Clueless Groom 2 Be...

ambrose132 · July 2011

Hello ladies n gents- This is my first post, so i guess some background info- Im Canadian, just proposed, and now have been given total control over our wedding with my bride 2 be. She has been previously married, so has informed me its :whatever i want"- which we all know is only a half truth, or there would be motorcycles and lidgets rampant!
Now, I am thinking of getting married in the Valley of Fire in late March, and have already spoken to a very nice lady at The Las Vegas Wedding Company about it. The issue i am having is- well- everything else. The options are mind boggling, and being male, my tastes are a lot less refined then hers.

From personal experience, can anyone suggest a hotel? Does anyone upgrade for newlyweds, or should i upgrade the room prepurchase? We are only expecting half a dozen guests so planning shouldnt be too hard, but- well, im just a dumb boy:)

We are staying for 7 nights to include our honeymoon...
so

Vegas2012 · July 2011

Congratulations on your engagement!
You have picked a great place to get information, the people on this forum are wonderful!

First thing is think about a budget, then the next thing to think about if you have the ceremony planned is the reception. For a group like that, an in-suite or in a restaurant reception would work great.

Check the bios and see what the past people here have done.

ambrose132 · July 2011

Roger shall do- is there a way to sort bios by where they got married?

queenklm33 · July 2011

hello and welcome!
i don't have too much advice for you, but you won't be guaranteed an upgrade because your are newleyweds. its vegas, its always someone's anniversary, wedding, 21st, bacherlor party etc ....
if you have a particular room in mind, i would book that room. if you are lucky you might be upgraded from there, but its not gauranteed.

nycheryl · July 2011

Welcome and congrats! Yay for another planning groom

Since you're thinking Valley of Fire, you pretty much have your pick of the hotels. You will need to take a car out to VoF, so you can pick which hotel fits your budget/style/plans. Do you have a budget in mind? Do you want a spa feel? Vegas-themed? Do you want to stay on the strip, downtown, or off-strip?

smokeybailey · July 2011

Don't overlook Downtown. I'm getting married at the Golden Nugget and have a great room for the 4 nights we are there. Prices can't be beat. Check my bio for more info and for the best pictures of all hotels, check out oyster.com.

vegasgroom · July 2011

Welcome to the site, I'm the other groom here lol.

Yes, budget is first question since no use looking at all the other stuff if you don't know how much you can spend. Second is how many guests do you plan to invite as that could factor into every other thing you do.

I planned most of my wedding but ran the stuff I didn't care about past my wife; like floral and cake. She of course did everything related to her dress and I didn't see it until the ceremony. I sent her a few makeup people to talk to that I had heard good things about on here and she did all the communications with them to pick one she liked. Fortunately our venue was kind of unusual so there was no need for any decoration, color choosing, etc., just had the DJ bring some up-lights and we were good to go. If you're going to have to decorate wherever you're having the reception, I'd probably make your wife pick the colors, because if you're like me you don't care about colors, but if you pick wrong she'll not like it lol.

As you work on things, you might find that Google Docs is useful. I set up a spreadsheet that I shared with my wife so as I made decisions, talked to vendors and collected info, etc. I'd type it all in there not only so I could keep track of what I was doing, but then she could look at it as well without having to ask me to repeat everything a vendor told me, etc.

ambrose132 · July 2011

Well, Budget total is at abnout 5K - this includes flgiht nd hotel (apx 1600) vor the week, and ceremony at VoF ($1000- includes photographer, limo, champaight, and transport for me, FI, and 6 guests- extra guests = extra limo)-

As for Hotels, I just want a nice room- we are there for 7 days. Not sure if a car rental is worth the cash, as everything is close to the strip except the odd mall we may go see, or the shooting range (trash the dress photoshoot + shooting range = : )!)

We are picking brains of guests, but we are being somewhat picky, as we dont want a gong show, or having to entertain people on our honeymoon after - and knowing my family, its exactly what would happen. We were planning on eloping, but my sister has an issue keeping quiet, so now am just sifting through the few people we would invite.

smokeybailey · July 2011

$5K is not going to cut it.

