Budget Weddings Forum — The Knot Community

"Warn" guests about informal reception?

Knottie65690625 — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 03:27:05 +0000

Hi folks,

I'm having my reception at a neighborhood pub. Pub food in a pub. The party planner there had never had a wedding reception before, and suggested putting something on the invite like "pizza, beer and dancing to follow" so people wouldn't be expecting a big sit down thing. What do you think of this? How would you handle it?

Beverage containers?

Knottie1429926455 — Wed, 06 May 2015 22:12:28 +0000

We're having a very small ceremony and an informal picnic in lieu of a traditional reception. We're self-catering and will have one signature cocktail, bottles of water/soda/beer, and iced tea. It's only immediate family (siblings, parents, and nieces and nephews) and a couple friends, about 30 people total. Would it be tacky to have regular pitchers for drinks instead of a more attractive (but more costly) presentation? Being outdoors, I don't want to use anything that can't be closed, so I feel like a plain, lidded pitcher would serve our purposes. Will anyone but me actually notice or care what I put the drinks in, as long as there are drinks? Or should I splurge on something nicer to present them in

Has anyone ordered a dress from www.ca-bridal.com or dressilymy.com?

sliszblat — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 14:51:19 +0000

I am considering buying bridesmaid and possibly a wedding dress from these websites and I have red reviews on wedding bee about them, but I just wanted other brides input.

Thank you guys

mother is confusing me/and cheap

Blueeyedtanya — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 17:23:10 +0000

My mother suggested that we have a tent wedding and I said we cannot afford that. She then said she could pay for it. Then the other day she said that she will not be contributing to the wedding. So I am just confused and a little bit hurt. I am glad I didn't actually book a tent or anything yet. Also my fiance and I want a caterer so that people do not need to do work and have good food . She told me that I should do a potluck (which is fine if people don't mind)! I also said I wanted flowers but not a lot because we are on a limited budget, then she said that men don't like flowers. I understand she is trying to help but if we say we want something (since we are paying for it), I think she should try to be supportive. Like I said we are on a budget so I am not going over the top or anything.

Mimosa's Only Acceptable at Brunch Reception?

clarkinseywedding — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 16:22:29 +0000

My fiancé and I are planning a Saturday morning wedding and brunch reception for May 2016. I tend to be very practical and spending over $10k on one day, no matter how important the day is, is not me, plus we just don't have a lot of money anyway.

We're having a huge mostly breakfast (with a few lunch options) buffet following our 10:30 ceremony at the same location. The brunch will be from 11 to 3. We're just looking to have a nice, somewhat elegant meal, no dancing at the brunch. I doubt it would actually last until 3.

Later on, around 8:00 that night we're having an appetizer and dessert dance party at our local fire hall for our close family and friends that we really want to party with. This is the first plan we've come up with that I'm actually really excited about.

My issue is my dad seems to really have an issue with the fact that we do not plan on serving alcohol, other than Mimosas, at the brunch. I don't think having an open bar with breakfast food is necessary. I'm not a big drinker and neither is my fiancé. We will have beer and wine at the dance party later that night. Do most people expect there to be a full open bar at a brunch wedding? Are mimosas not acceptable?

Brother as officiant- should we pay him something?

[Deleted User] — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 03:25:32 +0000

My brother has been ordained by a legitimate online service for quite some time. My FI and I have asked him to officiate, as we feel this would make our wedding even more special and easier to customize our ceremony as my FI is an atheist while I do have spiritual beliefs. Anyway, should we leave room in our budget to give him an officiant's fee or just a thoughtful "we love you, thank you!" token?

