Posted on Tuesday, October 1, 2013

10 Tips on How to Have a Wedding for 200 people for LESS than $12,000…

Hello World,

Prior to Robert asking me to marry him in December 2012, I really had given very little thought to wedding planning. Yes, I read Cinderella as a child and even watched the weddings of Princess Di and Kate and William on television, but I never dreamed of my own wedding day…I always wanted to be married, but when I thought of my future, I dreamed about a fabulous career as an author/journalist…

But I digress…In February of this year, it finally dawned on me that if I wanted to have a wedding, I should probably start planning one…Once I started researching, I was shocked to discover that the average cost of a wedding is a whopping $25,656, according to costofwedding.com…I’m all for having the wedding of your dreams, but I’m not down with debt, and we determined that we would NOT be paying for wedding expenses after our wedding day…But with the help of God, my parents, LOTS of Internet research, and creativity, Robert and I were able to plan our wedding for 200 people for $11, 756. 41 not including our honeymoon costs…So because I read so many blogs that helped me to plan our wedding, I decided to give back and break down how we were able to have a fabulous wedding on a reasonable budget…

1. First of all, I took a workshop entitled “Say Yes to Less! Wedding Cost Savings Strategies” presented by Sasha J Events LLC at the Riverdale Town Centre in which I learned a lot about cutting down the costs of wedding planning…This class really jump-started my wedding planning. I recommend taking this workshop if you’re in the metro Atlanta area…If not, please try to find a similar class or workshop where you live…

2. While I was at Riverdale Town Centre (a very lovely facility), I discovered they rent several of their rooms for weddings and wedding receptions. And let me tell you, the reception typically comprises the largest chunk of the budget…I literally booked a room that seated 250 people that day! And one of the ways that you can cut costs is to book a room at a city community center rather than book a hotel banquet room where you end up paying for the overhead…

If you book a room at the Riverdale Town Centre, you are encouraged to select one of their preferred caterers or pay a higher fee…I selected Greedy Palates Gourmet Catering Company. I highly recommend Chef Assata and her team!!! The food was reasonably priced and “scrumdillyicious” :)We also rented our silverware and table linens from her!
Aside from the food that you serve to your guests, you must also serve cake! A friend of mine is a chef and bakes cakes on the side! We were able to get a pretty wedding cake plus lots of cupcakes to serve our guests for a fraction of the cost of typical wedding cakes…(Another one of my cost cutting tips is to hire your friends and associates if you can work together…My chef friend said she didn’t know that I was so bossy 🙂 )
Also, we opted not to serve alcohol because of the cost of alcohol and hiring security personnel which is required at Riverdale Town Centre as well as the amount of preachers that would be there…LOL (My father and three uncles are preachers sooo…)Including the cost of sparkling apple cider that we bought ourselves and renting linens, we spent $5113.62 for the reception!

3. So what is a wedding without a breathtaking wedding dress? Well, if you want breathtaking, you have to be ready to spend that moolah baby! Again, I was stunned that wedding dresses cost so much…I was able to find my wedding dress in the clearance section of Anya Bridal Warehouse! With tax, my dress cost $538.92…The alterations cost over half of the amount of the total dress at $386.10! This is the only dress that I tried on because I loved it so much…

And because I am a discount diva, I bought my wedding shoes online from David’s Bridal for $18.13 including shipping and handling, and I bought my veil from Bride Beautiful for $64.19.
Ashley Means from M.A.C. at Southlake Mall did an excellent job on my makeup…One of my bridesmaids Latoicha Givens of Luxe Tips did all of the bridesmaids’ makeup!
The total cost of my wedding attire including makeup, gown preservation, garter belt, wedding day robe, etc. was $1492.86.

4. Of course, aside from wearing a beautiful dress, you must have a beautiful atmosphere to complete a beautiful wedding day…I learned in the workshop that using fake instead of real flowers is a major cost cutter…I was able to find a wonderful florist/decorator Honour Rowe with H.Y.R. Designs who was able to beautifully decorate our church and the reception room for a reasonable price…I originally encountered her at a bridal show at the Riverdale Town Centre…And that is another cost cutting tip, vendors will often cut their prices if you meet them at a bridal show…

5. If you’re anything like me, you look forward to dancing at the reception more than anything! I booked Sight and Sound Entertainment for my dj services as well as videography…And that is another way to save…Combine those services! (Also, at the last minute, they agreed to create the slides for our slide show for a reasonable cost 🙂 )And because I met Richard Lundy at the same bridal show I mentioned above, I was able to get a deal!

