Help! Budget Wedding...vendors, ideas, etc needed

[Deleted User]

Hi everyone,

I live in the Tampa area and am trying to plan a very budget wedding! Since my guest list is very small (around 25) and most of them will be coming from out of state, I am planning on renting a house on the beach (somewhere in Pinellas county or Sarasota county) and having the wedding and reception there. I am going to rent the house for a full week and have my immediate family stay there with us, so it can cut down on their cost of the trip. I like this because it will give me kind of a vacation before my wedding. However, since renting the house for a week will be a bit pricey ($2,000 -$4,000), I am trying to go very cheap with the rest of the things needed.

I am looking for a cheap, but good, photographer for the wedding. I want someone creative (not just someone with a good camera). My mother is a great hobby photographer, but I really do not want her to have to deal with the hassle of being the photographer for the wedding. I want her to enjoy herself and be in the photos; not taking them! Any suggestions??

Also, any suggestions on cheap vendors for flowers, makeup, hair, and cakes are greatly appreciated! I am not very creative or artistic, so I need some help trying to make this wedding pretty without breaking the bank!

bananafanafofashley

it all depends on what your budget is. if it is truely super low you can do flowers makeup hair and cake by yourself and save. otherwise you are probably going to be spending approx $650-750 on what you have listed there without the photographer. As far as photographers go I'd look around online and pick people within your budget who don't do those color cut out photos, that's usually a good sign that they aren't good at what they do.

jc04100657

I agree with PP. DIY will save you the most amount of money. What about student photographers? I haven't looked into this option myself, but my cousin is a student photographer and I am having him take our pictures. For cake maybe look at cakes with Publix. Good luck!

BriarRose84

Look into Celebrations at Tampa Bay for photo, video, and dj services. They have some awesome rates. Destiny and Light for hair and makeup is really good also. My friend Melissa works for them and she is doing my hair and makeup for the wedding.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for the info girls! I don't really want to do it myself because I am not very artistic and am definitely not a good baker! lol I don't really know what's reasonable, but I would like to keep all of these things under $1,000. What is an average cost for a reasonable photographer? I might try Publix for the flowers and cake. TheMrsCabral, what do you mean by color cut out photos?? I will try to avoid that, but not really sure what that is. I will look into Destiny and Light too, thanks!

Kristin789

I'll suggest Brooke Nichols as your photographer.
She's not expensive but her photos are wonderful.
She takes care to capture the personality of the couple, instead of taking all the old standard wedding photos that the middle-aged men photographers all take.
And she gives YOU the rights to the photos.
You can learn more at her website:
http://www.BrookeNicholsPhotography.com
where she has a FULL PRICE LIST - which is very different from the other photographers who promise one thing and then add on this and then add on that charge...

kmf218

I am using Walsh Wedding Photography as my photographer. They are a husband and wife team and will make your pictures as whimsical or standard as you want. They have an amazing basic package that is perfect for your budget. Here is there website they have their packages and prices listed.  

http://walshweddingphotography.com/

As far as flowers I would try Costco or Sams, they both have really great flower packages and they are very reasonably priced.

 

For hair and makeup I would try going to one of the cosmetology schools near by to see if one of their students or teachers could work something out for you. 

For the cake I would definitely try Publix. My FI and I aren't doing a traditional cake, instead we are having a cup cake cake and that is saving us a lot of money. Our venue is providing it but before we found our venue I was emailing Cupcake Alley. They are a cupcake bakery in Tampa and are willing to work with any budget. Here is their website

http://www.cupcakesbyalley.com/

Good luck!

ngunderm

For our cake, we are going to go with Publix because 1)it's delicious and 2) they're a great price.  For flowers, I actually made my own bouquets weith silks through Afloral.com.  The flowers were pretty inexpensive in price (esp if you purchase several of them at once) and they usually have deals or promotion codes to keep it cheap, too.