wedding budget---out of curiousity
Comments
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mistybuttons wrote: when my husband and i decided to get married we knew we didn't want a conventional wedding... the idea of starting our lives together in debt or begging our parents for big bucks made my head swim. we ended up getting married this past february and it was perfect for us - brooklyn city hall for $35 bucks with immediate family and then we all went to floyd and played bocce until dinner at Patois on smith street. it was delicious and it cost under 3K with (way too much) really good champagne.
This is the way to go. My wife and I did the municipal hall thing in downtown Manhattan a number of years ago (2002). I think it was 20-something dollars at the time. Then we spent the day together and about $250 on a nice dinner out for the 2 of us.
with all the money we saved on the wedding we were able to afford a really great honeymoon and we are throwing a big BBQ this summer for all our friends. i wouldn't have changed a thing!
Best. Wedding. Ever. -
MistyButtons... Good for you!! Sounds like you had an inexpensive but personal, warm and memorable wedding. Are you thinking of the Picnic House in the Park? Beautiful place for a wedding. My son was married there 5 years ago and of course the price has come up. That wedding was not cheap but I do have a friend who did a thurs or fri afternoon buffet (last Spring)there for about 75 people and it was lovely.
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Just to clarify - I was kind of joking about grand prospect hall. I might do it for the kitch value. You have to see the commercials to appreciate the pure old school brooklynness of it.
And for those suggesting the brooklyn botanic garden, they do charge only $350 for a ceremony, but that's limited to only 50 people and certain times of day. It costs way more for the full ceremony and party at the palm house. It was worth it for me and mine though. I had a dream wedding there. That's why I can go kitch for any renewals. -
Carnivore wrote: [quote=mistybuttons]when my husband and i decided to get married we knew we didn't want a conventional wedding... the idea of starting our lives together in debt or begging our parents for big bucks made my head swim. we ended up getting married this past february and it was perfect for us - brooklyn city hall for $35 bucks with immediate family and then we all went to floyd and played bocce until dinner at Patois on smith street. it was delicious and it cost under 3K with (way too much) really good champagne.
This is the way to go. My wife and I did the municipal hall thing in downtown Manhattan a number of years ago (2002). I think it was 20-something dollars at the time. Then we spent the day together and about $250 on a nice dinner out for the 2 of us.
with all the money we saved on the wedding we were able to afford a really great honeymoon and we are throwing a big BBQ this summer for all our friends. i wouldn't have changed a thing!
Best. Wedding. Ever.
Me too - My wife and I got married at Boro Hall - then brunch with our friend/witness at the Marriott in Brooklyn and then 2 weeks in Venice, Florence & Tuscany - now that was money well spent
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I too just got married, April 5. You're welcome to PM me, and if you're looking for recommendations and ideas, you should also search Brooklynian for my posts from the last year because I asked a LOT of wedding-y questions and folks here were super-helpful.
Some things I found out while planning:
Amazingly inexpensive yet classy invitations are at:
weddingpaperdivas.com
Go there. Behold its majesty.
This is lame, but ... This book I bought called "Wedding Chic - The Savvy Bride's Guide to Getting More While Spending Less," by Nina Willdorf, turned out to be very useful, even given the crazy exceptions that NYC presents. So did "The Anti-Bride Guide to Etiquette," which, despite its silly title, had a lot off useful tips on sidestepping tradition gracefully.
On the flip side, a good way to save is to find a place that doesn't need much decorating. Remember that a cheap empty space has to be filled up with stuff. Stuff itself costs money, and it costs money to move stuff in and out of a location. Same with finding a place that already has a kitchen. That is better than having to rent and cart in equipment. All-inclusive food packages requiring you to eat whatever the caterer feels like making, not so much, but venues that have the basics so you don't need to rent tables, chairs, kitchen equipments and all the rest are your friend.
The best thing we spent extra money on ($2000, but it was SOOOO worth it) was a photobooth. Apparently there is some force that causes everyone, even people you'd never expect, to go crazy in photobooths. Next to it, we set up a table with pages and fancy pens and so forth and everyone glued their pics into the book and wrote messages. It's the best wedding souvenir ever.
