generally Monday-Friday, and on the weekend, with businesses closed, there often isn't much activity that takes place. Additionally, the bread and butter of these hotels are business functions that take place during the week. Since they aren't the most desirable locales for weddings, coupled with the fact that there isn't much activity on the weekends means that these city venues can often be procured for budget-friendly prices.

Since I was looking in the Boston area, which is a more expensive area of the country to begin with, I was pretty excited about this, and even more-so when I realized that this benefit extended to the larger hotels in the Cambridge area (right across the river from Boston).  Fate officially took over when my mother mentioned the Marriott hotel right across the street from her office, in fact, her office even overlooked the rooftop garden (wait, what, rooftop garden!?) Yes!

 The venue even boasts opportunities for photos with a Boston-skyline background. Compared to other venue options in the city, this place was by far the cheapest. We loved that it offered an outside ceremony and cocktail reception site (and thus, our city garden theme came about), free parking in the attached parking garage for 24 hours for our guests, and that everything was on-site and close to public transportation. The cons are that compared with venues outside of the city, while the price is comparable within a few thousand dollars, it offers less. We found venues outside the city that offered more apps, and included more in the cost.

How many venues did you research? How did you pick your venue? Were there any must-haves that you were looking for while making your decision?

All In the Family...

When we first got engaged, we were super excited (duh!), but quickly, the reality of financing a wedding had our heads spinning. Who would pay?

My fiance was able to contribute a little each month, along with tackling our credit card debt, but he was feeling slightly broke from paying for the ring. I was in nursing school for one last semester, but the nursing market here is uncertain at best for new grads, and a job was no guarantee...what's a girl to do?

After a few months my mother offered to finance a chunk of the wedding, about 1/3, in addition to paying for the bridal shower. My fiance's parents offered to host the rehearsal dinner initially, but then threw us a wonderful engagement party and are planning a welcome cocktail reception and brunch following the wedding.

But for the remaining 1/3+ of the costs...how did we work it out? Well, we got in over our heads and signed a contract on our venue. Luckily I got a job (even though I'm currently out of work with an injury) and we were able to make it work. Our photographer has done several friends weddings and we got him at a bargain basement price, along with our DJ, who is a professional, but doesn't regularly do weddings. 

We are still struggling to finance the wedding. As per my last post, my income has been slashed since I'm out of work, but we've changed the budget to accommodate that...

Has anyone else struggled to finance their wedding? How did you work it out?

'Mo Money, 'Mo Problems

We've been engaged for one year and 7 days. At first I thought a long engagement was the way to go...lots of time to mull over ideas, save up money, etc. Now that we're so far into our engagement, I've realized that most planning happens within a 6-month time frame.

We had our city wedding venue booked in May of 2011. Since then, we've been sitting pretty with nothing to do until now, and finding the motivation to actually do stuff is proving to be the most difficult part!

Adding to the difficulty is the fact that I was badly injured at work so our income has taken a hit. This has forced us to really look at the budget to figure out where we can cut costs, and also meant that we'd be taking on lots of DIY projects.

Immediately off the list were chiavari chairs. I never thought someone could be so in love with a chair, but then I saw them and knew the had to be mine! Unfortunately, at $8/chair with a 150-person projected attendance, these puppies had to go. Next up, dress. What was initially a $2,000 budgeted item is now down to $500. My mother graciously offered to pay a few hundred as well. This means David's Bridal will likely be the place! Our floral budget was initially $2,750 but after visiting with a flower wholesaler at a Boston Bridal Show, we realized that the ideas we had for our florals were actually very simple and easy to DIY. Lastly, invites. I am going to the place where ever bride before me has recommended not to go: DIY invitation suite. As I am not particularly crafty, I will be downloading the templates from Download & Print,  a website of a fellow WeddingBee user who began a service of offering wedding invitation templates after her own experiences with DIY invites. This is bringing our budget from $820.00 for invites down to...well, I'm hoping to around $300 for all paper-related wedding expenses. We've also chosen to downgrade our photography package in some way to save a few hundred additional options.

Saving money hasn't just come in the form of downgrading our budget and taking on projects. We've also made the decision to put off expenditures that aren't entirely necessary for the wedding day. For instance, we plan to take our parents to a very nice dinner to thank them after the wedding (when we are feeling more flush!) rather than purchase gifts for them for the rehearsal dinner. We are going to DIY our own wedding album, or at the very least, have it done 6-12months after the wedding when we can better afford it. I think the biggest money-saver is on our rings. My fiance received his grandfathers wedding band, and I will be using either my mother, for FMIL's wedding band as my own for our ceremony. We figure we can get a custom-made band for me after the wedding.

Now, back to our first dilemma: finding the motivation to actually do all of this stuff! We're certainly choosing to take on lots of projects.

What have you done to save money on your wedding? Has anyone else had to shift their vision in the middle of planning due to a change of circumstances?

Trials and Tribulations

This blog is not going to be one Negative Nellie post after another, I promise. I do, however, want to share my realistic experiences with the wedding planning process, which is sometimes different to do because I do feel that there is pressure to make this the most exciting time of your life.

It took us 4 months to decide on a venue. Ultimately, I think we picked the best one, but parents have opinions and somebody needs to pay for the wedding. Financing for the wedding was difficult as we didn't have the money (I was just about to graduate from nursing school and the job market in my area is beyond horrible). Finally, both sets of parents agreed to pay for the cost of the reception, minus open bar (I'm Irish so that's a pre-requisite!) That leaves us with the cost for open bar, and all other incidentals aside from food/venue/ceremony location.

This is where the complications began. How do you plan a wedding when you don't know if you will have a job? How do you budget for a wedding when you don't know if you'll have a job?

Well....the contract was signed, we got excited, and the vision of the "perfect" day began to be shaped in our minds....


Alas, I got a job! So now I had an official income to base our budget off of - for a while, things were looking good...

Has anyone else had trouble securing financing for the wedding? What did you do to pay?

To Blog or Not to Blog...

I've been meaning to do this for quite some time. Really, I have. My fiance and I got engaged in January of 2011. And yes, our engagement has been SO LONG that even after a year, I still have plenty of time to create a blog about our wedding planning process.

What's inspired me to ultimately create a blog is the mere fact that wedding planning hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows for us; it's been littered with sharp ups and downs that have been more stressful rather than enjoyable.

My plan isn't to catch everyone up to speed on a year of wedding planning woes and triumphs, but rather to share my realistic approach to wedding planning in the modern day, or, as the title says, share my trials and tribulations as I attempt to balance life with the reality of wedding planning!