I have now realized that you can't have a small wedding on a small budget. I was not able to find any vendors to provide a small wedding. Everyone wants to make a ton of money for their time. I do, too, don't get me wrong.
However, when I started this journey, I read a lot of information about how to have a wedding on a budget. I tried a lot if these strategies, but was not able to make them work. I looked for a venue that would be cheap or free. Because I was concerned about cold or wet weather, I had to find somewhere indoors. So that ruled out anything that was naturally beautiful, with beautiful scenery that would speak for itself. It was less expensive to find an indoor venue than to rent a tent and heaters.
Finding the venue was challenging, because when I talked to vendors, they weren't very interested in providing a $3000 reception. Even during the off season when they weren't booked up. Finally, we settled on a bed and breakfast where we will be having both the wedding and reception. It is beautiful, so I'm very happy with it. But it wasn't cheap. She wanted to charge me $400 an hour, plus food costs. We negotiated, down to $300 an hour, and she knocked off some of the 22% gratuity. The tax is 9.5% here in Tennessee.
The photographer is wonderful, I know she will be worth her fee. A professionally trained photographer costs $1,000 and up in Tennessee, and that doesn't even include the actual photographs. I got a couple of offers from people with really nice cameras to take the pictures for around $500, but who knows how they would have turned out. Because I paid cash, the photographer is knocking $100 off the price for the day. I know I will be getting a good deal, and they will be worth so much more than what we are paying for. But when you don't really have it.....
For music, I have always dreamed of having live music at my wedding. We selected the harp, and found a very talented woman in Chattanooga. She gave a very fair price, and will be playing during dinner for an hour, and before the wedding for an hour. This is costing $350.00. Playing music off CDs or an iPod would have been a little cheaper, but since I have neither or these, I probably would have gotten close to that price buying music.
The florist was $500 just for bouquets, bouttonieres, and corsages. I asked them to keep costs low, and we purchased less expensive flowers, but it was still that much. I asked for a few flowers on the dining table, and a few on the mantle of the fireplace. I don't know yet how much that will be. I'm estimating about $500 more. The worst part is that the flowers are going to die so quickly. It feels wasteful.
My one real splurge was up lightning for the reception area. I am renting 8 uplights for about $400. That package also includes a cake spotlight. They will really add to the ambiance.
The rest of the decor will be three tall vases, with hydrangeas, separated by two silver trees on one long table. Linens are white, with a silver sequined runner down the middle of the table. Napkins are magenta, as are the ribbons on two bundles of birch sticks in tall vases on the cake table. The magenta will appear on the groomsmen's vests, and on ribbons on the bride and grooms chairs, as well as in the bouquets.
We will be using 75-100 candles on the table, cake table, and the mantle. Total decorations cost: $550.
That brings me to the cake. Crazy expensive!! And you don't know what you are going to get, really. They don't let you taste the flavors you suggest, designs are loosely described unless you take a photo of the actual cake you want. I asked cake bakers across south eastern Tennessee and they charged between $350 and $550 for cakes that feed 50 people small slices, or 35 people large slices. That is with little to moderate embellishment. You can find a self trained baker or get a cake from a grocery store for about $250. They make no promises about how the cake will look. Walmart even says "we can't make it look as good as the picture". I was also told that a dummy cake layer would cost more that a real cake, so I might have a lot of cake left over.
Keep the grooms figure in mind when considering your tuxedo budget. My groom is long and lanky and wouldn't fit in the $100 tux rental special at Men's Warehouse. We ended up spending almost twice as much to get one he will look good in.
My dress was a gift from my mother, so we won't count that, but if you want any embellishment at all, be prepared to pay $1000 and up.
These are the major components of a modern wedding. Add in the proper gifts for attendants, favors, hotel rooms, tips for service people, and the million other things you won't think of until the last few weeks---- this is no longer a budget wedding!! I think that when this is all over, I'm going to try to do something about it. There has to be a way to make it happen for less.
We have paid for all of it in cash, so once it's over, the hemmoraging will end, and that's a beautiful thing. It will all be worth all the struggle to get to the altar and finally be married. Two weeks and counting!