Does your $1000 for your ceremony include service charge and tax? Let's assume it does.

$5000
-1000 (ceremony including all tips, service charges, taxes)
-1600 (inclueds all charges and taxes)
-1400 ($200 per diem for 7 days for 2 people)
-1050 (hotel at $150/night for 7 nights)
-400 (reception for 8 at $50/person)

You're at -$450 and that doesn't inlcude tips, any extras like makeup, hair, dress, rings, invitations, etc.

Assumptions:

So let's assume you set aside a per diem for food, drink and entertainment of $200 per day: $1400
Assume that hotel is $150 per night (including tax, service and resort - note the GN never charges a resort fee). That's $1050 for 7 nights.

You are out of money.

You can cut your per diem assuming you aren't going to do anything and will eat cheaply. You can do a much cheaper hotel so that the rate is under $100 night.

Oh, and the shooting range is easily $150 per person at the Gun Store. And where is the budget for a trash the dress photoshoot? Am I confused about the budget?

wiwicaty · July 2011

Hi there, congrats on the engagement! Here's the Vegas knottie list for you...

http://sites.google.com/site/vegasknottieslyrical/the-list-1

Happy planning!

vegasgroom · July 2011

What smokey said. It's pretty easy to go through $200/day in Vegas even if you don't gamble. A popular show could be upwards of $60/each for a ticket and then you've still got to have dinner, etc. High end restaurant could easily be $70/each for dinner. Obviously there's always ways you could save to stretch out the budget but if you're going to Vegas and just go to the same things you'd be able to do in any city, it makes it less fun. :-)

If you're already out 1600 + 1000 + 200 (the 20% tip/service fee) you've got only $2200 left to cover everything else.

nycheryl · July 2011

Can you pick a different venue for the ceremony? Stay a few less days?

ambrose132 · July 2011

   Wow- the responses on here are awesome, and much appreciated.

   The Venue is set in stone, and as i number crunch, and get told that i better make sure people are invited, my brain is begginning to swell in a not good way.

   A few days less is an option- i am hotel shopping now, to try and find a better deal.

   The $5000 is wedding budget only, as we were going to have a local ceremony , but changed our minds as people were feeling obligated to drive out who couldn't afford it, and that is not our intention at all. It does not include fun money, as we also have a honeymoon budget which we got to use for all the other fun stuff- here.

So the $5000 would have to include the following (which i should of stated earlier, but- again, i will blame my testicles for lack of information relaying-

-Flight and hotel-
-Ceremony
-Recepion/Dinner should guests show up

The reception is the one i was most worried about- and i know with the lack of guest numbers its hard to help, i just wanted to get the ball rolling, and hear some ideas from some other peolple that have done it.

Thanks fr all the support!

smokeybailey · July 2011

Soooooo. going back to my original post and deleting one line item, I get this:

$5000
-1000 (ceremony including all tips, service charges, taxes)
-1600 (airfare - includes all charges and taxes)
-1400 (hotel at $200/night for 7 nights)
-1000(reception for 10 at $100/person)

So go with that. You didn't answer if the ceremony $1000 included service and tax. If not, deduct another $281 to be safe.

For your hotel, you have a budget of $1400. Let's assume a 12% hotel tax so that leaves $1250 or $178 per night. Let's deduct another $18/night for a resort fee (Golden Nugget doesn't charge a resort fee, just sayin'.) so now you are back to $160 per night or $1120 for your week of hotel. I don't think you could get a suite for that. Depends on the time of year. What time of year are you looking at?

I would highly recommend the Golden Nugget downtown. It's my hotel of choice and I think that you can get much more for your money. The new Rush Tower is gorge and has a wide selction of suites. We are staying in the Spa Tower Suite for our wedding. Of course, there are some great strip hotels too. I just posted a special for the Mandalay Bay and THEhotel earlier and there were some fantastic rates for even a Vista Suite if you were going in December. However, I don't gamble on the strip except at the Riv so I'd rather stay downtown.

