i need some guidance!!!

paulie&sarah5079

i live in brooklyn with my fiance we are getting married october 2011 we already have the church picked out and the date booked. we are having 150 guests, we checked out a place called the Dyker Beach Golf Course its is right by our house and seems like the perfect location, has anyone ever been to an event there? i have a huge italian family and the food must be good! they wont let us have a tasting before we sign a contract i need honest opinions here!!

also i am stumped on who to go to for flowers, i want hydrangeas and a few green roses, but i can not help but feel like i am being riped off, i went to a place today and for everything it was going to be over $3,000 just for the flowers! our budget for the wedding itself is not that much so we are also thinking about DIY centerpeices has anyone done that? and is it cheaper than getting them done at the florist? i just need A LOT of guidance! my MOH lives in florida and she can only do so much the poor thing!

jayjoe

I live a few blocks from Dyker. I have not been there for a wedding but two friends of mine had their weddings there and said it was great = friendly staff, good food, etc. One of them got married on the golf course and it was beautiful (i saw the pictures).

Now, i cant help too much in terms of flowers (we used a family friend) but I can give you some advice that saved us thousands. If you are getting married in a church, dont even bother with altar flowers. They are a lot of money, the church (at least ours) will not let you take them and you just spent hundreds on flowers that i promise you you will not notice. AND, if you are getting married at 2 or 3, chances are there was a wedding before yours and they did have flowers. I got married at three and the flowers from the previous wedding were there. I couldnt tell what they were or what they looked like. You wont care either LOL You wont see anything beyond your husband.

My husband and i could not remember one centerpiece from any wedding we had been to so they were not important to us and we werent wasting money on flowers. We did 3 different size vases with floating candles and fake flowers in the bottom. Here is a pic of them but we used dendrobium orchids. Got the vases at cvimports.com and the rocks, candles and flowers at Michaels. Total cost? $12 per table. And it was crazy easy to do. Just google some centerpieces and you will get a ton of ideas, thats what we did. Good luck and if you need anything, please PM, will be happy to help!

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paulie&sarah5079

thank you so much! i was thinking about doing my own centerpieces and i noticed that a lot of brides on here do their own as well..i thought i was getting myself into something i would not be able to get out of! me and my fiance really do not want anything crazy for the wedding as far as flowers go...the prices that some places have been giving us is INSANE.... so hearing that there are options out there from someone who has gone threw it is sooo reassuring! thanks again!!!

jayjoe

You are welcome! When we started planning we sat down and made a list of what was important to us. We started by asking "what do we remember from weddings?" The answer was always food and music. We never remembered flowers or centerpieces or favors and invites always go in the trash. So we splurged on the catering hall, dj and photographer but we were able to because we saved elsewhere.

fyi, favors are being given out less and less. The idea is the reception is the thank you to your guests so favors arent necessary anymore. We chose to do them but we picked what we liked and then hit up Ebay and got them for half the price. Also, we had really pretty invites. DIY can be $$$ so we went to target and got an invitation kit, all we had to do was print them ourselves. We paid $75 for 150 invites. No one knew they werent done professionally and lets be honest: its the one thing that you know is going in the garbage. I've never saved an invite. So we were able to save a few hundred on that as well. You have a ton of options! My best friend while planning was Google! Tons of ways to save money

paulie&sarah5079

omg you are like a godsend! me and my fiance are really all over the place...i think its just getting to be overwhelming for us. the favors that we are having for our engagement party actually is chocolate's from the company that my fiance works for...they are free...so those were a no brainer! i have been seeing more and more at different events when the favor is actually a donation to a cause. i think that is a nice idea...actually a cousin of mine sends out holiday cards with different animal pictures in them and it is a donation of that animal to a 3rd world country that need them for livestock etc. i thought that was AWSOME! we have so many ideas already and its just so hard to pin point one thing...i want ALL OF IT! it stinks that its one day! lol thank you so much for taking the time out and giving me some advice! i feel like i am alone in this sometimes!

jayjoe

Yeah, the beginning is always crazy. Eventually you will start narrowing things down and stuff will start falling into place.

Be careful with the donation favors. If you are going to pick a charity, make it something that everyone knows and can get behind, like National Cancer society or St. Judes Hospital. There are charities or organizations that people may not like having their name associated with. I was at a wedding where the favor was a donation to PETA which I DESPISE. Also, organizations like Heifer.org (one of the many charities that do the livestock thing) have some not very nice issues going on with them behind the scenes (like people donating money for animals and they are dead before the plane even lands).

boylekat

Really Jayjoe

You despise PETA? But you have a dog attached to all of your posts?

Nevenag

If you are still looking for a florist I can recommend my florist. She is super nice, and works out of her home so her prices are very reasonable. And I think that if you don't want centerpieces you don't have to have them. http://emilyrosewood.com/

I completely agree with jayjoe. Sit down and decide what's important to you, what do you like and what are you not crazy about. DIY can become  expensive and time consuming, sometimes it's easier and cheaper just to order it from somewhere. I had a small wedding and I didn't have a lot of things that people say you "need"; no favors, no OOT bags, and yet everyone was happy and had a great time.

good luck planning