New idea for a budget wedding

Knottie1433031275 — Sun, 01 Mar 2015 16:57:18 +0000

Okay, this isn't a NEW idea, it's a new to ME idea ;)

I'm thinking instead of the big blowout wedding I wanted, I'll scale it back to a beach wedding, standing room only. I have my officiant already, he's free. I'd need a dress, a tux, a wedding license and any permits needed by the city of Santa Monica (where I plan to wed) Afterwards we could have a luncheon on the pier at Bubba Gump's, because I absolutely love that place. Total cost would be under 2000 depending on my clothing and flowers. I don't know what else I'm missing, but if anyone has an idea, let me know ;)

Best wedding organizer

alissakay7 — Sat, 14 Feb 2015 16:27:19 +0000

So I'm trying to get organized for my wedding and wondering if anybody has any suggestions on wedding organizers they have purchased. I've seen a couple online while looking and am looking for suggestions on what worked for you. I know the knot has one online, but I'm more of a hands-on need to see everything in front of me kind of person. Thanks in advanced!

Napkin Rentals

ladyleege — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 21:00:38 +0000

Hi everyone,

I wanted to get everyone's opinion on the decor for weddings. I am having my wedding in a gorgeous hall, which provide ivory linens and white napkins to us at no cost. My problem is, I am not a huge fan of having those two colours together, but my only alternative is renting napkins which will cost $700! Because our location is a bit out of the way, shipping for rentals is crazy. What do you all think? Is it worth it to rent the napkins? I know most people will just put them on their lap and be done with it, but I am not sure what to do.

$3000 budget please Help!

Knottie51548609 — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 23:28:15 +0000

Hi! My wedding is approaching and I still cannot find a venue in Memphis. I only have a budget of $3k total and so far I've done good. I really need a place that allows outside catering and alcohol. I'm hoping for a place that doesn't need much decorating because I simply can't afford it on our budget. Does anyone know of a venue that charges less than $1500 in the Memphis area. I would be so grateful. i have managed to cut corners in every part of this wedding. My dress I got on sale at David's bridal for less than $100 because it had an unnoticeable stain on the bottom. We have six groomsman so the grooms tux will be free. I have a family member doing the catering and a coworkers husband owns a liquor store so I got all the alcohol at a discounted price. One of my bridesmaids brother is a DJ so he's doing it for $100. Any suggestions?

Guest List

Knottie42669964 — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 14:28:28 +0000

Transportation from venue to dinner

Knottie38213341 — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 06:50:53 +0000

Hi everyone!

My fiance and I are getting married in San Francisco at City Hall, and the restaurant where we are having dinner at afterwards is about a mile away. What options do you think would work for transportation? We are having a relatively small wedding- I'm thinking no more than 50 people, a combination of family and friends.

Kim

Wedding Day Transportation Ideas

2Have&2Hold2015 — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 03:35:48 +0000

Hello everyone!

I'm currently working to iron out the details of transportation for my wedding day. I know that I'll be providing shuttle service for hotel guests attending the wedding, and I'd like to provide separate transportation for the bridal party and my parents (12 people total). I'm shopping around and have found that each limo company I call charges a 3 hour minimum for pickup, meaning that it would potentially cost me upwards of $500 just to provide the 'maids & 'men a 20 minute ride back to the hotel after a night of possible drinking. WHOA! Any unique transportation ideas, or ways to lessen this cost?

Thanks! All ideas are appreciated.

DIY Flowers- what did you spend?

Knottie33170765 — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 22:24:43 +0000

I plan to do our flowers myself, but I'm still trying to get a grasp on how much I'll end up spending. If you already did your own flowers, know someone who did their own, or are also planning to do them yourself in the future, what kind of money did you/will you spend? What did that budget include? Like a bouquet for yourself and how many bridesmaids, boutineers, table center pieces, etc.?

Bridal Show Scams?

Knottie41822310 — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 20:48:28 +0000

Hi - just received a call from a company saying that I "won" the door prize at the Bridal Show that I recently attended. I had to listen to her go over the list of gifts that I "won" and could choose options from. It was clear that it was not a straight door-prize win, but a marketing lead generation technique, which always sound kind of scam-my.