If you did go with the GN as your hotel, you could opt to treat your 8 guests to dinner at Vic & Anthony's. We did dinner there for 10 after my parents' 40th anniversary renewal at the Viva Las Vegas chapel. It was about $1500 and I think that included gratuity. With a budget of $1000 you would have about $785 before tax and tip. An insuite with Masterpiece wouldn't make sense for that because their min is $750 but you could do an insuite with some other caterer, but honestly with a group of 10, I vote for a nice restaurant with great food and better wine.

ambrose132 · July 2011

Smokey, your help is greatly appreciated, as i have only been to Vegas once, and it was with the cheapest individiuals i have ever met. They ate Chipolte Burrit0s for 2 meals a day!- so I will get into more details on what i think is going to happen.

The Wedding date is March 29, 2012 (as of now)
Our total number of guests MAXIMUM will be 14, If we are over 6, we need to rent either a 2nd limo, or a vlarge vehicle for the day to get guests to the site.

Our Ceremony is in the Valley of Fire. This is the Package we are looking at- http://www.thelasvegasweddingcompany.com/valley_of_fire_weddings___

It is $899, without taxes or park wedding fee (which i can not find for the life of me!) there is also a limo tip in there - $80 is suggested.

Flights for both of us will be $1100 all taxes/airport fees included, and may be able to find something cheaper still as we have a friend who may be able to get us passes with the airline he works for.

As for hotels, I was thinking suite, FI says she just wants an awesome soaker bathtub... (wink wink), and a King Size bed. I only need a bed and a not stinky room to crash in, so big tub is all we need! FI does not gamble, and othe then some 21 on the stag night, there may only be some poker played.
I am thinking i may book a room now, then wait to see if any deals for march show up a little closer to game time.

For the dinner, I was actually recomended Joes Seafood, Prime Steak, and Crab.
it is affordable, the food is great from what I have heard, and the FI and family love seafood.

smokeybailey · July 2011

End of March is probably a wee bit better than mid-March due to March madness but I think you will still see some lift in prices because it is spring break.

For 7 nights, I did a quick check of 3 hotels in which I have stayed and taken a bath in a soaking tub and would recommend. I also stayed at the Four Seasons with a great tub but it wasn't a fun hotel. I have stayed at many, many hotels in Vegas being that I generally go 3 to 4 times a year. Keep in mind that I am older so I am not into shopping or site seeing. I go to Vegas to game, drink, dance, eat and lay by the pool. I can't speak to Joes unless it's Joe's crab shack. I've been there a handful of times here in CA and am not very impressed it. We had much better lobster at Vic and Anthony's. We also enjoyed Alex, Botero, and Lakeside at the Wynn/Encore.

THE Suite at THEhotel: $1570
A resort king at The Wynn: $1670 (+140 for resort fees) not a suite
Golden Nugget Rush Tower (not a suite but great tub): $664
GN Rush jr. suite: $964.00
GN Parlor suite: $1144.00
GN Spa Tower suite: 2344.00

I would recommend that you look at the hotels online and find ones that you are interested in and ask people to provide feedback on those hotels. Otherwise it's too hard to make a recommendation to you. Letting us know what you are looking for in a hotel: great casino, pool, restaurants, shopping, etc. will help people make recommendations. Can you increase your budget at all? 16 people at dinner will easily be around $1500 with tax and tip if there is wine and/or being served.

ambrose132 · July 2011

Yeah, we can always up the budget. That is just a target number, that we can work around fairly easily. The Nugget sounds fine- all i want is a decent pool, and reasonable access to the strip in case we go drinking, dancing, ect. We are a slightly older crown (33+) so wont be hunting for beer bongs and total debauchery.

The "itinerary" is as follows (I hope)

Sunday- Fly in, get settled
Monday-Get license, meet with vendors
Tuesday-Stag/Stagette
Wednesday-Recover
Thursday- Wedding day- we are hoping for a later ceremony, although i am not sure what time sunset is in nevada at this time of year, as the sunset pics at VOF are amazing! After seeing how fun the pics looked from some others on here though, we may hire Todd to race us around preceremony to get some shots around town, as really, they look amazing, are reasonably priced, and defenitly a keep sake.
Fri-Sunday- Honeymoon "stuff"...

We are planning the wedding for thursday so peoople can schedule it so they do not need to stay for weekend rates if they dont want too, and can squeeze out some savings.

