Malibu estate wedding....is it worth it?

beetlerbride

We found a great venue, but the cost is a chunk of our budget. We have to bring everything in seperatly, basically creating everything. The pro is that we can personally buy things like alcohol and decor without the overhead of going through  company but the con is bringing it all in seperatly. Any suggestions? We do have a wedding planner to do all the searching.

122603

That's what we did for our wedding in Chicago. I loved our wedding. My one regret was not having a doc. It would've been helpful to have a point person for all the vendors: venue, caterer, alcohol supplier, chairs & tables, linens, florist, baker...

We saved a lot of money by researching vendors but it was still more expensive than a reception location where everything is included - like a restaurant.

AlexisLA

I think it depends on how much time you have to spend and what kind of wedding planning experience you want to have. Some people do all of the DIY stuff and must love it but I just went full circle starting with renting a house in the Palisades and planning and searching for everything from catering to rentals to alcohol to decor to lighting and it just got to be too much for me and came out to more money than getting a package at a hotel or restaurant. So, we switched to a package, (at Shutters on the Beach!) and it is turning out to save me a lot of time and money and stress. Also, the time I am going to save I can actually spend working and making money. Then again you have a wedding planner so that should help a lot.

Also, I thought I was going to be frugal on things and so I under-estimated on most things compared to what we actually ended up with. So, if you are starting out going over on your space fee just be careful because it's easy to get into a pattern of going over on everything when you start comparing all the options out there and want the nicer ones.

Good luck!