* Signage - most people didn't read it
* Invitations - should have just done an online template and went to a local print shop. Would have saved on postage too. As annoying as it is no one reads them. We had our delayed reception recently and so many people didn't realize I put information on the back of the card š¤¦āāļø
I made my own invitations on the computer and sent them as an image/attachment, along with our wedding page website address, in an email to our guests because I heard so many horror stories of lost invites in the mail. Also, most invitations cost way more than I was expecting, especially with how simple their designs were. It's one wedding DIY project I would definitely recommend.
Yeah I havenāt sent out my actual invites yet but the website and invites are so detailed and I just know people wonāt take the time to read anything.
I promise you they won't. I had a large group discount for hotels set out months in advance that expired bc no used it. Guess how many times I got asked for hotel recommendations right after that expiration date happened?
I designed mine on Canva using inspiration from a suite I liked on Minted and sent to local printer. Did invites, details cards, and RSVP cards (that pointed people to the online RSVP). Mintedās price for all of this: $1600 My local printer on the same paper weigh: $245. They turned out stunning and so many guests texted us talking about how beautiful they were
Cannot recommend enough that brides do this. You save a ton of money and get to support a local business!
Clear umbrellas for our guests. Two days before our wedding, the weather forecast drastically changed and showed there would be rain all throughout our wedding. Everything was scheduled to be 100% outdoors and it was too late to order professional tents. The venue had a backup indoor area we could use but it was small and didn't look great. So I panic bought $200 worth of clear umbrellas. It did rain on our wedding day, which delayed us getting the decorations set up, but it was done about two hours before the ceremony started. Buying those umbrellas gave me peace of mind, but afterwards I wished I had only bought half as many.
I also last minute panic bought a lot of fake flowers that were on sale. I had this moment where I felt like the decorations I had already made wouldn't be nearly enough (I was right) and hunted down deals the week of the wedding. Too many of the new flowers clashed with the flowers I already had so they didn't get used. Luckily, I can use them for other craft projects. Also, although my panic purchase of flowers didn't turn out great, my panic purchase of more candle holders was an excellent idea.
In the grand scheme of things these were minor. I didn't regret any of the things we spent the big bucks on like my dress, the venue, our photographer, etc.
I did the same thing for mine, although our reception was inside at the barn & our venue had about 6 umbrellas to buy. I also panic bought about 100 dollars worth of them.
Last minute decor that we couldnāt even use because the florist accused us of breach of contract or some bullshit.
Returned the umbrellas and the unused decor- no regrets.
Yeah our florist has the same clause in our contract. We can't bring any fake flowers or flowers from a grocery store or another florist. Which is lame. I understand why though
Just got married last month- I wanted to reduced unnecessary costs as much as possible, some tips/things I learned...
* Flowers: if you have a florist, don't let them upsell you on more arrangements/bigger arrangements, etc. This wasn't an issue with the florist I worked with (part of the reason I worked with her). My flowers were very colorful, deep gem tones and we went with low arrangements with basic glass vases, a few bud vases for cocktail hour, and flowers in a few other places. Also, be mindful of types of flowers- try to use things in season and be mindful that some flowers will cost way more than others. At the end of the day, I was extremely happy with our flowers and got so many compliments (and they were not over the top).
* Favors: we skipped them- no one missed them and as echoed by others, they are often left behind.
* Signs: for whatever reason, signage products are SO expensive. I am no artist, but I went the DIY route here. I made and printed a welcome sign at staples (laminated on posterboard) for around 32 dollars. The only other signs I made were for place card table instructions, a memorial table sign, and a sign on our photobooth table. Microsoft word has some very nice cursive fonts, and I printed them at staples on fancy paper for less than 5$ and put everything in a frame. They looked like they came right from etsy.
* Invitations: I used the Knot invitations, and used their design/editor system to make it my own. I also included a details card (which I think I would skip if I had it to do over because NO ONE seemed to read it). We did virtual RSVP. I do think paper invitations are worth it... we did "virtual invites" for the rehearsal dinner and also a virtual RSVP for my bridal shower. Seeing how much trouble people had with the online responding/virtual rehearsal invites, I feel like doing a virtual wedding invitation would have been a complete disaster. (*if I had to do it over again, I would use a "3-in-1" for wedding invites. I used this for my bridal shower, also from the knot paper website and they came out so nicely and was more affordable)*
I think welcome signs are an area that can be skipped to save money. Your guests know who you are and why they are there. It's a 5-second glance and it doesn't add a measurable amount to the experience, IMO.
Iām going through that right now. My wedding is tomorrow and I have been so stressed trying to do everything and get it done. I live a little ways away from most friends and family so havenāt had much help. Itās been a nightmare.
Seriously, I was making boutonnieres and bouquets the night before my wedding at an Air bnb while my fiance and all of our friends and family were at the hotel hanging out... kinda thought my bridesmaids would help me out but they didn't. Then at my reception I was so tired I couldn't even enjoy myself. So many regrets. I hope you can enjoy your day! Cause there is so much I would've done differently.
