We are having an outdoor wedding at the end of next June. The park rules won't let us put up any sort of tent or canopy and they do not provide you with chairs. It's going to be hot, and I don't want our guests to be standing for the entire ceremony with no sun cover--some of them are elderly, and it's rude even to the ones who aren't.
This is the park we're getting married in:
This is a closeup of the balcony where we will be standing during the ceremony:
And this is the view from the balcony of where the guests will be seated (in front of the first pond and on either side of it):
We have found two quotes from two chair rental places (Bob Mutton Party Rental and A Party Apart) for 100 chairs that are both within $4 of each other...the more expensive of the two being $382 (which includes an insurance on the chairs being broken, where as the other quote does not.) I think that this is affordable/budgetable (is that a word even?) and it seems like an okay price to me; it's the total fee for the chairs, set-up/tear-down and insurance on them.
However, my mother thinks that this is too much to pay and that having chairs is an unnecessary cost and that I should tell people to bring blankets and have them sit on the ground. At first I flat out refused (she has brought this up a few times), but now I'm starting to second guess myself...is $382 too much to pay for chairs? Is there any tactful way to even suggest that? I just don't even know anymore. What does everyone here think?
Also, please no bashing on my mom--she was raised to be a steadfast penny pincher and her own reception was in the backyard of my Grams's house with about 20 people present; she doesn't quite understand the change in times...