The three prizes I "won" were: 1) Bands from JVL Jewelry OR a 3-Day 2-Night vacation to Wyndam Resorts in either Jamaica, DR or Bahamas (or slightly closer to home locations such as Vegas, Carribbean, etc. 2) $1000 in Grocery Manufacturers Coupons 3) 20-40% Bridal Household products (apparently the company who runs this process.)

The "catch" is that my fiancee and I have to attend a Bridal Household products evaluation at a nearby hotel and agree to a "time slot" for this - immediately. She gave me the option of "tonight" or "tomorrow" in order to "release" the prizes to us, and we BOTH have to attend, in-person. She said that this was "in order to ensure it's the right person".

There is no way in heck we are going to attend or make time for this. However, I was just wondering if anyone else has gone through with the whole process, and in fact, ever did get bands, or a vacation or all those coupons.

Any similar experiences?

Good luck to all the couples out there, this whole bridal process can be overwhelming!

Cheers,
Heather

What do you do when you are feeling discouraged?

romanticoz — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 20:44:26 +0000

I know the moment we got engaged that this wedding is going to be a budget wedding. I knew it would be stressful and I'd be planning a lot of it. But now I am about 4 months into the planning and I just feel discouraged. I feel like I am researching and researching and not finding what I want at all AND when I do, its well out of my budget. We found a fantastic venue, had everything I wanted and currently they have a deal if you book asap. We have until March 31st until this deal runs out. It really isn't over priced but its too much for us to come up with 1k this month. I felt like it was perfect and it helped me out a lot. I felt as if I'd be a lot less stressed because they have a caterer also, they have a bar and its included in price with all the staff, they set up everything (linens, plates, chair covers, ect) and they have a day-of-coordinator... did I mention the uplighting is free of charge if we book in the next month. and we can decorate up to 36 hours in advance. We have about a year until our wedding but everything hinges on the location and venue. I was just wondering from you budget friendly peeps, what do you do when you feel discouraged?

How do you decide on a venue? Is it all about the money? I feel like I found what I loved and its about 7k but that includes everything. ...and my fiancé said..we can wait to book it. but if we wait the venue goes up to about 10k. I feel 6k is reasonable for everything it includes.

Is it worth it to just do everything separate on your own? If I choose a venue that is plain; Id have to worry about a caterer, plates and silverware and cups, napkins, linens and setting up everything the day before. Not to mention Id have to hire a staff, bartender, order whatever alcohol we wanted, and get a permit to serve it. I would have to worry and coordinate everything on my own when I know id rather just be as stressfree as possible on my big day.

I'd still have to get my own cake, photographer, dj, and flowers. But that does not worry me. I plan on making centerpieces, all the gifts, and bouquets/boutonnieres. I have a large diy list for the wedding.

Please don't suggest just going to a courthouse. It means a lot to me to have a big day about it.

Need advice please. Long...sorry in advance.

smam00 — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 22:45:30 +0000

I've been so confused and at a total loss of what to do lately. This might be long, so I apologize in advance.

My FI and I have been engaged for 3 years now. Long story short....we got engaged in January 2012 when we were living in Michigan. 3 months later, we moved to Arizona for FI's job. Skip to 1.5 years later in Sept 2013, we moved to North Carolina for FI's job again. We are still in the same place.

Because of moving a few times, as well as the fact that we were VERY financially irresponsible for about 3 years, we managed to accumulate a ton of debt. We stopped spending and carried the balances for 2 years, then April 2014 I made a budget and we have been trying to heavily pay everything off. I like the idea of starting our marriage debt free.

My issue....is that I am sick of waiting, I just want to be married to him!! I don't want to wait any longer. We have a little in savings that I set aside before, and by messing with my budget and putting only minimums towards our debt for the next couple months, we can manage to have $6500 saved for a wedding by August of this year. I thought this was great, as we were hoping to go up to Michigan around then for a short visit.