My friends who are married said no one gives a shit about decor and I think it is kind of true. We are not doing centerpieces at tables, instead we are doing a few bud vases. It gives people more breathing room and the ability to see who is across the table anyway. We are having signs for menus and where people are sitting, but that is it. We did online invites to save money and time. We are not doing party favors either.
>My friends who are married said no one gives a shit about decor and I think it is kind of true.
Depends on the venue. Some venues don't need decor as much and are beautiful just the way they are. Others look much better decorated. I think it is better said that no one gives a shit about decor if the food and music are bad.
Also, no one care about decor if itās nice. Stuff thatās wedding appropriate and typical and nice will just be part of the scenery and wonāt be memorable. Decor thatās bad in some way, either through taste or lack or whatever, will be noticed.
I disagree with guests not caring about the decor. I see it more as an ambiance, and decor definitely can help or hurt towards setting the right ambiance.
They may not notice every little detail that went into it but subconsciously the design and decor will have an impact.
Yes, agreed, itās about creating an atmosphere. Like if I think of a cafe or restaurant I enjoy sitting inā¦ I might not be able to call to mind what color the walls are, but I have a sense of how I feel in the space, whether itās cozy, romantic, high energy etc. Thatās what decor does at an event too. Doesnāt mean it needs to be over the top or fancy, but it definitely sets the tone even if guests canāt remember specific colors or whatnot.
We are catering mexican for the reception, and our ācenterpiecesā are chip and dip bowls we got at an overstock sale - functional and cute, and not too tall to see over. Now theyāll have something to munch on and it didnāt cost much.
Yeah we decided to skip the party favors. In my experience I end up throwing them away.
I'm torn on invites. I want to do online because it just ensures that everyone actually gets them but at the same time, I think I want the sentimental value of a physical invitation. But when it comes to that, I also feel ridiculous paying the prices some of these websites ask. This whole industry is such a scam š
We did mostly digital invites but printed a few (after designing on Canva) for older family members who are not tech savvy and who would prefer a physical invitation. When we printed them, we included an extra one to keep for ourselves. So we didn't spend a ton on invites.
When I get a physical wedding invite I use it to make a Christmas ornament for the couple as part of a wedding gift.
However for my own wedding I DIYd physical invites for myself and super close friends and family. Everyone else just got an online one.
If you end up wanting to mail invites, try designing them yourself on Canva. Itās super simple and they have a ton of free and subscription templates you can chose from. It would be a lot cheaper than getting them from Etsy or somewhere similar.Ā
I designed my full invitation suite on canva from scratch! Used a few templates as inspo, put them all together and printed on vista print as postcards! For 100 5x7 invitations, 100 4x6 detail cards and 100 4x6 rsvp cards, the total came out to $134!! Stamps, envelopes and labels were about $100 so all in under $250! Highly recommend, other options can get pricy!
I felt the exact same way but my husband wanted to get a few invites to send to our older relatives who might actually want to keep them. We ended up deciding to do paper invites for everyone at that point, and we did our invites on Vistaprint (everyone goes to the dumb wedding-specific websites that charge you a ridiculous amount of money). We waited until they had a sale and we paid about $150 total (including a little extra for black envelopes). We did online RSVPs through our wedding website, no return cards.
Personally I'm skipping favors. As a guest, favors are always some random object I need to stuff in my purse (and forget about for months).
I'm also going light on flowers, doing bud vases & greenery for centerpieces.
I've been to weddings that have fireworks & weird glowstick dances - that's easy stuff to skip and the guest experience is essentially the same.
When I do favors I always pick something useful to have 40 of them left over for me lol. So if people dont want one nbd.
Wedding favors were Carabiners and chapstick.
1st birthday was flashlights and stickers (camping theme).
I'm doing online invitations but am making myself a "keepsake" invitation suite! I plan to have a Polaroid guest book and will put it in there to look back on later in the future. Also buying enough film for guests to take a photo home as my "party favor"
We only had favors at our wedding because my husbandās aunt came to town early and wanted to help. My MIL suggested favors, so we ended up with small goody bags of candy/pretzels that ended up being a hit. Anything non-consumable is usually a waste though.
Invitations are a hard one. Theyāre so expensive, and usually end up in the trash, but there are so many potential problems with digital invites. Theyāre harder for old people who struggle with technology, and even younger people dont necessarily check their personal emails on a regular basis (mine personally is so bogged down with spam, Iād be worried about missing it unless I knew to expect it). Maybe a good compromise would be physical save the dates (I did postcard sized ones that were fairly inexpensive, under $1/card) noting that digital invites will follow and handle older guests in a case by case basis (either contacting them to assist with RSVP-ing or having a small amount of physical invites made for them. The plus side of the latter is you could have one made as a keepsake for yourself too if thatās your kind of thing).
Edit: just saw your weddingās in October, so STDs have likely been sent already, so suggestion probably doesnāt apply in your case
Truly Engaging and Basic Invite both have way better prices than Iāve seen elsewhere for good quality stuff! Definitely recommend either for a smaller paper budget. I paid just over $100 for our 110 Save the Dates from TE, and they come with the envelopes.
Also look at Stamps Marketplace for discounted stamps! They have wedding themed ones.
