Ceremony/Reception in Raleigh/Durham Area

Re: Ceremony/Reception in Raleigh/Durham Area

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  laurenes

  

  January 2011 edited December 2011

  Don't worry! Deep breaths, your not even engaged yet!
  
  I'm guessing you want to get married this August, which yes, does mean that you will have to get rolling, but it's not time to stress yet.
  
  Before you nail down a location, you will need to figure out what size wedding you want to have and talk to your family. If your family is covering the complete cost of the wedding and they want to have a lot of people, they will probably get more say in the end as to how big this wedding will be. You don't need to hammer out EXACTLY who's on the guest list, but a lot of people find that drafting a rough guest list will help them get an idea of how many people they will end up wanting to invite, so that they have a realistic idea of how big a space they need to rent. Once you get that number you can realistically start hunting sites.
  
  I personally am planning a wedding at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill, which is not inexpensive, but they do do both ceremony and reception on the same location. If you live in Raleigh, I know the Rand Bryan house is popular on this board, and I believe they let you chose your own caterer depending on your budget and tastes. Try posting as well on the Raleigh Durham board, they are very helpful over there.
  
  And remember, if you really just want a day at the courthouse, that's really alright too

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  az3thou member

  

  January 2011 edited December 2011

  Heyy, thanks for replying. I actually already have a running guest list on the knot, which is really helpful. If I had it my way, it would be REALLY small, but I'm afraid my parents are going to want to invite more people. It will probably be 60 people TOPS, and I highly doubt that many will come. We definitely don't want to wait once we're officially engaged. I guess we just don't see a point in putting it off, and I'm definitely not looking for some lavish wedding by any means.
  
  I guess I'm mostly looking for ideas for anything from people in this general area. Like I said, none of my friends are married or even engaged, so I've never been through this stuff with anyone. Plus, I've only lived in NC for a couple years and none of my girl friends live closer than 700 miles away. Unfortunately, if I went for the whole town hall idea, everyone would be PISSED at me, haha.
  
  I think once I actually am able to get the ball rolling officially in a week or two, things will hopefully fall into place. It just seems like such a daunting task. I don't know why anyone would want to do this! Haha.

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  laurenes

  

  January 2011 edited December 2011

  Haha, it is super intimidating in a lot of ways. I definitely always wanted the big princess wedding (though I did not go for the big princess gown)  Although whether I wanted it or not, I'm sure my parents and grandparents wou.ld have been crushed if I hadn't turned it into a large family affair
  
  You're really lucky if you can get it down to 60 people though. I thought my parents would have arond 40 max - they have invited over twice that and still had to "sacrifice" people from the list. That's probably been one of the most exhausting factors - good thing I planned for it and ordered a huge cake While you definitely want to look around now for places, I would definitely get the final head count from your families before signing a contract (if you already have and i'm making assumptions, sorry!)
  
  If you need any vendor advice, as I mentioned before, people on the triangle page are very helpful, as are the people on this board. I know you mentioned you aren't familiar w/ the area, so I'll try to share my few nuggets of wisdom:
  
  Best seamstress is universally agreed upon as Olga. You would literally need to call her Monday to make sure to get in, but her prices are reasonable (from what everyone has said on the boards), and she's quite gifted. To shop for dresses  David's is always a decent starting point and I've had family get great dresses from there, but it didn't work for me. If you're willing to drive about an hourish or so to Burlington, there is a bridal outlet there. If you bring a friend you can pretty much self service - which I prefer, because I feel like I'm not being pushed into making a decision - and they have dresses under 1000 (supposedly as low as 200, where our DJ's wife paid for hers, but all the ones I liked were in the 700 range). Smithfield is also close by and has a bridal outlet.
  
  Joe Bunn DJ is supposed to be great. We're going w/ Jason fom islandsound (islandsound.net) He came recommended and we were able to view their price packages online before making a decision, which was nice.
  
  We're going with Lori from Simply Cakes, but I know her prices have gone up since we booked. Guglhupf down in durham (DELICIOUS german bakery) was one of the places we were thinking about going. They price their cakes per tier rather than serving, which is significantly cheaper.
  
  If you want the most talented Raleigh vendor for flowers - fresh affairs is generally considered the best. Personally though, when we adjusted our flower proposal to meet our budget, it went poorly. We ended up going w/ Tre Bella in Durham, though if you're looking to save there are a lot of reallly pretty DIY ideas out there. The English Garden is another Raleigh vendor highly recommended.
  
  Photography - I found a great pair of photographers - Sweet Life Photography. Once again, I know you were trying to save money, and they were our other splurge after our reception site. We did our engagement photos with Connie Feng. I love my engagement shots and I know she's started doing weddings. When we did our engagement photos with her over a year ago she was trying to build her portfolio so her prices were ridiculously low. You may want to check her out.
  
  By no means do you have to take any or all of these suggestions, but since I've done some leg work I thought I might let you know. good luck!

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  az3thou member

  

  January 2011 edited December 2011

  Hey! That's really helpful. Thanks so much! Fortunately, I've researched a ton already. I actually have a good friend who is a DJ in Massachusetts, and I'm pretty sure he'll either do it for free or really cheap, so there's one thing I don't have to worry about. My grandmother is a reverend and officiated my cousin's wedding, so I'm lucky there too. Of course, she lives in MA, too. I don't see my guest list getting any larger as literally everyone I know (except my parents, sister, and future-husband) live in MA. I don't see a point in inviting people up there who have no intention of making the trek.
  
  Funny enough, most of the places/people you mentioned, I'm already familiar with, so that's a good sign, right? I hope that means I'm not doing too bad at this pre-planning stuff. Thanks for the recommendation on the alterations, as well. I'm really thin so I'm worried about looking stupid in a dress if it doesn't fit exactly right. Btw, Simply Cakes was my first choice for a cake! So, I'm glad to hear it's a good one.
  
  I really can't wait to just officially start getting things locked in. I think most of the stress is just the idea that I have all of this information, but I can't really do anything with it just yet. Anyways, thank you again!!

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  laurenes

  

  January 2011 edited December 2011

  That's a great sign to me! It sounds like you've already done a lot of research! Don't worry, once your FI gets all his ducks in a row, it sounds like you'll be able to shoot emails off to all these people and get everything in line. Happy Planning, and congrats!

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  tarheelbabs member

  

  January 2011 edited December 2011

  The Royal Banquet and Conference Center on Hillsborough Street has pretty good prices.  So do some of the City of Raleigh Park sites.  The Stockroom at 230 Martin is a relatively new space downtown and I think it's fairly reasonable.  The great thing with all these spaces is you can choose your own caterer.  If you do choose your own, I've used Ladyfingers a couple of times and they are so nice and very easy to work with--plus their food is outstanding.  Cafe Luna also caters, if you like their food, but prefer a different venue.
  
  I'm using Tre Bella, too, and they are so nice.  They came up with exactly what I wanted.  Another good florist worth looking at is Flowers on Broad Street in Fuquay Varina.  They've done some other work for me, but weren't available on my wedding weekend.

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  az3thou member

  

  January 2011 edited December 2011

  Thanks, Tarheelbabs. I'll definitely look into them!

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