Hi all...
This is my first post here (very exciting, I know
. My name's Bethany -- I'm a social worker & lifelong Pittsburgher. My fiance, Oliver, and I got engaged last month.
I'm hoping for opinions here. We initially were aiming for an Oct 2012 date. Our budget is ~$10k (maybe stretching up to about 12k) for ~150 guests. Oliver & I will be calling in some awesome favors -- our DJ is going to be a friend of ours doing it as a gift to us, and our photographer will be a close friend of my fiance's doing it for cost. There's also a number of crafters in my family, thus reducing our costs for some of the decor and invites/thank yous. The expenses I'm most nervous about being able to stay within budget on are alcohol (we're already only planning to do beer/wine/champagne, but still, people gotta drink, so we'll get as much as we need...which may end up being a lot;), flowers (because having a particularly pretty/unique reception is very important to me), cake (trying not to think too hard about that at this point;) and the dress (can't think of that at ALL yet... ;D)
When all is said and done, it leaves us about $2000 for a venue where we'd ideally have both ceremony and reception (including rentals), and then about $4000 for food (i.e. a combined $6000 if there's no charge for the venue on top of food). My parents are willing to supplement a bit as long as it's not *crazy* more expensive. We looked at the Union Project, and while I love the idea of it, I had a LOT of trouble getting past the sloped floor in the ballroom.
We contacted the Mayernick Center, and will be looking at it Saturday -- they are holding it for a Friday evening in June for us. I fell in love with it from the pics and have gotten excited about the idea of a June wedding (and the reduced expense of a Friday evening wedding, which will work fine for us... they of course had only dead-of-winter Saturdays left in 2012 by the time we called). I'm nervous about a few of the extra fees, though -- mainly the $3.25/person for drinks (even before alcohol) and having to use their bartender (+$125), which with our BYO costs takes our drinks budget to about 2x where I'd like it to be... which takes us to the next part of this---
In the meantime, my mom learned about the Great Hall in West View, and we are going to look at it tomorrow. If I'm doing my math right, it looks like it will be cheaper overall, including the alcohol price being a LOT less. It definitely looks nice, and if I hadn't already discovered the Mayernick, I think from the photos at least I'd be pretty excited about it. I'm really fearing though falling in love with the Mayernick based on looks but not being able to pass up the Great Hall based on price - they also have Saturday October dates (our original plan) available (which I know my fiance will still prefer), but I've kind of gotten excited about something sooner and in June. I'm just much more a 'rustic' girl than a 'gothic architecture' girl. (I should also say -- while I know there's a 'do what you love, even if it's a little more $!!' sentiment that works for some brides -- for various reasons, we REALLY can't go over this max $12k budget.)
Lastly, I also hear that the dance floor at the Great Hall is a strange set up, and my biggest fear about the wedding (besides, you know, a freak tornado) is that it WON'T be one of those weddings where everyone sticks around after dinner and has fun and dances into the evening!! I've been to a few of those and they've made me sad.
So, I figure I could wait and see how my walk throughs at each place go... or I could stress out a little here, and hope someone has good basis for comparing the two and can help me address my fears here
I will be about 95% happier when we just have a date, seriously...I'm a big picture girl, not a details girl, and want to get onto funner things like flowers and my dress Any thoughts???