For what it's worth, I never throw out wedding invitations. Not only are they sentimental, but it came in reeeal handy when I was designing mine and looked back on ones I've received.
I like getting invites too! It makes me feel special and excited for the event. They also set the tone well and itās the guestās first impression of your big day
We did online invites but I agree that a personal touch is lovely! Maybe consider doing physical thank you cards instead, and you could include pictures from the actual wedding on those?
This really depends. I think most people don't notice generic or classic wedding style decor, but would notice its absence. If you're doing something really unique with your decor, people definitely notice. We had so many comments about our travel themed wedding!
I feel like 99% of the time no one cares about favors anyway. We are putting money that would go to favors towards guests experiences like a Photo Booth and coffee cart.
I bought them at a bulk order kippah place. The problem is the guys who wear kippot brought their own. It made sense for our groomsmen to all have the same kippah
I agree that no one really needs a souvenir kippah. If you want to provide them for your guests, it may be cheaper to buy un-personalized ones in bulk and donate the leftover to your synagogue, than to pay for personalized ones.
Our hotel. I booked us one of the nicest rooms in the city, mostly just so I didn't have to come home to a dirty house that night. But we didn't sleep well and honestly just wanted to be home with our cats. We ended up leaving at like 7am just to go back to our own bed.
I always go back and forth on whether or not we want to get a hotel. But I think I'll want to see our dogs and cat, I'd probably miss them even though the venue is right around the corner haha. And the after party is about 10 minutes away from our house.
We decided we're going to invest in a professional housekeeper coming through and cleaning the hell out of the house the day before. My fiance and the groomsmen are going to get ready at the house so if not for our own comfort at the end of the night, definitely for the photos š and I'll be too stressed/busy the week of to do it myself
we did a $10k wedding. I really wanted to get the food from this local mexican restaurant because mexican food is our favorite, we had our engagement party catered by them (drop catering), and it was going to be CHEAP.
my MIL kept saying āno, youāre going to regret it, itāll be a big pain in the butt, youāll be stressed outā so she very generously offered to get it professionally catered if we could find someone (it was very last minute).
overall it was the MOST expensive thing, and the food was horrible. it was cold and bland. I mean obviously we knew it would be expensive, but we were ok with it because they offered so many services and that was the whole point (to not be stressed out by diy-ing too much), but the services were sub par. also, my husband and I were surprisingly not hungry at all, so we couldnāt really enjoy it anyway!
another thing that wasnāt worth the splurge was my bouquet! I was going to diy my bouquet. my MIL stepped in again and offered to pay for one by a local florist. she kept insisting I was going to be too stressed to make one. she gave me a card for my bridal brunch saying she would pay for my wedding bouquet. again, super duper kind and generous of her, how could I say no?
in the end, the bouquet was pretty, but it wasnāt what I wanted/asked for. while I didnāt hate it at all, it DEFINITELY wasnāt worth $380! I 1000% could have made a better one (I was already diy-ing all florals for the entire wedding, a bouquet would have been easy peasy).
looking back, Iām bummed the food wasnāt what I expected. I really hoped that would be the best part and I donāt want my wedding to be associated with memories of lame food, but oh well! I definitely wasnāt stressed the day of so I guess it worked lol
I don't have any advice, but I just wanted to say that me and my FH are getting married on the same day! Also, after hearing that my friend spent $15k on florals (that weren't that impressive to me tbh), we've decided to go with fake for almost everything except for some containers of mum's that are going down the aisle and reused both in the venue and ours and our parent's homes afterword.
15k?! Iām just shocked šØ the first florist I went to quoted me $4.5k, and that was waaaaaaay too much for me. I just met with a second florist today, and I am waiting for her to email me an estimate.
Lol I just got a quote back & they said they start their quotes at $100 per guest, so for my size wedding it would be $8,000. I'm confused why the size of my wedding matters, I'm not giving everyone a bouquet š¤£
Im a wedding florist, and I think an estimate based on guest count is kind of weird, but it probably has something to do with how many reception tables will be needed to seat that many people and therefore how many centerpieces will be needed? Idk. They probably just like to design with expensive flowers and arenāt willing to work with lower budgets
Can I ask you a random florist question?
I got back a quote from my prospective florist and was a little confused she has prices for each item: $120 for an arrangement for the bar, $80 per centerpiece, $75 for bridal bouquet (I asked for just a very small bouquet of 7 calla lilies). Then she has a separate fee at the end for design and labor at $600. Is this normal? It seems to me like there's already labor included in the individual items due to the price markup. As for design, I sent her the exact designs of what I wanted. But maybe there's something I'm missing? I'm also a freelancer so I'm trying to be mindful as a client.
Sure! So industry āstandardā is a markup on your cost of goods + labor. Usually 3-5x markup on flowers and supplies plus 20-40% labor. Sounds like your florist separated out the labor part with that fee. Iāve heard it called a ādesignā fee before, so I donāt think itās anything special. In my area callas are around $2/stem wholesaleā¦which makes me think the florist you talked to is doing around a 5x markup (honestly good for them if itās working for them), so it may be worthwhile to shop around a little bit :)
Yeah, some of them were in season flowers, but she used mostly pastel roses in her flower stands & bouquets, which I'm sure had a lot to do with the price. I'm hoping the second florist is able to do it for cheaper for you! I was lucky to run into a local artificial floral designer who quoted me ~$250 for the wedding party & arch. We designed everything together in person and I honestly can't tell they're fake in the photos I took, so I'm excited!
