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Aquatic Giraffe posted:We did a buffet and it was much cheaper than plated meals because they didn't need to bring as many staff members and there was less wasted food. Hmm, less wasted food is supposed to be a selling point of plated meals, since they know exactly how much they need to make if the guests choose in advance.
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Feb 5, 2015 23:50
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We just got a quote and they had family style as the most expensive option, compared to plated. Here was the explanation. (The $25 difference includes service charge.)quote:As for the cost difference, yes $25 per person is correct. A family style meal is the most expensive. There needs to be enough of each vegetable, starch, pasta, protein, etc to feed each guests and extra to refill platters at each table as needed. There are also additional rentals needed for service platters, bowls, and utensils for each menu item. More service staff is also necessary to speed up the time of service. smackfu fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Feb 6, 2015 |
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Feb 6, 2015 20:08
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The family style quote actually included a choice of main dish at service time so it makes sense it would be so much more. Like instead of paying for 100 entrees you are paying for 150 or so.
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Feb 14, 2015 14:16
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$15k is tough, unless you are willing to just skip stuff or have a very small guest list. Around here, if you can get out of the venue rental / catering for less than a $100 pp all in, you're doing a great job. That doesn't give a lot of money for DJ, photographer, dress, flowers etc. It's amazing how quickly a reasonable $40-50 per person food quote turns into a much higher number once you add alcohol, service, tax, rentals.
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Feb 15, 2015 16:04
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Very true. Like we don't love the chairs at our venue but it's $8-10 per chair to cover or replace them. Do I really want to spend $1000 to fix bad chairs at a venue that was $1500 for the whole rental. No. No I don't.
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Feb 15, 2015 17:22
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boquiabierta posted:What's killing us is booze, I think. Our venue doesn't allow us to bring outside liquor and basically they charge per drink prices for their stuff. Which means that a handle of vodka will be the price of however many individual cocktails you can get out of that. We'll probably end up just serving beer and wine for that reason. Yeah, when you consider that an average drink is going to have a cost of $1.50 or so, whether wine, decent beer or midrange hard alcohol, paying $6-9 for that is pretty painful.
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Feb 15, 2015 23:12
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I am going to have to make sure our photographer contract includes something specifying that all color-manipulated photos are also provided in original color formats. (Most of the online galleries I've seen do that anyway with B+W ones.)
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Feb 20, 2015 19:54
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That brings a question to mind: how do vendors react to bad reviews? It seems like wedding vendors tend to have five stars across the board and everyone loves who they picked. Except maybe they rate someone a one star if they are terrible. If you rate someone a two or three, do they try really hard to get you to remove it?
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Feb 20, 2015 20:19
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:You need to get a photographer like yesterday if you want a good one, all the good ones book up a year in advance in some areas. My photographer was booked solid for all of 2015 before 2014 was over and I only managed to book her for our wedding when we changed our wedding date to an off-season date. I would also focus on caterer. They book up very early too. Our big 4 are venue, caterer, photographer, and DJ. Those are the things we are booking ASAP. (Plus her dress but I'm not involved in that.) Everything else can wait until closer in.
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Feb 23, 2015 15:25
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Pick a craft beer you like, buy extra, and then you won't care if you have it leftover.LogisticEarth posted:I would also suggest fitting in 1-2 dryer cocktails. The lemonade one sound super sweet, and rum & cokes are as well. Gin and tonics are ubiquitous and simple as heck to make. Consider throwing in something like an old-fashioned to appease whiskey drinkers. Cosmos are also very popular at weddings and dead simple. So you'd have rum, gin, whiskey, and vodka, with limes, tonic, cranberry juice, maraschino cherries, and coke. Logistically it's good. The G&Ts, Rum and cokes, cosmos, and your lemonade mix all use limes. 3 mixers available, that will keep people happy. I'm not sure about this wedding, but a lot of people premix the signature cocktails and that is the only hard alcohol available, and then you don't really need a proper bartender. It's a bit of a cost saving measure (although honestly craft beer is more expensive than hard alcohol.) smackfu fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Feb 27, 2015 |
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Feb 27, 2015 22:44
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life is killing me posted:Is this just wedding fever or is this my life until we are standing in front of a man of the cloth For us, it's been helpful to not worry about stuff until you need to worry about it. Like don't even think about the small stuff until the big stuff is decided. It's really hard though, because the small stuff (like centerpieces or favors) is a lot more fun than the hard work of weeding through vendors.
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Mar 10, 2015 14:31
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And "picking a date" really means picking a month, until you have a venue booked. Or even just a season, if you are talking about 2016. Like Fall 2016 is specific enough for now.