Finally: Don't buy any of those Bride-oriented magazines unless you want to be driven insane. They all have timelines like "14 weeks before wedding: Get third pre-wedding pedicure." "8 weeks before wedding: Become bulemic."
Good luck! PM if you want! -
Subject: Thanks!
Hi all,
Thanks so much for all the posting & advices. Everyone's story is so interesting, and I got many really good tips. I actually went to Jenny Yoo
to check it out, and they do have great dress (simple, as I like) at affordable price. I would try to try couple of other places and decide, but I am pretty exited!
We are also trying to pay our wedding within our budget (which is not super-high), so those tips for making things simple and fun really gave me a good picture.
For all those who recently married or planning wedding (just like me), congratulations & good luck to you too!
I'd be also looking forward to hear more story, all posts appreciated... -
A good and cheap alternative to a photo booth is to place a polaroid camera out on a table with a bowl full of film. Get a photo book that the polaroids will fit in, and you can have people place the completed photos in the book along with a small caption. We did this at our wedding last year and it was one of our favorite parts, especially because we could immediately look back at the photos and remember the day, without having to wait for our photos to be printed.
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Except they are no longer making polaroid film. Plus, it tends to fade over time, so it isn't exactly a "forever" keepsake.
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I live in Brooklyn, but got married on the Jersey Shore. We went with a Brooklyn photographer Dave Robbins that we loved! His prices are very reasonable. We paid $800 for 8 hours of his time. He has various rates depending on if you want an album or him to develop photos for you. We just got all the photos digitally...of course I have yet to put them in an album but plan to do so, and this allowed us to just develop what we wanted. He's a documentary style photographer. We were married Oct 06 so his prices and demand have most likely gone up, but again he is highly recommended. Here is his link:
http://daverobbinsphotography.com/ -
daniel wrote: A good and cheap alternative to a photo booth is to place a polaroid camera out on a table with a bowl full of film. Get a photo book that the polaroids will fit in, and you can have people place the completed photos in the book along with a small caption. We did this at our wedding last year and it was one of our favorite parts, especially because we could immediately look back at the photos and remember the day, without having to wait for our photos to be printed.
If you're going to go the Polaroid route I'd suggest giving someone the task of taking the photos. We had a friend who was the polaroid cam girl for the night and she made sure everyone got shot and then their photo got slapped into a book where the guests wrote messages to us. They're really funny and the messages are awesome. I've been to weddings where hardly anyone used the camera if it was just on a table somewhere. Our guestbook is fantastic and I'm thrilled we have it. FYI - they have film packs at King's Pharmacy on Flatbush in case you're looking. -
We did something similar to Asprevu. You can save a ton of money with a little imagination and by not paying any attention to wedding industry crap. We designed and printed our own invitations. We had our wedding at Brooklyn Brewery 3 years ago; the very reasonable rental cost included 8 kinds of beer, so that's the alcohol we went with, and supplied our own champagne for the toast, and our own soft drinks. Got a great caterer recommendation from a friend - this caterer was just starting her business and gave us a good rate. I bought my dress on sale at a small boutique in the E. Village for about $300 (not a traditional wedding dress, but certainly a beautiful one!), my husband got a Ralph Lauren $200 suit off the rack at Marshalls then had it tailored. We bought our flowers at the farmer's market, saved glass juice bottles for months to use as the vases, bought cheap decorations from places like Pearl River, and then had friends do the decorating of the Brewery before the wedding. Make it your own!! It's cheaper and much more individual and fun.
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sewster I am so jealous you got to have your wedding a the Brooklyn Brewery. We really wanted to do that, since it is where we met, but they are no longer having weddings there. It was the first place we stopped in to inquire when we got engaged last year but since they have extended the bottling into the event/tasting room they no longer hold any events except for the Friday/Saturday happy hour.