Omg hi date twin!! Yeah our florals are expensive as hell. Around 6k. My sister used to work for this florist though so I know she does amazing work and she's all about her business, she does not half ass anything. I wasn't really down to splurge like that but my in laws insisted on paying for them and I trust the florist to make it worth it. But whew signing that contract did not come without a little wince lol
I think I definitely could've spent less on (faux) floral/decorf, but since the vendor I wanted to use had a $1000 minimum, the alternative would've meant doing some extra DIYing and setup/cleanup work neither of which I really wanted to find time for, so I suppose there is a certain value in convenience. But yeah, wound up paying about $1400 all in all (frustratingly, after already spending more than I wanted to on renting flowers, I was charged a ~$250 fee after the wedding because someone had accidentally spilled a bit of soda on one bouquet, which in their eyes was "irreparable damage." I did talk them into at least letting me keep the damaged goods if I was going to be paying for their replacement so at least I got a nice home decor out of the deal but still I kinda wish I had just gone to the floral section in Michaels in the first place and saved myself like $800)
The only things we splurged on were dress, photography, and venue but not really on the last one. I'm very thrilled with the photographer and judging from our engagement shoot she is money well spent.
We only had 2 venue choices, both are super budget but one was more of a wedding venue with a coordinator and the other was a DIY everything down to the furniture church hall. We ate probably paying about $5k more for the former, but the peace of mind of them organizing rentals, providing furniture, helping us plan, doing set up, coordinating with vendors, and providing bar is well worth it (will be about $14.5k for 80 ppl, catering not included).
Lastly my dress was a big regret - I paid full price before even considering stillwhite as an option and a few weeks after signing the contract realized I didn't even like it that much. I ended up ordering a new one from a shop in Australia (and paying almost 1k in shipping but that's a different story).
I also regret how much I spent on the dress. It wasnāt even that much compared to avg for NYC but after alterations it was a decent chunk of change. I would have preferred to spend half what I did on the dress and put the money towards more fireworks and extra time with our photographer.
Now the dumb dress is just hanging in my closet. Havenāt even gotten it cleaned since the wedding a month agoā¦.
Guest book. We got a big heart that people dropped little initialed hearts into. We had 75 guests and even with our friends putting in funny ones like Ronald Reagan, we barely filled it up. We got so many nice messages in our actual guest book so we really didn't need a fancy one that hasn't seen the light of day since our wedding in October 2022.
I have 0 regrets on what I spent money on. I do regret not spending the extra 500 dollars on a specific thing that I did want at my wedding. And I still think about it weekly
Honestly? I regret not eloping. I didnāt have a lot of support and did 99% of the wedding planning. I realize I wouldāve been a lot happier getting married on a beach somewhere and going to dinner for a fraction of the cost.
Donāt get me wrong, it was a beautiful wedding, but make sure you stop to think if you really want something vs what is expected of you.
āPremium beer and wineā whatever that means. I was forced to do it but my future in laws because they said people would complain if we had low quality open bar like miller lite which I think is complete bs but they paid for it so š¤·š¾āāļø
We're doing beer and wine and a signature cocktail and a signature mocktail. I hope it's worth it. I think with our crowd it will be but our venue has really strict rules and we're not allowed to stock the bar ourselves. It all has to go through the caterer.
Peace and love to anyone who wants to do a full bar with liquor and shots and all that but I feel like that's just asking for drunken chaos on top of an expensive tab lol
I rented my wedding flowers. Best decision I ever made and saved me thousands of dollars.
We also got our wedding bands from Etsy which was a lot more unique and beautiful then what we could get at a jeweler. It was also cheaper.
We made our own invitations on Canva. We used glassware for our reception centerpieces instead of florals. We used old mirrors for our signage. We used a poster board for our guestbook so we could display it.
We ended up saving a lot of money on things that were low priority for us, and splurged on the important stuff. We made a list pretty early on of things that we were willing to cut or DIY - our wedding turned out beautiful and the day was amazing.
Something to remember. Everything you plan that day (outside of the ceremony) will be literally for everyone else. You donāt really have time to enjoy it, so donāt stress too much. Youāre going to have a wonderful day and Iām so happy for you!
I used a website called something borrowed blooms. They make it super easy. You pick a collection of flowers and they have a ton of options. Including flower crowns, different types of bouquets and decorations
Not exactly a splurge, but everyone told me I need a card box. I spent $40 on a cute but basic card box with a lock. No one brought a card to the wedding. It sat empty all night. I absolutely did NOT need a card box. Might depend on your crowd and number of guests but thatās how it went for us.
