Outdoor wedding...need help planning

Kirstenl

Hello my fellow Kentuckians, Im having trouble figuring out how to plan an outdoors wedding and how much it is going to cost Its going to held at my parents farm . I have 10k to spend thanks to my parents, Im having 130 guests (i cut it down from 175 so im not cutting it down more), I need toilets, a tent, 130 charis, tables, dance floor, twinkle lights, utensils, and of course the usual stuff...flowers,dress, DJ,etc. Can I plan a wedding in less then a year with this budget? I keep seeing weddings that cost 25k and it makes me feel like I dont have enough. Will this be enough to plan a outdoor wedding with or should i just rent a venue?  And will it  be hard to plan an outdoor wedding? What do I need to do to the farm to prepare it for a wedding? THANK YOU!!!

squirrly

You're going to need:

Tent
Tables
Chairs
Dance floor?
table linens
china
silverware
glasses
centerpieces
food/catering
alcohol/bartender?
photographer
flowers
invitations
programs
dress
tux

10k for that many people is going to be really tight.  I'd start by calling Bryant's Rent All and asking for a quote for rentals for the tent, tables, chairs, table cloths, and napkins.  Ask for a secondary quote for the china, silverware, and glassware, as your caterer might have that. 

Then, consider what kind of catering you want, and start calling for quotes on that.  My advice would be to consider BBQ.  We had some great BBQ from a place in Winchester for our welcome dinner, and I think it was pretty affordable (my parents covered that part). 

If you can get the rentals, food, and beverages for 6k or less, you're in great shape. 

Kirstenl

Did you use Bryant's Rent-All for your wedding? Im trying to get good vendors that  I can rely on. Thank you so much for your help any other useful info would be greatly appreciated .....and congrats on the baby  : )

KyCountryGirl15

Bryant's Rentall were amazing... We used them for our wedding last September.  We had an outdoor ceremony, it was very basic.  We have chairs set up, not a lot of decorations.  I just attended an outdoor wedding in North Carolina.  It was beautiful but they didn't have good lighting for the reception or a rain plan, and it did rain. 

Tents are NOT cheap, we looked into renting one.  You would also need a generator for power, if its hot you may want to look at air conditioning.  Cost add up quick. 

Our wedding was at Buffalo Trace, as I said we had an outdoor ceremony with an indoor reception. You may want to look into something similar.  But that is just my opinion, because I was SET on having an outdoor wedding/reception at our family farm but once we adding things up and saw everything that we would need it was a little much.   Preping a farm is a huge task, you have to think about folks having places to park and fields are not always the best for folks with cars, port-a-pots are NOT fun in a wedding dress, you have to have some source of electric (generators are loud if you don't have a good source nearby.), and logisitcs are sometimes hard on a farm especially when setting up with DJ, Speakers, lighting etc.

Just some food for thought. 

Kirstenl

Buffalo Trace is right down the road where I live now and I was thinking about getting married at the Glen Willis house which is right next to jims seafood,if yall know where thats at. I just wanted it to be a very laid back wedding at my parents farm though because Ive always wanted it there.  Its just hard trying to choose bewteen the place you love and the place thats cheaper. I mean what would you ladies choose?

austinandstella

I think you can plan a great wedding for that budget.  It will take some work, and you will need to decide what is the most important things to you and focus your money there, but there is no reason why it shouldn't work.    Do you have a clear idea of what you want yet? If you let us, as well as the people around you know what you need then I am sure people will step up to help and you can look for deals on stuff.

squirrly

I didn't use Bryant's directly, but my venue rented the extra chairs and tables and such from them.  I've also used Bryant's in the past when I was an advisor for a sorority at UK for a little bit - we used Bryant's for all sorts of functions.  They've had a great rep for decades.  Their online catalog has pricing for a lot of stuff, so you can get a ballpark that way, but you have to contact them for the tents, I think.

My venue already owned the tent that we used, so that helped a lot. 

Personally, what I would do is have your RD at your parents farm, and the wedding at a venue that's equipped to handle it.  There are lots of things to consider. . . parking, restrooms, power, lighting, and liability insurance.  We did our welcome dinner for about 40 - 50 people at my parents house, and it worked out really well, but they have a huge finished basement that was our "rain plan," so no tent was required.  It would have been a nightmare to try to have the wedding there, and SO MUCH stress. 

Kirstenl

I talked it over with my FI and he really wants it in Frankfort..so I guess the Glen Willis house is what were going for. So we'll have the RD at my parents house most likely. Unfortunatly both places need some gardening done. I want wildflowers...do yall know what wildflowers in KY would be good around September? I looked online but didnt find anything that really helped me. Thanks!

squirrly

http://www.kywildflowers.info/fall/index.html

You might also be able to email the people who run this site for more details.
http://www.knps.org/

Kirstenl

Great website! thanks ladies!

sept10mob

You can definitely do an outdoor wedding/tent reception for 10K. YOu should check out our you tube video. We did 350 people for about 12K.  The big secret is you need to have lots of family and friends to help set it up.

As for wildflowers, we grew our own and used flowering "weeds" and boxwood bush sprigs for the over 150 milk glass vases and large tent pole centerpieces. Another secret is to mix silk that you buy up on good sale with fresh to make fresh go farther. No one ever knew. We would cut some flowers, weeds, bushes, etc. and give them a trial in the vases prior to the wedding. Let me know if you are interested in orange flowers, and I can give you some advice.

Another secret - renting linens can be expensive. We bought as cheap or cheaper than we could rent and are in the process of reselling. They were great!

Here is the site: https://sites.google.com/site/afterweddingsalesept2010/

sept10mob

Did I mention on farm? John Deere? Gift wagon? Beverage wagon? But yet, totally classy? So many people said it was the prettiest wedding they had ever been to. You can do it! Let me know if you need any planning help at all!! :-)

youtube - Karissa and bryce