anyone else freaking out?

amandarashell

I have been engaged for barely a month and I'm not getting married for another year and a half. I feel like that is a good and long time to plan but as I am going I'm getting more and more stressed. Everything is beyond expensive! I mean I know I can find ways around some things but dear christ on a cracker how can anyone afford to get married?

Anywho the point of that was to ask if anyone knew and affordable venues in the Tahoe area. I am going to have a good sized wedding and everything I am coming across is beautiful but only accomodates 30 people or less.

Any help or encouragement would be so helpful. I'm drownin over here. Thanks

Bonzo2011

I don't know of anything in the Tahoe area, but one piece of advice for you about keeping costs down is to look for things that aren't specifically "wedding". The word wedding adds so much extra cost because the industry has brides captive. O e example is dresses, if your bridesmaids can buy dresses that aren't sold as bridesmaid dresses, they may be able to save a lot of money. Also, I would recommend seeing if anyone you know has contacts within the vendor industry. For instance, my flowers are being done by a friend of a friend's parent who is a professional florist, but because of our connection she is giving us a great price. Hope this helps, and good luck!

jellbelle

I second avoid anything that isn't specifically "Wedding".

A small tip about hair - my two bridemaids and I got our hair done.  My veil was easy to put in myself, so I didn't bother with it when going to the salon.  Just being the bride - my hair cost me $120 - my sisters were charged $60 and there was nothing too special done with my style.  I recommend not mentioning "BRIDE" when setting your appointment (that is to say, if you do have it done).

anglyn

Also you don't really NEED a lot of the little knick knacky stuff that people tend to get like toasting glasses, cake cutters etc. A lot of my friends had ones from their wedding that we just borrowed. No one knew the difference and really all you keep is the big important stuff anyways. 

How many people are you looking at having? I would maybe look into not just Lake Tahoe but maybe some of the surrounding cities like Incline Village or Tahoe City or Truckee. 

jellbelle

That's so true about the knick knacky things - we borrowed toasting flutes and cake cutters because they aren't important to us.  We borrowed beverage dispensers and all the vases from our candy buffet (it's amazing what people ALREADY had and were so happy to lend a hand!).  A wedding specific card box?  Not important - used a simple basket.  Our guest book - a vintagy looking journal - doubled as our ring "pillow" (we had vintage book table decor - all borrowed too!).

Our invites/rsvps were a gift from a family member who happened to be good at those kinds of things.  And they gave us the extra linen cardstock that I used for our escort cards and table numbers!  

We even "borrowed" our hotel's restaurant and lounge area for our rehearsal dinner.

A short and sweet ceremony, good company, good food/drinks and good music makes everyone happy!  If you're on a very tight budget, you have plenty of time to think through what is really importatnt to you and ask to borrow what could be borrowed.

marisolgarcia1

In planning our venue our bigest cost saving potential was the venue.  So make sure you find a venue that allows you to choose your own vendors since money is tight you don't want to go to a hotel and have them charge you a room fee + food +drinks + everything else they can charge and believe me they will.  

Also another piece of advise is that sacramento is not vary far maybe find some vendors from sacramento that are willing to travel.  Look for halls like an elks lodge if they have something their.  

Here is a link to some Tahoe venues. 

I hope this helps!  I know keeping the cost of a wedding is going to be very hard but make a realistic budget and stick to it!  

Here is some homework that really helped.  Call around a few places to see what things cost. Then work your budget that way.  If you can't afford it then maybe set your date at a later time so you can save for it or have less people.  

I got engaged in April of last year and my wedding is in October.  My venues were the first things booked and we rented a hall which saved us so much money since we were able to book a inexpensive caterer and bring in any bartending service we wanted. lots of places in sacramento won't let you do that. 

GOOD luck!

http://www.herecomestheguide.com/northern-california/wedding-venues/region/lake-tahoe/75/

lizluvsdev

Lol, glad I'm not the only one. We got engaged on valentines day and I shortly after started buying magazines, looking online for venues, etc. I got so overwhelmed I stopped and couldn't pick up a magazine, look at a website for weeks. We just started up again & visited our first potential venue yesterday. Initially we wanted to do Tahoe too but I also was finding it hard to find easy & affordable. Did you have any success finding potential venues there? Please let me know.

eileen1086

I used to live in Tahoe and am getting married there 12/12/12 but at a place that can only handle 35. Ok back to the point, I can't remember how much it cost but look into the Tahoe Tallac Association, my mom worked for them while I was in high school and they had weddings at both of their sites and can totally handle a large amout of people. One site is up at Heavenly the other is near Camp Rich. Good luck