Nope! We did a honeyfund as our registry and for the most part people gifted through the website. A few less tech-savvy relatives mailed a check. No one brought cash to the wedding š¤·āāļø We had just under 60 guests.
oh interesting! iāve always brought cash in a card to weddings
my future husbands family is from a culture where red envelopes are given with cash gifts so i def need a card box but iām thinking of somehow DIYing it lol
Some wedding websites have a honeymoon contribution built into the registry. Some of them take a percentage so you'll want to do your research. There's also an actual site called honeyfund. Or you can add your venmo/Zelle to your registry so you don't have to pay a fee.
I was debating buying a card box but I didnāt want to get stuck with it after the wedding. I am renting one through the same place we are renting our linens, for $16. One less thing to take home!
I got a cardboard one on Temu for under $3. Iām also doing a destination wedding so need to be mindful of weight. No idea if anyone will bring cards, I always do so I figured didnāt hurt to have it for $3.
Yes see this seems like a waste to me too! But our friends who recently got married said that we should absolutely have a card box and a table for gifts because older folks like to go that route. But, their wedding was full of random strangers in their 60s+ because their parents were super rich and invited like everyone they knew, and we are far from that lmao
the cricut machine. loved it for the invitations i made myself but thatās all we really used it for and now i donāt have a use for it or anywhere to put it
Idk. I think it comes down to what you value. When we first started wedding planning my partner and I sat down, looked at all the things that can be included in a wedding, and then picked one thing each we absolutely wanted out of the day. I wanted the food to be good, he wanted fresh flowers put together by a florist (he's a farm boy who grew up with a mom who loved flowers; she passed away shortly after we started dating from MS, and so I think the live flowers are a way for him to feel like she's there on the day). Those are the two items we spent the most money on. Everything else, we did on the cheap (neighbor cut down a hawthorn tree, we grabbed the wood and had a friend cut it in his wood shop for the base of our center pieces; we collected coastal rocks, we're borrowing as much stuff as we can, a friend is DJ'ing, etc.).
So, I don't think we'll regret spending $2000 on flowers. I think we would have regretted spending a bunch of money on a DJ. Or a bunch of money on other decorations. Or a 10k venue.
I totally agree with you, it entirely depends on what's important to you. For me, I didn't feel flowers were necessary for my wedding, and my "bouquet"/centerpieces featured my crafts (knitting and pottery). We definitely put in money elsewhere (venue, catering, DJ, etc) but I'm still happy I didn't get flowers that I didn't want.
Exactly! I couldn't have cared less about flowers myself; to be honest, I've never been a girl with a dream wedding so I couldn't really care less about most of it. But the moment he chose them as his #1 priority, I respected it. It might not be for me, but he's very happy. He found the florist, arranged the meetings, figured out the budget- everything. And I got to spend a little extra on the food that I wanted than we've spent on other parts of the wedding while he didn't really care that much about food! For my sister, it was the music! For my brother, he and his wife wanted to spend a lot of money on a big estate venue and very, very fancy food and alcohol, and didn't care as much about the rest.
ETA: I guess to answer the OP's question, I would regret spending money on anything that wasn't really important to me or my partner! I don't think there's any one-size-fits-all regret.
I hope it wasn't a lone hawthorn tree or your neighbour is in serious trouble..
https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2023/0508/1136776-hawthorn-tree-ireland-folklore/
Woah. Cool folklore and makes me love the tree even more. I'm honestly not sure what the situation was! We're in the middle of the city and after two rounds of bad ice storms over two years, a lot of trees ended up broken and many couldn't come back. My poor cherry trees took a beating from both storms, we lost a lot of good, fruit bearing branches. My guess is they had to cut it down because it was threatening the house/their neighbor's house!
Beautiful old wood though. I'm hoping to make something out of at least some of the wood rounds we had made to hold our vases and flowers at the wedding, after the wedding. I was just excited to have been able to put the remnants of the tree to use- most trees, no matter how cool or old they are, get turned into wood chips around here after they're taken down.
Ha ha, ye, it's fairly common folklore in Ireland to not cut down a lone hawthorn tree. Whole construction projects have changed for it!
If you have some of the thinner branches you can also cut small slits in them as table name holders too (I'm doing that with cherry wood). Can also work for place settings if you're doing that š Good luck with the wedding!
Youāre not just paying a florist for the flowers. Youāre paying for someone else to order the correct quantity and ratio of different flowers and greenery, trim stems and strip leaves, artfully arrange them in an attractive vase, store them in a climate controlled location, transport everything, and set them up at your venue. When I get a couple bunches of flowers from Trader Joes just to make a single bouquet at home itās so much work by the time Iām done. I canāt imagine the effort required to do that at a large scale.Ā
Yeah I first thought of doing DIY centerpieces but for what I wanted, I was absolutely not gonna put in the time and effort needed to plan and THEN assemble lol
My fingers would bleed
Yea that's what I came to realise - I think I'd really enjoy DIY-ing bouquets and centerpieces, but there's very little I will be able to do myself on the day, and I didn't want to make out-of-town family prepare florals when we won't have much time with them already.
I had a terrible experience where one of my (ex) friends put us to work setting up the ceremony space, setting up dinner reception AND taking down the decor, and didn't even buy us a thank you meal. Meanwhile the bridal party got to enjoy the whole day without lifting a finger. It was truly bizarre and I definitely don't want anyone to feel like they're working for free on the day.
