Newly Engaged and new to the world of wedding planning!

heavnsnt128

My FH and I got engaged on 9/08/09 and are planning a spring 2011 wedding. I know it's a while out, but we're paying for the wedding ourselves and need time to save. Oh, and I need to graduate grad. school too (May 2010) and find a job. Anyway, we're looking for places to have an elegant wedding that is fairly inexpensive. We're trying to keep the wedding costs under $10,000 (really, we'd like to keep it more like $5,000). We would love to have the ceremony and reception in Atlanta because literally all of our guests will be traveling from out of town--we're both from Michigan and I have family all over (Texas, Florida, North Carolina). We have only lived here for 2.5 years so we're still very new to EVERYTHING. Anyone have any suggestions? I absolutely LOVE the Piedmont Room but I think it may be out of our budget because we want to have a holiday weekend wedding (Labor Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July) so that people don't have to take too much time off of work to travel.We still have plenty of time to plan and visit venues and everything. I'm just looking for suggestions for venues, photographers, music, wedding coordinators/planners, etc.

smynings_bride

Congrats! Something to consider about holiday weekend weddings--Since Labor Day and Memorial Day are Monday holidays--I don't think You're really helping guests that much unless you're planning to have a Sunday wedding. Many guests have set plans on these holidays so you may be inconveniencing them more by having it on a holiday weekend. Our wedding happens to fall on the Saturday of Columbus Day Weekend (not a factor in selecting the wedding date) and only 2 out of the 40 hotel rooms booked are through Monday--most people are leaving Monday and the two couples that are staying have other people in Atlanta that they are visiting.

smynings_bride

oops--I meant to say most people are leaving on Sunday.

sduncans09

congratulations! so we can give you better info, about how many people do you think will come to your wedding?  what kind of service do you want?  cake and punch or a dinner?  that will help us make suggestions. if you do a holiday weekend, have it on the sunday of the long weekend - you can negotiate prices since it's an off day.   our venue allowed us to use their day-rate for our food/bev since we did it on a sunday and started 1/2 hour earlier than the evening wedding hours.

mandyandmike2009

Anywhere in atlanta wiill be more than OTP. There are plenty of places, but knowing how many people you plan to invite will help. Holiday weekends will also cost your guests more money for plane tickets and hotels. It may give them more time off work, but will cost them more.

heavnsnt128

Since our guest list is not very concrete right now, we're aiming high at 150--but realistically on our list right now is 100 but we have a couple maybe's and friends that we're not sure about inviting because we haven't talked to them in awhile or whatnot. We're playing around with the guest list...We would like to have a sit-down dinner--we want a afternoon/evening wedding.I had never thought of a holiday weekend as a inconvenience just because people normally take their vacations around that time anyway. I understand where you are coming from though. Either way, our wedding is going to inconvenience just about everyone because all my FH's family is in Michigan, I had some family in MI still, my mom is in NC, I have family in NY, FL, and TX. Plus, we both went to college in Illinois and so we have a lot of friends/surrogate family coming from there. Soooo, anyway you look at it they are going to have to travel and be inconvenienced. Hopefully they won't think of it that way since they will be celebrating our wedding with us. However, we're open to other options as well... we're in the planning stage where nothing is set in stone

jinxed8605

Evening rental rates will be higher than day rates and most caterers are going to charge 30-35 PP for a seated meal. If even 100 people show up that is 3000-3500 before any service charges and tips. And that is before beverage service! Food rates are generally higher for the evening as well.On the top of the page you can click "in your area" to start researching venues and caterers cause those are the first 2 steps to picking a date.Unfortunately I am a transplant here, too so I won't be able to list off any specific places other than my own venue but my wedding is around $15,000 which is much above your budget.

mandyandmike2009

A Friday or Sunday will be cheaper. If I were you I would go with a Sunday wedding. Most people will have off on the monday or could take off. If they have to fly in they could cly in on Saturday which is always cheaper and then leave on Monday or Tuesday if they have the time off.

Chrissymarie98

congrats.