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Re: budget ideas/help
posted at 1/24/2012 9:13 AM EST
on theknot.com
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Joined on
05-31-2006
ATLANTA 117922125007116
Posts: 1534
First: 7/20/2009
Last: 5/23/2012
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In my experience planning events for my large professional society and my heritage society, appetizers can cost as much as a full dinner. If you decide you want to do a full meal, do a buffet (costs a lot less then a plated dinner). For my daughter's at home reception (they had gone to the JOP a few weeks prior) I served spiral sliced ham and roasted turkey, a baked potato "bar" that included bacon bits, cheese, sour cream, butter, chives. Also, sauteed zucchini and squash, and rolls. For about 50 people, the entire thing was under a few hundred dollars. I did a lot of it ahead of time, and then just re-warmed things. I bought almost everything at Sam's Club, including the buffet trays that have sterno in them. I think my biggest expense was dishes and flatware. The other serving dishes I had in my cupboard.
However, I would NOT suggest you do any of this yourself--you need to just enjoy your day. If you have a sister or mom who can take this on, that would be fabulous. I made sure my daughter had actually NO IDEA how hard I was working the day of her reception. She showed up dressed, and asked me to do her make-up. Blah. I had other things I had planned on doing, but I quickly put my brother-in-law in charge of heating things up, and my husband went on as commander in chief for about an hour while I helped her dress.
Another savings can be the cake. My sister made the one for my daughter (she makes cakes as a part-time job). She lives in VA, and I live in GA, so she made a "fake" cake, with a piece for cutting--the travelling and then assembly was a LOT easier that way. Then we had a sheet cake that we had cut into pieces for everyone. Those fake cakes can save some money, if you have anything like that available to you.
I'm not sure if this is an option for you, but photographers are really, really expensive. My sister's boyfriend does some amazing photography as a hobby. He offered to do the photography for my daughter's wedding as a wedding present, and we took him up on it. That can be risky, however. He did a great job, but if you plan on enlisting a friend, make sure that you know what you're getting yourself into. You do not want your entire wedding day to be lost due to inexperienced photographers.
My other sister loves arranging flowers, so I bought boxes of my daughter's favorite flowers from FIftyflowers.com, and put her to work the morning of the reception. I had bought orange pails (her wedding colors were organg and black) bought at a garden supply store for $1/each and put black ribbons around them. They became the "vases" for the flowers. I also hung wreaths of autumn leaves on my front door, and inside the house for added decoration.
Hope this helps!
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