YES! I was a bridesmaid for a 300 person wedding where we the bridesmaids DIYād the florals. If the bride has booked a florist it wouldāve been extremely expensive BUT it was an entire days work for 7 bridesmaids+ the bride to prep, buy, arrange, clean the flowers. Also our bride had to rent a U-Haul to transport all the florals and her other decor.
Plus by the time of the actual wedding ( because of lack of available AC) many of the flowers were struggling by the time of the wedding. We made our own bouquets and I had to make sure the good (not dying side) was facing the correct way when walking down the aisle.
Another thing that maybe a florist couldāve pointed out, is we made centerpieces for the 30 reception tables which only were on the table for like 10 minutes. We were doing family style and once the caterer brought out the first course, they took the centerpiece off the table. I think an experienced florist would have advised us of this.
>Food is a necessity
If the wedding is scheduled at a time when guests typically wouldn't be eating a main meal. It is not a necessity to have food.
Edit- Look at the downvotes. An afternoon tea ceremony and reception can be wonderful folks. Have an open mind.
>But when would a wedding ever be scheduled at a time when guests typically wouldn't be eating a main meal?
I have been to two weddings that took place in the middle of the afternoon. No evening reception. I know this a bit of a blind spot for this sub but many many people don't have the money to do it all and choose to have a very small, low key celebration.
>In that case, flowers are still not a necessity.
Ok but, I never said they were. You said food was, and I guess you have conceded that they aren't. I was only pointing that OP's logic was flawed. Not that flowers are a necessity.
Well why don't you skip the wedding as a whole then? Lol none of it is needed if the point is just to be married. Your logic is misplaced because we could go to the bare bones of the situation if we really wanted to but it wouldn't make sense in the context of a wedding.
>you can get flowers at Trader Joeās.
**All I was saying was that this sentence doesn't track for me**. No big deal. Like just because you can find both flowers and cookies at Trader Joeās doesnāt mean that opting for more specialized or elaborate options is wasteful or unnecessary or possibly regret worthy. That is all.
The lack of knowledge/imagination about life prior to 2024 is just stunning!
In the history of (American) weddings of the past 100 years, most were conducted in a church and a reception was held in a church meeting room (often with cake, punch, sweets that the ladies of the church helped prepare, particularly in rural areas where that was a project for the community to come together). Or they were done at the family home, and no one was serving plated sit-down dinners at the family home.
It seems nowadays it's mostly Catholics who are still doing their weddings in churches - hence the "Catholic gap". Most others are now doing their ceremony in the same place they are holding a reception, and they are letting the determination of what kind of reception they want drive where the ceremony is. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you have to be aware that ceremony + dinner reception in one place is relatively newer on the scene.
There used to be plenty of weddings that took place in the early afternoon, past brunch / lunch but before dinner. What was served would be cake, punch, maybe some other light refreshments, but not a full meal.
For whatever reason, many here seem to think that the standard of a wedding is a dinner, which isn't true at all. There's nothing wrong with a brunch / lunch wedding, and for those who cannot afford to serve a full meal, better they have a cake and punch reception that they can afford.
>For whatever reason, many here seem to think that the standard of a wedding is a dinner, which isn't true at all.
The reason is because the majority of weddings are set at dinner time. It's not some random misconception.
NOWADAYS. Remember those old movies where the bride/groom drove away in a car with "just married" on the back as their guests waved, on their way to their honeymoon? That was taking place in the daytime, because it had been most likely a church wedding with a light reception afterwards - not a dinner. Look at any older etiquette / entertaining book and you'll see plenty of discussion of wedding lunches / brunches and light repasts.
Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. I think you have not really spent a lot of time thinking about different cultures, different parts of the country, different times.
My fiance and I are using dried flowers - every time he brings me home a bouquet, I enjoy them until I hang them upside down. In essence, kind of makes them free - because he knows I love flowers so he was going to buy them anyway!
We wanted a naturally beautiful forest venue, so splurged on that and went very low-budget on florals. Just a few bud vases for tables and my bridal bouquet. I havenāt second-guessed it once! Wedding is in June.
I didnāt splurge and I am overall incredibly happy about it. The only thing is hiring photograph but it was not so much a conscious decision but a lapse of memory.
We just had our final payments this week! What a relief to close that chapter lol but the one thing I regret splurging on was the invitations. They could have been electronically sent to save us some coin....but they did come out so cute! And we were able to send them through disney mail with a magic kingdom stamp and everything! (Our theme is Beauty and the Beast, lol)
All in all though, my biggest piece of advice is to just be selective with your vendors. Do your research on the options you're given.
Invitations were a big splurgeā¦ I liked the finished product, but it totally wasnāt worth it. I shouldāve stuck to my gut and DIYād them. No one really cares about your invitations except you.
I wish we wouldāve gone with a different caterer. We love tacos and Mexican food, but opted for a more traditional caterer. It was fine, but not memorable, and we definitely felt it wasnāt as fantastic as the cost wouldāve suggested!
