SOUND OFF! What was a waste? what was worth it?

kellyem2 · January 2015

As a general rule I'd say if you didn't notice it at someone else's wedding, people aren't going to notice it at yours either. I'd only add extra details if it will make your event more functional or it will make you happy. Otherwise it's a waste of money.

The two things I would say were definitely worth it for me were:

1. Food. If you have plenty of good quality food it will put people in the mood to party. Nothing puts a damper on a party like being hungry. Make sure your food is filling and on time and it will forgive a lot of other things. Trust me.

2. Candles. I put candles in colored glass votives all over the room. I mean something like 15 dozen of them in 6 different colors. We bought the sets in bulk so they weren't that expensive, but the effect was priceless. My wedding was in November so once the lights went down you couldn't see the centerpieces much, but you could see all those bright, twinkling lights and the effect was stunning.

caitlinmca · January 2015

plainjane0415 said:

I haven't had my wedding yet, but I'm going to say that engagement pics are a waste of money. I just got all of mine back and now I'm thinking, what am I going to do with these? Wedding pics I feel will be different because I will want to print and frame some of those, but engagement pics, right now I'm really at a loss.

I disagree a little, my FI and I have almost little to no good photos of ourselves together, we did engagement photos 1) to see how our photographer worked out and about 2) have us get used to having our photos taken and 3) have those photos that we could do something with, in which we did print them off and put in a photo album and now are waiting for our April wedding for wedding photos.

My mom, was even having a hard time for Christmas gifts this year because of the wedding, I told her not to buy anything because everything we really want is on our registry, and she ended up taking our engagement photos and printing them off and putting them in a nice frame. For me, it will be a timeless gift.

--Our wedding is in April however most of our money has been set aside for our venue and they also handle the food and bar. We also spent a bit on our photographer. Our DJ wasn't that bad in price and he is always raved about on the local board here. With our venue, we also receive an event coordinator. We are also doing real flowers for the bridal party and some centerpieces and DIY'ing the rest.

We are doing a candy bar along with a traditional cake and cake pops, but that is because I know someone that makes cakes and cake pops and is a wedding planner on the side.

The things we aren't doing are the personalized napkins/favors, we did not upgrade our linens, no photo booth, and no specialty transportation as our ceremony and reception are at the same location.

allispain · January 2015

hsgator said:

badbnagdway said:

plainjane0415 said:

I haven't had my wedding yet, but I'm going to say that engagement pics are a waste of money. I just got all of mine back and now I'm thinking, what am I going to do with these? Wedding pics I feel will be different because I will want to print and frame some of those, but engagement pics, right now I'm really at a loss.

I disagree somewhat on this. I think having done the engagement session will make our actual wedding photos better. FI and I are really not good in front of a camera and spending an hour or so with our photographer taught us a lot about being photographed. It was included in our package though so we didn't have to decide whether to spend extra on it.

Agreed! Ours was included in our package, but I think the engagement shoot would've been worth the extra cost even if it wasn't included. Getting to know our photographer was nice because now I trust her for the actual wedding (getting the photos back and seeing that they were great gave me extra peace of mind, even though I had looked over plenty of other shoots she's done before booking her), and now FI and I are more comfortable and have an idea of what poses look good and what looks awkward/silly.

I agree as well - it was very useful to have the (free) engagement session with our photographer. Not only did she make the photos into a lovely guestbook for us, but having that session a) got DH used to taking pictures in a formal setting, b) gave our photographer an even better sense of our personality, and c) gave her a great sense of the kind of photos we would likely choose for our wedding album. She saw that we choose mostly the artsy shots for the engagement one - and that we like a lot of black and white ones - so she focused more on those on our wedding day.

SOUND OFF! What was a waste? what was worth it?

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