wedding costs? :(

[sigmagrrl]

Las Vegas weddings have an air of trashiness about them based on past(and, in some way, current) reputation as a slap-dash wedding. But, Las Vegas has really worked hard to change that reputation and many hotel properties have gone all out to create new wedding packages...Have you ever looked at the ones that Bellagio offers??

Here is the wedding brochure from Bellagio!!

[Kristin AGD]

Congratulations!

My sister got married two years ago. I think it ended up being around $16,000. Her dress was awesome. But it was around $1300 after alterations and accessories. And we could have cut some cost with better planning, but it was a hectic time.

If I ever get married I think I want to go back east for my wedding. I would love to get married in one of the mansions in Newport. Newport Mansions/Weddings

I know that there is a website http://www.newportweddings.com and that site has links to the Massachussetts version. I think the site covers all of southern new england.

[AlphaSigOU]

Originally posted by AGDee
...I did have my dream wedding.. the marriage was awful though!

Not that I'm averse to committing myself to marriage, it's just that I've seen many people I know get married for all the wrong reasons (including my parents) and then get divorced within a couple of years. Maybe I'm just afraid of not 'measuring up' to my future wife's expectations, considering my own feelings that marriage should be a lifetime commitment. If it doesn't happen in my lifetime, so be it.

Weddings can be quite expensive and costs can easily spiral out of control if you're not careful. Resist the temptation of going over your set budget; just that "for $100 more I can get a better(whatever it is)" -- $100 here, $200, there has a nasty habit of sneaking up on you when you least expect it.

Actually, Vegas has the most wedding chapels and churches per capita in the US. You can plan your wedding there depending on what you're willing to spend. From tacky drive-through weddings to a full church wedding is no problem.

[PM_Mama00]

I totally forgot about this!!! One of my sisters is gettin married in Disney World.... in the Castle!!! And riding in Cindarella's thingy... the pumpkin carriage. How awesome is that!

[SSS1365]

In response to the topic of the thread, I think our parents are spending about $10,000. We're fortunate enough to have them really want to pay for it! I'm my parents' only daughter, so they really wanted to do it. Our reception for 120 people is only about $5,000. We found a reasonably priced photographer who still does great work for $1100. We're getting married in a church so our fees there are minimal. We just have to give a donation to the church and the priest. Our limo is going to be under $400 for 3 hours. Our cake will be under $500. We haven't booked a DJ yet, but the ones we're considering are about $500 for 4 hours. Invitations were $150. My mom is making all the floral arrangements (she does an awesome job with silk flowers), a coworker and friend of my parents is doing the video... and all they have to pay for is his hotel stay (plus he will be a guest so he gets dinner and everything). I bought the dress myself and even though the price tag said $599, I ended up spending almost $1000 on it (alterations and special order fees). So definitely watch out for that.

Ever since I got engaged, The Knot has been my best friend. Along the lines of different areas of the country being very different, it's great because you can go to the message boards and get advice from other brides in your area.

Planning a wedding is stressful, I've found, but it can also be a lot of fun.

[AGDee]

Originally posted by AlphaSigOU
Not that I'm averse to committing myself to marriage, it's just that I've seen many people I know get married for all the wrong reasons (including my parents) and then get divorced within a couple of years. Maybe I'm just afraid of not 'measuring up' to my future wife's expectations, considering my own feelings that marriage should be a lifetime commitment. If it doesn't happen in my lifetime, so be it.

I think that's a very healty attitude. Women tend to get more pressure to get married! I had an old Italian cousin of my dad's ask me, at my highschool graduation party, "So, you're graduated now, when are you getting married?". I felt a lot of familial pressure to find a husband.

As for measuring up to someone's expectations, be sure to talk to that special lady, if/when you meet her and be sure you both know the expectations! Dr. Phil (I'm a big fan of his) always says that people spend so much time planning the wedding but very little time planning the marriage!

Dee

[Nikki_DZ]

Yesterday was my big day, so this is still fresh in my mind.

We wanted a smallish wedding, so we could keep it nice. Grand total, between us, my parents, and my husband (God, that sounds weird)'s dad, we spent around $4500, including honeymoon. Here are some tips for saving $$:

-smaller guest list. *Most* people understand that you want to keep it intimate, and a couple starting out can't afford a huge affair. We limited our list to immediate family, godparents, and close friends. We invited about 55 people, and had about 50 there.

-Look at your resources. Think of anyone you know who can provide a service cheap or at cost. We got a full buffet catered (appetizers, 2 main dishes, 2 salads, 2 veg, potatoes, bread, and dessert) for $10 a person through the resturant where I work. My mom's friend owns a flower shop, and did our flowers (I, too, went crazy with my flowers!) for cost as a gift. I bought a pair of flip flops (I hate heels) and a friend decorated them for me with lace and flowers. I paid $8 for my shoes, and got SO many compliments. My now BIL is a music major and concert pianist, so he played during the ceremony.

-Ask people who were recently married for tips. That's how we found our cake (which ended up being 1/2 the price of the one we were planning on getting).

-DJ. What we did probably wouldn't work for everyone, but it did save a bundle. We borrowed a sound system and lap top, and burned CDs (one for "dinner" music, and another for dancing). A friend was in charge of making announcements and starting certain songs for the dances and such. It worked out well, and saved probably $400.