6. You know what they say, a picture is worth a 1000 words…and to my dismay, I discovered that wedding pictures can cost several thousands of dollars…Although the wedding matrix will have you almost willing to spend a home down payment on wedding photos, I kept believing that I could secure a quality photographer for a reasonable price…And I did…Thanks to Doug Smith Photography, we were able to secure a creative engagement session in Piedmont Park and awesome wedding photographs for a reasonable price…Also, with the help of one of my sorors, I was able to find a reasonable company for our photo booth at our wedding! I highly recommend Take That Media 1!

7. Another way to save money is to get help from your family! My mother, my shero, bought mini-cake boxes which had our names and the wedding date engraved on them. She enlisted friends of hers to make Jamaican rum cake. Her team sliced all of the cake and placed them in the mini-cake boxes to give out to her guests. And the best part is that my mom as well as her team paid for all of this! Winning!!!

8. I have never really been into cars, but I discovered in my wedding planning that using your paid-for 2001 Honda Accord as your wedding vehicle just won’t do…But a friend suggested a way to cut down on costs for renting a fancy vehicle for the Big Day…Rather than renting a limo that typically costs about $300 and up just for a few hours, we opted to rent a Mercedes van (I cannot remember the actual model) which seated me and all the bridesmaids for $176.69 from the luxury vehicle section at Hertz. We got the van for the entire day! Also, we asked one of Robert’s friends to drive the van for us…Incidentally, he works part-time for a limo company so it all worked out!

9. Although I planned most of the details, by July, I was pooped and realized that I needed the help of a planner to make sure that everything came together…We hired Park Place Parties and Catering which helped me to find jewelry for my bridesmaids, add a few personalized touches to our tables, coordinate contact with all of the vendors, and direct the wedding ceremony and reception – all for a reasonable price…

10. And chile, I used Vistaprint for my wedding invitations, programs and thank you cards! I spent $294.42 (I originally invited 250 people) for my wedding invitations, $142.48 for programs and $120.88 thank you cards. I must admit they weren’t the most ornate invitations, programs, and thank you cards I’ve ever seen, but they did the job…And to save more money on stamps and stationary, we asked our guests to either RSVP online or call me so that we did not have to include RSVP cards and stamped return envelopes…

I must say as much as I complained about spending all of this money, by the time we finished planning our wedding, I realized that it was actually a lot of fun in spite of worrying about RSVPs, wedding day play lists and endless details…In fact, I am still reading articles on the Internet and books about weddings…

If you’re a fan of celebrity pop culture like I am AND weddings, you’ve got to check out “Weddings/365: A day-by-day selection of memorable celebrity weddings” by Harvey Solomon! Did you know that the wedding of Liza Minnelli and David Gest in March 2002 cost a whopping $3.5 million?! The wedding of Paul McCartney and Heather Mills cost $3 million! One of the ways that celebs cut the costs of their weddings is to sell their wedding photos…Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher got $3 million for their wedding photos from “People” magazine…What do these three couples have in common? Hmm…More proof that a lavish wedding doesn’t exactly equal long-time wedded bliss…

Any thoughts?

Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013

Another Wedding Planning Post…7 Lessons I Have Learned So Far…(AKA For Colored Brides Who Have Considered Suicide Or a Justice of the Peace When Wedding Planning Became Too Much)

Hello World,

Wedding planning is going to be the death of me…Well, I hope not…But I feel like that sometimes…So far I have only written two posts about wedding planning since R. and I got engaged in December 2012…

One of the pics from our engagement photos…It captures how I have felt for the most part as I have been wedding planning…I’m wearing our wedding colors fuchsia and orange…

“The Wedding Industry Heist aka maybe I should I go in the wedding planning business”

and

“Planning & Stressing…”