We can always change our flight date to Monday, I am just worried Tuesday will not be enough time to get everything done we will need to do.

And I cant afford to fly early to interview vendors, so i am triple checking everything. You say Joes is "meh"- aight. on to the next one

smokeybailey · July 2011

Don't throw out Joe's because of what I said. Although I AM the almighty smokeybailey...Joe's has gotten good reviews here. I just personally can't recommend it.

Also, downtown is not on the strip. You should stay on the Strip for the proximity to the sites and clubs. I am 39 so my Vegas plans are very different than they were at 33. I would also recommend that if this is a first time (or second time) visit that you stay on the strip. I just wanted to give you another side of the coin to consider.

Remember, that even though rates are cheaper during the week, your guest still have to take the time off work. For me, the extra cost of a weekend rate, is less than the money I lose for time off. Keep that in mind. It may "cost" your guests more to go somewhere midweek.

Do you have additional budget for a photog or does that need to come out of your $5k budget as well? Things are starting to add up now...

ambrose132 · July 2011

I dont mind staying downtown. $800 differrence on rooms is pretty significant, and a cab between the 2, even if its every day won't equal the differrence.

smokeybailey · July 2011

Check out pictures of lots of suites at oyster. GN pics: http://www.oyster.com/las-vegas/hotels/golden-nugget-hotel-and-casino/photos/

I've only stayed in the Gold Club, Gold Tower and Rush Tower rooms. We have a spa tower suite for our wedding next month. We have toured those suites and the Rush Tower corner suite. The spa tower is a giant two story suite. We are having our RD there.

More info in my bio.

ambrose132 · July 2011

Has anyone stayed at the MGM signature suites? They seem pretty reasonable at 129 a night after resort fees and taxes (this is a price from the oyster)-

nycheryl · July 2011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_nevada-las-vegas_clueless-grrom-2?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:91Discussion:0c5812b0-5728-4a24-9cb9-9e29c0a5e79cPost:80e47091-4b10-46d3-b78e-19b8de15c872">Re: Clueless Groom 2 Be...</a>:
[QUOTE]Has anyone stayed at the MGM signature suites? They seem pretty reasonable at 129 a night after resort fees and taxes (this is a price from the oyster)-
Posted by ambrose132[/QUOTE]

I haven't stayed there, but a friend did and I spent some time in their room. They had a one-bedroom suite, and it was very large - bright, open, clean. The balcony had an amazing view of the strip (although there were no chairs out there). You can use the MGM pools or the Signature ones. There is not a casino in that area, so it's a bit of a walk if you want to gamble.

tripadvisor.com has user reviews and pictures, which may also be helpful. I don't necessarily recommend renting the condos (versus checking out directly from MGM), as the quality is not controlled by MGM.

My FI and I are considering staying a week there for our wedding/honeymoon, as it is close to a lot of action (City Center, PH, etc) but is still very quiet! We also love that there are appliances in the room, so we can run to the grocery store and have snacks/water. We hope to stay in Tower 2 or 3 - they're farther away from the main MGM property, but closer to PH/City Center. They are also farther away from the MGM pool complex, which apparently is very loud if you have a strip-facing room. I've done a lot of research on this hotel, so let me know if you have questions. We are between Signature, THEhotel at Mandalay Bay, and the Cosmopolitan (Terrace Suite).

I also created a LV room poll thread, where people are putting their reviews:

<a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_nevada-las-vegas_lv-hotel-room-poll" rel='nofollow'>http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_nevada-las-vegas_lv-hotel-room-poll</a>

ambrose132 · July 2011

So everyone other then MGM owns the suites then rents them out? Weather has a fairly decent deal for rooms here, but we want to keep things fairly headache free, and as always, are deal huntIng as best we can. $1000 for the 6 nights is our budget cap.

nycheryl · July 2011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_nevada-las-vegas_clueless-grrom-2?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:91Discussion:0c5812b0-5728-4a24-9cb9-9e29c0a5e79cPost:dfb7164a-8084-4bb4-bed6-50acbbbca39a">Re: Clueless Groom 2 Be...</a>:
[QUOTE]So everyone other then MGM owns the suites then rents them out? Weather has a fairly decent deal for rooms here, but we want to keep things fairly headache free, and as always, are deal huntIng as best we can. $1000 for the 6 nights is our budget cap.
Posted by ambrose132[/QUOTE]

There's a large portion of the suites that are condos, owned by individuals or investment groups. The other portion is owned and maintained by MGM. I was looking at using vrbo.com to rent a condo at Signature, but only using the companies that had good reviews. I have never heard of Weather?