Our original guest list was around 140 people. We managed to cut it down to about 95 people. I thought of doing a brunch reception instead of dinner, using an ipod instead of a DJ, and checking out restaurants instead of an actual banquet hall/venue. Restaurants are already decorated, so I could add a little touch and save on decorations as well. I presented this idea to my mom (she or my aunt were going to scope a few places out & skype me while getting tours), and she basically told me that I was "being cheap, this is one of the biggest days of your life. Decorating and putting ideas together is one of the most fun parts and you're just being cheap!" She also yelled at me when I scaled back on our guest list, saying "these are all good people, they deserve to be there, they helped me through a very tough time!" (they were mostly previous co-workers of hers that I have not seen in at least 10 years).

I'm getting frustrated with trying to figure this out, and I am sick of everyone asking us if we ever are going to get there, why aren't we married yet, what could be taking this long, do we have cold feet?, what was the point in getting engaged, blah blah blah.

So I guess what I'm asking is, if you were in my shoes, what would you do?? Would you try to plan a wedding for August on a small budget then continue paying debt after and just ignore what everyone says until then, or would you bite the bullet to pay off debt first and forget planning until that is taken care of?

Help !

D&R91815 — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 17:25:55 +0000

In need of 100-150 silver charger plates for my diy budget wedding.

Inexpensive Reception Venues

Knottie53295474 — Sat, 04 Apr 2015 20:55:08 +0000

My fiance and I have been talking about having a wedding kind of late in the day, probably around 7pm. Then we want to have a dessert reception with our guests. Mostly we just want to keep costs down, and this way we can have the wedding on a Friday. We're hoping to get married in October, so it'll probably be a little chilly here in Missouri, Does anyone have any suggestions of places that allow outside catering and are inexpensive? I've been thinking about renting out a shelter at a park because it won't be crowded, but is it rude to expect guests to bring jackets? Having a reception at the park also means we probably won't have space for music and dancing. We're thinking we'll have 80-100 guests.

Thanks

Wedding Supper...open to all but only immediate family is paid for - any ideas?

Knottie9057188 — Thu, 26 Feb 2015 18:40:14 +0000

Middle age couple, simple wedding:

We are having a very short, informal, ceremony at a local park at 3PM. We are not sending invitations. We have an event on Facebook inviting family and friends to simply stop by if they are in the neighborhood, "Well Wishes Only".

Then we get pictures done and we have an entire floor of a local restaurant/bar booked for our supper (5PM) where we will continue to party late into the evening with the house band.
We are paying for suppers (suppers only, not drinks) for our parents, sisters/brothers/ and their spouses and kids and for a few people who are coming from far away. (approx. 33 people)

How do we avoid being stuck paying for all the others that might show up? They are welcome to sit with us but I need it to be clear that they are paying for their own meal without making anyone feel uncomfortable. Thank you!!

Moved: Disney Fairytale Wedding

wandajune6 — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 19:16:51 +0000

This discussion has been moved.

Low Budget/ Rustic Wedding

bfries06 — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 23:18:05 +0000

When my Fiance and I originally started talking about our wedding plans he mentioned he wanted the budget to be no more then $5000! Well after attempting some planning he has realized that that number is just not possible for the wedding we want. We have been engaged for over a year now with nothing planed for the wedding and its all coming back to the budget. It is crazy to think of spending so much money on a wedding when the responsible thing would be to put it towards a house, honeymoon, car or savings. I have tried all different avenues to cut the cost but I can't seem to get the wedding budget down. I want the the wedding budget to encompass everything from the venue, dress, music, flowers, food, and drinks.

We recently moved from San Antonio, TX but i would still love the wedding to be there, so i will be planning it long distance. My Fiance has been in the military since we started dating and we have had to sacrifice so much (even being long distance our whole relationship) not having a wedding is really something I can't give up.

I need help with options and ideas. We are expecting about 150 ppl and want a rustic/ country wedding. We are fine with barbecue and just a simple ambience. Does anyone know of any ideas in venues, photography, food, etc that could meet a budget under 12,000?