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Mar 10, 2015 18:26
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Robot Mil posted:We are actually meeting with our caterers this week to have a tasting woo! It's a bit rear end backwards in the UK, caterers generally don't do tastings while you are choosing (unless you happen to go to a wedding fair at a venue that provides their own food), you have to book them without ever having tasted their food and then PAY to taste your specific menu! I guess to check that they can actually cook? Whatever, they had excellent reviews/feedback and their menus all looked delicious, I'm hopeful. We are dealing with the same thing in the US, so I don't know if it's UK only. And yeah, it seems odd, but our place is also well reviewed. But at least we only have to pay a reservation deposit of $2k rather than half the bill like some other vendors. I do think it is crazy how the photographer gets paid in full before the event, and then delivers the actual photos weeks or months afterwards. Not surprised at all that they take their time. Seems like that made more sense when they made their money from the albums and prints.
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Mar 11, 2015 12:41
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If you want to do less traditional wedding parties, go for it. Usually people only do it when it's the best solution for their particular situation, so not choosing the best solution because it's "weird" or not "traditional" seems super dumb to me.
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Mar 12, 2015 15:09
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Most men's bands are pretty reasonably priced, $50-300. Especially since the techie / aerospace metals are popular now and they are pretty cheap. Gold is more expensive, platinum even more so, but who needs an $800 wedding band? For his wedding, my brother bought three $50 ones from China or somewhere, and just used the one he liked the best.
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Mar 13, 2015 22:03
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Yes, it is definitely polarizing. Some people say a cash bar is completely unacceptable and that you should just have wine and beer if you can't afford an open bar. Others have no problem with it. Some guests will definitely think a cash bar is cheap though.
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Mar 14, 2015 19:39
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Yeah, and some caterers will basically just lie and say they can't serve your alcohol for legal reasons, even in states that allow it. Ours seems to be really cool about it. They had a full range of convenience bar packages where you provide the alcohol and they take care of the other junk. Like the lowest end was soda and ice for a couple of bucks, then next up was juices and sour mix, then the top end was alcohol like triple sec and vermouth. Which started to not make much sense since I think it was $7 a person for that, but still a neat idea.
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Mar 15, 2015 14:29
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$2 is basically at cost. I guess that would cut $800 or so off your budget, depending on a lot of variables of course.
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Mar 15, 2015 22:27
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http://www.amazon.com/Budget-Weddings-For-Dummies-Schneider/dp/0470502096
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Mar 16, 2015 22:54
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Thanks. There's some good information on offbeatbride, but it's kind of drowned out by the nerd culture, and the groom-ogling posts are full of terribly dressed people that don't know how textures, grooming, or shoulders work. I'll take a more thorough look at a practical wedding later, but even the first article on the front page seems like what I'm looking for. So far it seems like it's going to be a bitch and a half to fit that budget with that many guests. Not blaming anyone, but if my fiancee's family wasn't catholic, maybe there wouldn't be so many family members to invite. And that's just aunts, uncles, and first cousins, not extended family. Practically, at that level of budget, the first thing is to decide what is important to you. You can't spend a grand on photos, a grand on flowers, a grand on a dress, and $500 on a DJ (which are all low-end figures), AND have a catered full dinner and drinks for 100 people.
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Mar 17, 2015 13:48
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Just watch out, because old-school wedding etiquette is that you should give a gift if you are invited to a wedding, even if you can't attend. So if someone is old-fashioned, being invited to a wedding they almost surely won't attend might come across as gift-grubbing. OTOH, wedding etiquette is often bullshit and is best ignored.
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Mar 17, 2015 16:43
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Yeah, that's a "wedding as family reunion" situation. They don't care about you as much as seeing the other relatives you invited.
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Mar 17, 2015 19:57
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Given all that, if you want to have a tux that fits you perfectly, there's not going to be a better time than your own wedding.
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Mar 18, 2015 13:46
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Our friends had a very budget reception, and the only thing that was really screwed up was that they had an amateur DJ / friend and he didn't mike the ceremony at all. Depending on the venue, this might not matter, but this was a low room with a lot of people and it was pretty inaudible.OssiansFolly posted:Yea we wanted something unique and looked fancy in a glass. It was intended to be a "remember that drink we had at OssiansFolly's wedding?" kind of thing. I toyed with a few things like melting Jolly Ranchers in vodka and using that as a base to mix from and it was just too much work. I have more important things to do...like buy good liquor and hire a good DJ so everyone has fun. That drink to me was a novelty that I didn't find was worth the time. That's something that we've had a hard time accepting... that my fiancée and I are going to be very busy that day and any plans that require last-minute prep are probably bad plans. Very different from a normal party where you can work hard on it right up until the start. smackfu fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Mar 19, 2015 |
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Mar 19, 2015 17:42
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:Plus most of our registry was real expensive so people were like "not spending that" and wrote a check instead. Another good one is when people put very expensive silver settings on their registry, and they get one or two place settings.