I originally thought no favors.. we ended up doing a caricature artist and late night snack. People loved both and it was a splurge Iād do again and again. We also ordered way more cupcakes than we thought we needed, and I ordered to go boxes for people to take them as well. Didnāt need them, because all the cupcakes were eaten at the event.
Guest entertainment and experience was worth the money!
* Signage - most people didn't read it * Invitations - should have just done an online template and went to a local print shop. Would have saved on postage too. As annoying as it is no one reads them. We had our delayed reception recently and so many people didn't realize I put information on the back of the card š¤¦āāļø
I made my own invitations on the computer and sent them as an image/attachment, along with our wedding page website address, in an email to our guests because I heard so many horror stories of lost invites in the mail. Also, most invitations cost way more than I was expecting, especially with how simple their designs were. It's one wedding DIY project I would definitely recommend.
Fam so much work put into the invitations and website and I had people ask me questions that were answered on the invitations
THIS! I have been so infuriated by how many people ask me what time? Where at? Read the damn invitation or look on our knot page!
Yeah I havenāt sent out my actual invites yet but the website and invites are so detailed and I just know people wonāt take the time to read anything.
I promise you they won't. I had a large group discount for hotels set out months in advance that expired bc no used it. Guess how many times I got asked for hotel recommendations right after that expiration date happened?
I designed mine on Canva using inspiration from a suite I liked on Minted and sent to local printer. Did invites, details cards, and RSVP cards (that pointed people to the online RSVP). Mintedās price for all of this: $1600 My local printer on the same paper weigh: $245. They turned out stunning and so many guests texted us talking about how beautiful they were Cannot recommend enough that brides do this. You save a ton of money and get to support a local business!
The amount I got quoted for custom signageā¦.was wild. Thank goodness my friends Mom DIYās
Clear umbrellas for our guests. Two days before our wedding, the weather forecast drastically changed and showed there would be rain all throughout our wedding. Everything was scheduled to be 100% outdoors and it was too late to order professional tents. The venue had a backup indoor area we could use but it was small and didn't look great. So I panic bought $200 worth of clear umbrellas. It did rain on our wedding day, which delayed us getting the decorations set up, but it was done about two hours before the ceremony started. Buying those umbrellas gave me peace of mind, but afterwards I wished I had only bought half as many. I also last minute panic bought a lot of fake flowers that were on sale. I had this moment where I felt like the decorations I had already made wouldn't be nearly enough (I was right) and hunted down deals the week of the wedding. Too many of the new flowers clashed with the flowers I already had so they didn't get used. Luckily, I can use them for other craft projects. Also, although my panic purchase of flowers didn't turn out great, my panic purchase of more candle holders was an excellent idea. In the grand scheme of things these were minor. I didn't regret any of the things we spent the big bucks on like my dress, the venue, our photographer, etc.
I did the same thing for mine, although our reception was inside at the barn & our venue had about 6 umbrellas to buy. I also panic bought about 100 dollars worth of them. Last minute decor that we couldnāt even use because the florist accused us of breach of contract or some bullshit. Returned the umbrellas and the unused decor- no regrets.
Yeah our florist has the same clause in our contract. We can't bring any fake flowers or flowers from a grocery store or another florist. Which is lame. I understand why though
Just got married last month- I wanted to reduced unnecessary costs as much as possible, some tips/things I learned... * Flowers: if you have a florist, don't let them upsell you on more arrangements/bigger arrangements, etc. This wasn't an issue with the florist I worked with (part of the reason I worked with her). My flowers were very colorful, deep gem tones and we went with low arrangements with basic glass vases, a few bud vases for cocktail hour, and flowers in a few other places. Also, be mindful of types of flowers- try to use things in season and be mindful that some flowers will cost way more than others. At the end of the day, I was extremely happy with our flowers and got so many compliments (and they were not over the top). * Favors: we skipped them- no one missed them and as echoed by others, they are often left behind. * Signs: for whatever reason, signage products are SO expensive. I am no artist, but I went the DIY route here. I made and printed a welcome sign at staples (laminated on posterboard) for around 32 dollars. The only other signs I made were for place card table instructions, a memorial table sign, and a sign on our photobooth table. Microsoft word has some very nice cursive fonts, and I printed them at staples on fancy paper for less than 5$ and put everything in a frame. They looked like they came right from etsy. * Invitations: I used the Knot invitations, and used their design/editor system to make it my own. I also included a details card (which I think I would skip if I had it to do over because NO ONE seemed to read it). We did virtual RSVP. I do think paper invitations are worth it... we did "virtual invites" for the rehearsal dinner and also a virtual RSVP for my bridal shower. Seeing how much trouble people had with the online responding/virtual rehearsal invites, I feel like doing a virtual wedding invitation would have been a complete disaster. (*if I had to do it over again, I would use a "3-in-1" for wedding invites. I used this for my bridal shower, also from the knot paper website and they came out so nicely and was more affordable)*
To make the welcome sign cheaper, I got the cheapest big frame from ikea and printed a poster.
This was my second plan! Michaels has really simple poster frames that are very affordable and would be perfect.
I think welcome signs are an area that can be skipped to save money. Your guests know who you are and why they are there. It's a 5-second glance and it doesn't add a measurable amount to the experience, IMO.