I think I have demonstrated incredible restraint in only writing two posts because trust me I could written a lot more posts on wedding planning based on just my topsy-turvy emotions alone…I have cried…I have stayed up all night wedding planning energized by excitement not by coffee…I have cursed people to the depths of hell and lifted them up in prayer..It’s quite funny actually, but I’m not laughing…Hopefully, I will be able to laugh when it’s all over…On the other hand, as a writer, I’m a lifelong student of life, and I have learned so very much which I hope will provide inspiration for future blog posts, essays and maybe even books…

This morning as I wrote this post, I am perturbed about yet another issue which I am not at liberty to expound upon right now, but trust I will tell more later…however, for current and future brides, here are a few lessons I have learned thus far…And I still have about a couple of weeks to go, so pray for me if I happen to cross your mind…So here goes…

1. Revel in your wedding planning and don’t let anyone (even your non-planning fiance’) steal your wedding planning joy…I know that many women began wedding planning when they were little girls after reading Cinderella and similar fairy tales. I was not one of them…After reading Cinderella and other childhood stories, I began wondering how I could weave together such wonderful stories so I dreamed about being an author and journalist…(And God allowed those dreams to come true…THANK YOU GOD) So I came to this process completely unaware of any latent desires about a wedding…In fact, when I had thought about my wedding day in years past, I pictured a simple ceremony on some faraway beach with just a few people…no fuss and no muss…But as I started planning, I realized that I wanted to have a big ole party in the city that helped raise me…I love Atlanta, and I wanted it to be a big part of the Big Day…Also, I realized that I wanted to be a real bride and look like one…expensive dress and all…I think my fiance’ is surprised about how much time and energy I have devoted to wedding planning…In some ways, it has felt like when I was planning for my book release…I guess I just love projects and this has become one…

2. Have a budget…Now I know I just said revel in wedding planning and talked about my expensive wedding dress and having a big ole party…but I have had a budget since the beginning and have been meticulous in sticking to my budget and keeping track of every penny spent…I just don’t get people who think it’s okay to owe for a wedding after the wedding date has passed…I recommend planning according to the funds you have available so that means you have to prioritize…For instance, my wedding shoes cost less than $20 with shipping and handling…I reasoned that no one will be able to see my shoes anyway because my wedding dress which cost almost a grand (including the price of alterations) will cover them…Now for some people a $1,000 wedding dress is not a big deal, but I for me, it was a whopper..In fact, when the lady at the bridal store told me how my dress cost, I started crying…I’m not kidding…I had to rush out of the store I was so embarrassed…On the other hand, you have to realize that in some cases, you get what you pay for…I bought a $10 wedding veil, and I realized after receiving it the mail that it just wouldn’t do…

3. Internet Surf…God bless the creators of the Internet…It has been an invaluable source of information as I have dreamed about our wedding day…You can pilfer ideas from brides from everywhere…I have been inspired by and learned from what I have seen on Black Bridal Bliss, the Just Engaged and Bridal Bliss sections of Essence.com, and The Bride’s Cafe just to name a few…I have read forums about everything from shady vendors to wedding ring comparisons on The Knot and Wedding Wire…I wonder what brides did before these online resources…

4. RESEARCH, RESEARCH & MORE RESEARCH…Before you hire vendors please research them online…start with the Better Business Bureau, then check out the various wedding forums, hit their Facebook and Twitter accounts and then just a regular ole Google search…Read reviews (I plan on reviewing all of our vendors after the wedding)…trust your intuition but back it up with good old-fashioned recommendations…We work too hard for our money to give it away to unscrupulous people who want to capitalize on our sometimes unstable emotional state as brides…

5. Life is too short to work with someone you don’t like or who doesn’t like you…I learned this lesson in a home-buying seminar years ago as I prepared to buy my home…In this world, you will inevitably not like someone and vice versa…There may be nothing wrong with that person just like there is nothing wrong with you…Don’t beat yourself up about it…If you find yourself bending over backward to be nice to someone and that person continues to act irritated with you despite your efforts to be nice, just move on…(the same principle can be applied in dating too)…Even if that person is a good business person so what, there are too many others out there to work with…work with someone that you like that likes you back…I’m not saying it has to be a love fest, but you will have to be in close contact with various vendors over the course of several months so being comfortable with your vendors is absolutely necessary…

