Outdoor Weddings

Rental Rant

Ok, so my FI and I were really looking forward to small tent wedding at a local Botanical Garden/farm near where we grew up. However, through the 'help' of my FMIL and grandmother our small wedding has now become a whooping 250+ people and our budget has nearly tripled.

So here is the rant... we budgeted around $2800 for rentals, tent, chairs, some tables (the church is allowing us to use most of what we need), and then flooring. We hired a wedding planner to help handle the rental stuff because we figured it would be way too difficult, but now our rentals are coming up to around $4000 and I am completely boggled by it...

Seriously,  I'm confused as to how 'renting' a few tents, chairs, and tables could be that expensive. I go over what we need all the time and it never comes up to that amount. Any suggestions as to how to bring the price down? I know we have a large guest list, but we are doing the majority of the set up and borrowing many of the tables from the church for free....



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Re: Rental Rant

  • It seems like your options are 1) cut the guest list, 2) skip the dance floor, people can dance on the grass if they want, 3) skip the bar tent.
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  • bbyckesbbyckes member
    First Comment Combo Breaker

    How many tables, chairs, etc?  Are you renting reg chairs or chiavarri chairs?  How many guests?  This sounds like a lot.  Have you shopped around to get the best quotes and prices?  $1200 is a huge disparity.  I'm sure you can do better - if not, as pp suggested, opt out of the dance floor.

  • tgude270tgude270 member
    First Comment
    edited May 2010
    Flooring in a tent can be a HUGE expense.  A dance floor isn't usually too bad, a couple hundred, but if you get the entire area under the tent floored, you're looking at a couple thousand!  Try to find a location that has solid ground already, like a cemented slab (*that doesn't sound all that 'fabulous') or if you're okay with grass, just make sure to put a note on the invites so guests can plan footwear accordingly.

    Also, get an itemized list from your wedding planner if you haven't already to really SEE where they're coming up with $4000!!  Sorry to hear your MIL/grandmother are being ridiculous! Frown
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