-Have your reception (and ceremony, if that's your thing) someplace unusual. You don't have to do a church and country club or whatever. We had the ceremony and reception at a mansion/museum owned by the historical society. The cost was a lot less than renting a banquet hall, and it oozed ambience.

-Make your own program. There are plenty of templates online that you can customize. We printed them off at Kinkos on nice stock paper and tied ribbons through them.

-Invitations. www.invitations4sale.com is FABULOUS. Tons of selection, highly professional, and fast. We would have paid $100 more for the exact same invite through a printer.

-If possible, buy your own booze. Some caterers will allow you to provide your own and they'll provide the bartender.

Do pick a few things on which you refuse to skimp on. Mine were flowers (kinda-we got them at cost, but we had them EVERYWHERE and they were gorgeous), my attire, the tuxes, and gifts for people who helped us.

This is entirely too long, and I must go nap!

[AOII_LB93]

As you can tell from this thread wedding prices can run the whole gammet(sp?). I've been to three weddings in the past two years and the last two that I went to were the most lavish weddings I have ever been to bar none....and in reality while they were beautiful and the food was good, etc...was it really necessary to spend that much money on ONE day? The one wedding was easily in excess of 40-50K, and the other was easily 35K.

While I understand that this is the day a lot of people have dreamed of since they were little girls in the backyard playing with Wedding Barbie, wouldn't all that money be better spent on the down payment for a home to live in and start your life together? I have discussed this with the man, and we've decided when we get married, that it's more important to own a house than it is to spend a huge amount of money on ONE day. Why not do a destination wedding?

[SSS1365]

Originally posted by AOII_LB93
Why not do a destination wedding?

OMG, I would LOVE to do a destination wedding, that would probably be my dream wedding! But... we never even considered it because it would be impossible to have all of our friends and family there.

[AOII_LB93]

Originally posted by SSS1365
OMG, I would LOVE to do a destination wedding, that would probably be my dream wedding! But... we never even considered it because it would be impossible to have all of our friends and family there.

Do one for the two of you and your close friends and immediate family(if they can come great, if not, that's ok too...it's YOUR wedding, not THEIRS), and have a big housewarming when you get back! Your wedding day is for the two of you, not all of your friends. You two are celebrating your wedding, your ceremony, the idea doesn't have to be to throw the biggest party ever and be paying it off the first 5 years of your marriage.

I know too many people that have spent too much money on a their wedding only to rush through their day and not really get to appreciate the ceremony and each other because they were entertaining other people all day. It's not about how much you spend, or how great the dress is, or even how great the food is, it's about pledging yourself to one another for the rest of your lives. Enjoy that aspect, plan a great ceremony, enjoy each other. Yes you should have the support of your family and friends, but they also need to understand that it's not their day.

ETA ** KappaTarzan: My best advice to you is set your budget before you start planning, then you won't go overboard. If you have to adhere to a budget you will be less likely to go out and do something silly like spend 1000 on favors when you only have 350 budgeted.

[SSS1365]

I guess I should correct myself and say that my dream would be to have a destination wedding WITH everyone there. My fiance has a very large immediate family.

But we aren't going to do one... everything is already planned for our wedding, and it's only 4 months away!

[Munchkin03]

Originally posted by AGDee
Women tend to get more pressure to get married! I had an old Italian cousin of my dad's ask me, at my highschool graduation party, "So, you're graduated now, when are you getting married?"

So, so true. When I graduated from college, my mother's Southern Belle friends were all like, "Well, what's Munchkin doing now that she's graduated?" Their faces literally FELL when my mother told them that I would be in graduate school for an undetermined amount of time! "Well, what's she going to do about that boy?" was their next response (meaning, he's not going to wait forever).

The pressure to marry is INTENSE! I'm only 22--I don't want to go from my father's house to the sorority house to my husband's house! I want to live a little!

Kappa Tarzan, where are you thinking about having your wedding and reception? I am a HUGE fan of the Providence Biltmore and the Westin! I have seen the most beautiful weddings there. If the Mama and Daddy don't have too much of a problem, I'd rather get married in Providence than in Florida.

[aephi alum]

Originally posted by AGDee
Women tend to get more pressure to get married!

So true. Then, once you're married, you are pressured to have a baby. (A pressure I'm facing now, from everyone - my favorite, from my in-laws, was "Wouldn't it be nice if Grandma could be a great-grandma before she DIES?" )

[James]

I kind of thought that was the point of huge weddings. To mke them such an EVENT no one can back out. Especially the groom.

Backing out wouldn't just mean not getting married, it would have enormous financial and social repurcussions.

Originally posted by AGDee
That's not a bad attitude, AlphaSigOU. If I wasn't so caught up in planning the dream wedding the first time around, I don't think I'd have married the abusive jerk! In fact, I was in my apartment, crying, 3 days before the wedding because I did NOT want to spend the rest of my life with this guy but how do you stop a $20,000 wedding machine at that point???

I did have my dream wedding.. the marriage was awful though!

Dee

[James]

Guilt lol?

Originally posted by aephi alum
So true. Then, once you're married, you are pressured to have a baby. (A pressure I'm facing now, from everyone - my favorite, from my in-laws, was "Wouldn't it be nice if Grandma could be a great-grandma before she DIES?" )