6. Remember to include your fiance’…This lesson should be a no brainer, but I have forgotten sometimes…My fiance’ is pretty busy right now…He is trying to launch a new career and is in school and he is working as well so that has left a lot of time to be alone with my thoughts…So sometimes I have forgotten to ask his opinion about various things…and as it turns out, he does have some opinions about some aspects of the wedding although he is a manly type of dude and doesn’t get into the frou frou stuff…He has had strong opinions about the wedding guests, who is allowed to sing at the ceremony and how vendors treat us…We walked out the first tux store we went to because he felt that they took too long to acknowledge our presence…

7. None of this means nothing if you are not planning your marriage too…The first thing I did as I started planning our wedding was researching counselors, ministers, pastors, etc. for premarital counseling…I think it’s ludicrous to plan a wedding, which lasts for one day, and not plan for the days afterward which could drag on forever in a bad way if you failed to plan…If you fail to plan, you plan to fail as they say…Also, I have started reading “Wedding Cake for Breakfast: Essays on the Unforgettable First Year of Marriage” edited by Kim Perel and Wendy Sherman…I have heard the first year is what you have to go through to actually being married happily ever after so I want to be ready…

I have learned more lessons as well but these lessons, I think, are most critical to grasp…Also, I ran across this video yesterday…This young woman’s father is suffering from pancreatic cancer…Although she is not a bride yet and is not even dating anyone, she fantasized about her wedding dance with her father and decided to create that experience in case years from now, her father is not there…I’m a pretty emotional person anyway, but I think even the most stoic will shed a tear after watching this…To read the full story, go to ABC News.

Any thoughts?

Posted on Sunday, April 7, 2013

The Wedding Industry Heist aka maybe I should go in the wedding planning business

Hello World,

As you know (if you’ve been reading this blog), I got engaged on Christmas Eve 2012! For roughly two months after R.’s proposal, I was in a state of joy and almost disbelief. While our relationship seemed to be heading in that direction almost from the very start, I still found it hard to believe that after all of the time (years) I prayed for God to send the right man to me, he had arrived finally and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me…

Once I announced our engagement to friends, family, etc., everyone kept asking me whenis the date of our wedding. I had no answer for them. I was still trying to mentally adjust to being engaged let alone set the actual wedding date. This went on for January and February, and then all of a sudden, it occurred to me. If I truly did want to get married, I better start thinking of a planning a wedding. After consulting with R., we decided that a summer wedding would be nice. So I got to planning…

My Mom and Dad on their wedding day…

A few years ago with the help of a financial counselor, I revolutionized my finances and began aggressively budgeting and saving. Since then, I have become a certified cheapskate and proud of it. One of my favorite mottoes is “It it’s free, it’s for me.” So imagine my shock when I discovered the average wedding costs $25,656, according to theweddingreport.com!!! I mean according to the latest statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, the yearly median family household income is $62,273. So a wedding for many Americans costs almost half of their yearly salary! Am I the only one that thinks this is crazy at best and downright irresponsible at worst?! And then when you factor in that the divorce rate is between 40 and 50 percent, many couples are just wasting money…In fact, I’ve heard that some couples are getting divorced so quickly that they are still paying off wedding expenses when they get divorced! How crazy is that? I’m not getting married to get divorced, but trust and believe that I’m planning a bargain basement wedding! Mama didn’t raise no fool! (Sidebar: Do you know the average cost of a wedding in 1945 was about $2,000? That’s what I’m talking about!)

So if you are thinking of getting married and having a decent wedding, let me just give you a few of the stats so that you can plan accordingly…These figures are based on a wedding of about 136 guests, which is the average amount of people that are invited to a wedding…

I have found that the greatest wedding expense is the cost of the reception…

The reception location costs $3,226, and the average cost for reception food is $4,757. If you want to serve liquor which you very well may need after adding up the costs, you will need to fork over $2,456 for reception bar service…

And if you want to read to see the rest of the numbers, please go to theweddingreport.com.

Since I am a certified cheapskate, I have become obsessed with cutting down the costs of planning a wedding. My goal is to have a tasteful wedding without going into a debt and allocating the majority of our wedding/marriage money for an off-the-chain honeymoon…

So I have a couple of questions for you today…

How much do you spend on your wedding/honeymoon?

Was it worth the costs?

And if you are a certified cheapskate like me, please share your tips on how to trim wedding costs short of getting married at the courthouse!

Any thoughts?