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ooooh this post is great! i'm getting married next spring and love all the ideas shared!
any additional ideas (particularly where to get dresses... used, anything) would be tremendously appreciated!
thank you and congratulations to all the newly weddeds! -
Mrs. H is absolutely right about getting the black-tie thing out of your head. A lot of people have a picture in their head about what they wanted it to be like--be it beach, meadow, at night, big ol' dress, whatever. I got married 7 years ago at the Water Club in Manhattan and while it was not what you'd call really on the cheap, it was a much better deal than any other place I looked at in the city and was very comfortable for the groom's very elderly grandparents. The thing that made it more reasonable was that the provided everything including the cake, in the price, whereas all these other places had these extra costs on top of the base price--like you had to rent the dance platform--so once you crunched the numbers it wasn't reasonable at all. I agree--the word "wedding" brings out the gouginess in everyone. So we splurged on the place and then cut corners everywhere else pretty much except for the band, and that was the most important to us. We also spent a fair amount of money on the band because they were great, absolutely rocking. Groom's sister hand wrote out all the invitations on stationary we got at JAM; friend who'd worked for a fancy florist as our wedding present bought the flowers for and made me my bouquet and got us a wholesale deal on flowers; we had it during the day; we had less than a hundred guests; my dress was a bare bones made for me number from the Blue Skirt in the East Village; no bridesmaids or anything like that; a friend who is a photographer gave us quite a discount and then I had them printed myself, did not make that fancy book. The other thing was that I felt we got our money's worth; the staff did everything, took care of everything, and the food was very good. And then we spent a few days in Miami so I guess you could say we sacrificed the honeymoon for the wedding, and lots of people are not willing to do that, which I can understand, but I was pregnant and not up for a big trip anyway. I always tell people if you have SOME money to spend and you are getting married in New York, check out the Water Club. Plus, if you want a nautical them, you're all set!
Oh and one more thing; we got married in early February, and from early January to Valentine's day is really dead in the wedding world and prices are generally lower. -
Subject: update
I went to "Kelinfeld Bridal" sample sale just to check out last weekend. They took your credit card for reservation (charge $50 for no-show). There are so many beautiful dresses and they do have good selection, but even for sample sale they did not have anything under $1000 and you'll be treated like b-class human being if you did not have enough money to pay for more than --at least--$3000 dress.
The sales representative, mid-aged woman, was pretty pushy and pretty scarely. Though I have a dress which I kind of liked, slightly above the budget so I could have afforded, I did not buy anything---just because. After I saw some bad reviews about that place ( not about selection, again, but services) I would not recommend the palce to people without very big budget. -
I had a really awful experience at the same sample sale last year... if I'd know you were going I would have warned you not to go. They are pushy, rude, and made my try on gowns that I did not like at all. Sorry you had a bad experience too!
Honestly, check out Adrienne's on the LES (Orchard St.). They are SOOOOOO nice there! -
Subject: seriously
Bergenites, thanks for the advice. Seriously, are't they rude??
I was just curious how things are--and I think I got the point. -
I second not liking Kleinfelds, not only was everything extremely expensive and I didn't even care for their selection and some of those dresses were hideous.
I agree Adrienne's is a nice shop, but ultimately I got my dress at RK Bridal. If you get there when they first open, the wait isn't too bad and once you pick out all the dresses you want to try on you'll probably get called into a dressing room. -
Hey! I got married at the Picnic House this past fall. We did go over our budget but we splurged on certain things like the band and the cake. Our florist was incredible and the photographer was awesome and both pretty much allow you to set your own budget. Getting married at the Picnic House was a bit pricey because of all the rentals, but we the food and appetizers was not that much (relatively speaking).
We bought our own booze, so we decided how much we wanted to spend on that stuff, A freind of ours was 'made' legal to marry at City Hall so she gave us that as a wedding gift.
My husband painted a picture of the Picnic House and we used that as the front of the invitations. We used a print shop vs. a stationary store, and they were much cheaper.
If you want my vendor info pm me and I will send it on.
Good luck! -
I was a budget bride and got my gown at a salon on Avenue U called Lotus Bridal. I think you can take the local (B or Q?) to Avenue U and walk a few blocks. They have really beautiful stuff for under 1K. (Mine cost just about 1K)
You can also consider having your reception in a restaurant. A really nice one is il fornetto in Sheepshead Bay. They have a website. Ilfornettorestaurant.com
Good luck!
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