Buying Dinnerware

KeepMovingOn — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 16:42:29 +0000

We're in the middle of trying to figure out how many plates, cups, etc. we will be needing for budget reasons. The hardest part for me about using a non-wedding venue is trying to figure all of this stuff out on my own. Right now, we're thinking we'll be using Chinet. We'll be having a buffet, cake, and hosted soft drinks, beer, and wine. There won't be a cocktail hour because we'll be going directly from the ceremony to the reception. We're inviting around 120 guests.

How many dinner plates, dessert plates, silverware sets, and cups should we budget for?

Videographers?

kkcc2015 — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 18:57:22 +0000

We recently have a little wiggle room in our budget, and I was wondering what people thought about the importance of videographers on the wedding day-did you feel it was important/worth spending the extra money over just having a photographer? I'm trying to decide between that and just putting a little extra spending money towards our honeymoon. Our wedding is coming up in about two months, but there are a few available in the area that we could use (as we're getting married on a Sunday). If you used a videographer, did you think it was at all useful to have them at the reception, or just the ceremony?

Thanks in advance!

Please Help Me Win!

Knottie21479247 — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 00:55:03 +0000

material for table cloth?

Knottie99466109 — Mon, 02 Mar 2015 05:36:39 +0000

renting out a nice and very affordable hall for our reception. I was set on nice linen table cloths but the man in charge of the hall said people usually regret it. He said they're a pain to clean, iron then clean again after.. I don't know if the typical plastic is okay for the venue? Definitely cheaper. Opinions?

Napkins

taylorl21 — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 05:59:56 +0000

Anyone have ideas for napkins besides the poly/cotton option? I feel like I have everything else set, except for the dang napkins. I saw an idea on Pioneer Woman about using bandanas as napkins, and I feel like that is heading the right direction, but I think it is a little much for our wedding. We are having BBQ, so it is nothing super formal, but I still want something in between bandanas and poly/cotton.

Online vendor for a veil

abarnesvolz — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 02:44:38 +0000

I really don't even want a veil, but it looks better with my dress than a birdcage. Other than Etsy, where else should I look? Google returned a crazy amount of sites, and I'd like to at least buy from one that's recommended.

Realistic but affordable budget

jessica3rn — Mon, 02 Mar 2015 05:18:59 +0000

Hi all!

My fiance and I just got engaged a little over a week ago, but it's been a long time coming. We started talking about marriage and our future together around the 6 month mark, and he popped the question right after our first dating anniversary. Now I'm trying to start the planning process because our goal is to be married by the end of the year. That being said, I have NO IDEA where to even start with our budget. We are both 28 and are working full time, so we are planning to pay for the majority of things on our own with a little help from our families. We both have some money in savings, me with a little more thanks to my parents allowing me to live with them rent-free (thanks mom and dad!) since college. However, I don't want to totally empty my bank account for the wedding. I don't want us to start out married life with unnecessary debt. We live in a fairly small-ish town in Tennessee, and we don't want to make our guests travel too far, so some of our options are limited in terms of venues. I don't really even know what amount would even be a reasonable number for a budget which is making the planning process pretty stressful so far. Any tips or advice?

Charger plates and Community Center Venues. Imaginative Ideas Welcome!

Knottie1427558956 — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 14:13:02 +0000

I want Gold charger plates at my wedding. The plastic version is fine. Do any of you have a place to find them for a reasonable price? Used is acceptable.

Also, Have any of you or do any of you plan on using a community center as your wedding venue? I like the idea of having my wedding there because I can use any caterer I want and buy my own alcohol but as far as decoration goes I'm completely on my own. Ideas on how to work with a blank slate without defeating the purpose of going with a "packaged" wedding already?

As I said Imaginative Ideas Welcome.

Yes, I've got a pinterest going and yes i've done the research. I know some of you ladies are pros so I'd still like to hear what ideas you have.

If it helps I have well over a year to DIY if need be