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Mar 20, 2015 19:45
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Suggest you look on Pinterest, like all other wedding things. Lots of good ideas for gifts, from reasonable to crazy.
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Mar 23, 2015 13:47
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Foodship9 posted:Also another side question: I searched up tungsten carbide / titanium rings on aliexpress out of curiosity. I'm assuming that these rings are knock-offs or not really the advertised material since some of them are $8-$20. Does anyone have experience with these rings or know why they're a tenth of the usual cost? These are not expensive metals. Here's a pound of 0.999 pure titanium for $38, and it's a light metal so that's a lot: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-lb-Pound-...=item2ed14250bd Tungsten carbide is used for drill bits and is an industrial material. Pure tungsten can get slightly pricier, at $30 an ounce, but it appears no one makes rings out of it because it's so unworkable. For comparison, gold is like $1200 an ounce, and you can get a gold band for a few hundred bucks.
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Mar 24, 2015 15:57
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It's nice to have everyone stay in the same hotel. And if you are providing a shuttle it makes things much easier. Along those lines, I would advise anyone to only suggest one hotel, not to give a lot of options. We went to a wedding last year and there was a B&B option, and a midrange option, and a cheap option, and it just made it confusing. People will figure it out if they don't like the hotel you suggest. smackfu fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Apr 3, 2015 |
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Apr 3, 2015 13:02
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I agree that people will pretty much work themselves out. Maybe a few people will be less happy than if you had spent hours planning the seating chart, but your carefully planned seating chart might have had issues too, like two people not liking each other that you didn't even know about. It certainly leads to much more mixing across groups (like the two families), which can be a good thing. OTOH, if you want specific tables to be for specific people, than a seating chart is pretty important. For instance, if you want to put your immediate family closer to the head table, or if you want to put the old folks away from the DJ speakers. Or have a singles table.
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Apr 10, 2015 13:53
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You should price out tents before assuming they are cheap. Tent + chairs + tables + dance floor + lighting, it adds up fast. Especially when a venue might rent for only $1500, with tables and chairs and a floor and ceiling.
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Apr 10, 2015 19:38
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Fun fact: it costs more to rent the tablecloths than it does to rent the tables.
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Apr 10, 2015 22:13
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What's the next task to do after save-the-date cards at six months out? Anything urgent, or do we just chill out for a bit?
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Apr 20, 2015 17:57
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The only problem with a placeholder ring is that the first thing everyone wants to see after you get engaged is the ring. We ended up just shopping openly for it together. Well, she spent a lot of time on Pinterest, and then we visited a few stores in person. Good thing, since I was way off on what she wanted. Then I picked one that she liked in the store and bought it and got it resized without her involved, so there was still a little bit of surprise.
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Apr 30, 2015 15:25
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BrainParasite posted:Telling other people to suck it is good practice for when you start planning your wedding. "When are you getting engaged?" Ok, we're engaged. "When are you getting married?" Ok, we're married. "When are you having kids?" Ok, we had a kid. "When are you having another kid?" Repeat until death.
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Apr 30, 2015 21:47
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Anoulie posted:Do you generally pay the rental/deposit for a venue right when you book it? Or can you reserve it and then pay a couple weeks/months later? What about other vendors? Thanks y'all. In our experience, people say they'll pencil you in without a deposit, and will call you if someone else wants the date. But... if it was a bigger wedding that wanted the space, I wouldn't bet that call would get through to you.
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May 19, 2015 21:58
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Of course having your wedding on a holiday weekend increases the risk of conflicts too. Lots of people have standing plans for Labor Day or Memorial Day.
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May 22, 2015 12:51
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Yeah, here's a fee schedule we got when we were looking:quote:Warehouse Rental for up to 150 people (5 hour function) (It was nice, but not "$4200 and have to use their caterer nice.")
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May 22, 2015 21:25
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$25 per person per hour? Are these American dollars? I couldn't spend that much money drinking in a real bar for more than an hour. And that's the lowest tier!
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Jun 3, 2015 19:39
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Is there a venue rental fee on top of that?
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Jun 4, 2015 20:13
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They are pretty expensive in my opinion, like $20-30 each, but I'm not sure how you could possibly get to $1300.
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Jun 5, 2015 16:40
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