MarryingmyKnight · July 2011

I have stayed at The Signature; it was beautiful. We were in a Junior Suite. It is a little walk to the MGM but not far and we walked through the hotel. We got our room on Travelocity for $120 a night. It was during Spring Break (end of April) Very nice and close enough to the strip to walk.

ambrose132 · July 2011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_nevada-las-vegas_clueless-grrom-2?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local Wedding BoardsForum:91Discussion:0c5812b0-5728-4a24-9cb9-9e29c0a5e79cPost:7e15cf88-c7e3-4756-9bf5-66337220d30e">Re: Clueless Groom 2 Be...</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Clueless Groom 2 Be... : There's a large portion of the suites that are condos, owned by individuals or investment groups. The other portion is owned and maintained by MGM. I was looking at using vrbo.com to rent a condo at Signature, but only using the companies that had good reviews. I have never heard of Weather?
Posted by nycheryl[/QUOTE]

Dam you auto correct!!! The site was the oyster- I'm not very busy at work so have too much time to research! I also have fat thumbsso typos (like grrom!) are way to common. ?!

queenklm33 · July 2011

FYI, Planet Hollywood has very large seperate tubs in their regular Hollywood Hip Rooms and even Excalibur has a "spa" room with a huge jacuzzi tub in the corner.
We had guests at our recent wedding that got a steal at MGM Signature and they also loved it and found it very convienent to walk through MGM to get to it.

ambrose132 · July 2011

Hmmm- after much research i think we are going to stay in a nugget regular room. and get a spa suite for the wedding night- Does anyone know if one can throw a small reception (20-30'people) in this suite? I can't take a scouting trip to Vegas so I'm using u all as my spies! Oh, and booked Todd and the venue for march, so it's official now, not just speculation!

smokeybailey · July 2011

I am doing a rehearsal dinner in the spa tower suite so I can tell you after my wedding in August. My FI thinks the room is too small for the 31 people we have coming but I can let you know. There is definitely not a lot of seating. Some people will have to sit on the stairs, we think.

I hope that you booked a regular Rush Tower room since those rooms are great for the cost.

Make sure you check out downtown online. It is NOT the strip and some people don't like it. The hotels are older and smaller. There aren't any big clubs or really upscale bars. I love it and am getting married there but it's not for everyone.

If you need contacts at the GN for room blocks or receptions, Let me know. Keep in mind that you can do a rception in a ballroom rather inexpensively. We have a pretty big ballroom that will have a cocktail area with tall boys, an eating area with 8 tables of 8 and then a big dancefloor. That room was only $5625 minimum F&B. They have smaller rooms though for smaller groups. The room our ceremony is in is much smaller.

It depends on if you want servers, tables and chairs for dinner, DJ, etc. But I think all of their packages are reasonable. I believe that top shelf liquor is $46 PP for 3 hours. In suite wouldn't work for us because we wanted a sit down dinner, cocktail hour and dancing with a DJ...and a piano man.

ambrose132 · July 2011

I think we are looking at similar numbers as word spreads- I totally forgot about significant others dammit! Other people's wives- sheesh! $5600 for food n booze and the room seems pretty reasonable though- keep me posted- don't make me start crashing weddings! If u can pm the the number for the room blocking that would be sweet too...

smokeybailey · July 2011

At the end of the day, I have 50 guests. We had planned for 75 originally so that's why we got the room size. We definitely make our min with 50 so I'm happy with that.

I'll send you both the contact for planning the wedding/reception and the manager who can help with a room block. Our room block was included in our contract so you should probably contact the coordinator first to work through wedding ceremony and reception logistics.

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