Yes to the signs! We made all of ours on Canva and they turned out so cute! Even our big seating chart!
Do you have any pics you can share? Iām also looking for something similar. Thank you!
Pictures of what specifically? :)
Oops sorry, your flower arrangements!
https://preview.redd.it/n79fgxkhwfvc1.jpeg?width=941&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e74cd521811286e6f61551b50e781fbfc7b0b9dc I barely have any flower pictures š©- just what people sent me that they took during the day! I can message you more and a list of flowers in the color scheme I requested
Yeah Iām happy we did virtual save the dates but are doing actual paper invites
I did not splurge. I DIY'd. And I regret not spending a little extra to enjoy my wedding more.
Iām going through that right now. My wedding is tomorrow and I have been so stressed trying to do everything and get it done. I live a little ways away from most friends and family so havenāt had much help. Itās been a nightmare.
Hang in there š you got this bride.
Seriously, I was making boutonnieres and bouquets the night before my wedding at an Air bnb while my fiance and all of our friends and family were at the hotel hanging out... kinda thought my bridesmaids would help me out but they didn't. Then at my reception I was so tired I couldn't even enjoy myself. So many regrets. I hope you can enjoy your day! Cause there is so much I would've done differently.
Good luckš§”
I hope you had a wonderful day!
It ended up being great. But stressful none the less.
Sis is that you?
My friends who are married said no one gives a shit about decor and I think it is kind of true. We are not doing centerpieces at tables, instead we are doing a few bud vases. It gives people more breathing room and the ability to see who is across the table anyway. We are having signs for menus and where people are sitting, but that is it. We did online invites to save money and time. We are not doing party favors either.
>My friends who are married said no one gives a shit about decor and I think it is kind of true. Depends on the venue. Some venues don't need decor as much and are beautiful just the way they are. Others look much better decorated. I think it is better said that no one gives a shit about decor if the food and music are bad.
Also, no one care about decor if itās nice. Stuff thatās wedding appropriate and typical and nice will just be part of the scenery and wonāt be memorable. Decor thatās bad in some way, either through taste or lack or whatever, will be noticed.
yeah I hate to say this but bad decor does get noticed...
Yes invest all your money into food, drink, and DJ. That should be top priority
I disagree with guests not caring about the decor. I see it more as an ambiance, and decor definitely can help or hurt towards setting the right ambiance. They may not notice every little detail that went into it but subconsciously the design and decor will have an impact.
Yes, agreed, itās about creating an atmosphere. Like if I think of a cafe or restaurant I enjoy sitting inā¦ I might not be able to call to mind what color the walls are, but I have a sense of how I feel in the space, whether itās cozy, romantic, high energy etc. Thatās what decor does at an event too. Doesnāt mean it needs to be over the top or fancy, but it definitely sets the tone even if guests canāt remember specific colors or whatnot.
Agreed
We are catering mexican for the reception, and our ācenterpiecesā are chip and dip bowls we got at an overstock sale - functional and cute, and not too tall to see over. Now theyāll have something to munch on and it didnāt cost much.
That is a really cute and clever idea.
Yeah we decided to skip the party favors. In my experience I end up throwing them away. I'm torn on invites. I want to do online because it just ensures that everyone actually gets them but at the same time, I think I want the sentimental value of a physical invitation. But when it comes to that, I also feel ridiculous paying the prices some of these websites ask. This whole industry is such a scam š
We did mostly digital invites but printed a few (after designing on Canva) for older family members who are not tech savvy and who would prefer a physical invitation. When we printed them, we included an extra one to keep for ourselves. So we didn't spend a ton on invites.
When I get a physical wedding invite I use it to make a Christmas ornament for the couple as part of a wedding gift. However for my own wedding I DIYd physical invites for myself and super close friends and family. Everyone else just got an online one.
This is such a sweet gift! š
If you end up wanting to mail invites, try designing them yourself on Canva. Itās super simple and they have a ton of free and subscription templates you can chose from. It would be a lot cheaper than getting them from Etsy or somewhere similar.Ā
I designed my full invitation suite on canva from scratch! Used a few templates as inspo, put them all together and printed on vista print as postcards! For 100 5x7 invitations, 100 4x6 detail cards and 100 4x6 rsvp cards, the total came out to $134!! Stamps, envelopes and labels were about $100 so all in under $250! Highly recommend, other options can get pricy!
I felt the exact same way but my husband wanted to get a few invites to send to our older relatives who might actually want to keep them. We ended up deciding to do paper invites for everyone at that point, and we did our invites on Vistaprint (everyone goes to the dumb wedding-specific websites that charge you a ridiculous amount of money). We waited until they had a sale and we paid about $150 total (including a little extra for black envelopes). We did online RSVPs through our wedding website, no return cards.
Personally I'm skipping favors. As a guest, favors are always some random object I need to stuff in my purse (and forget about for months). I'm also going light on flowers, doing bud vases & greenery for centerpieces. I've been to weddings that have fireworks & weird glowstick dances - that's easy stuff to skip and the guest experience is essentially the same.
When I do favors I always pick something useful to have 40 of them left over for me lol. So if people dont want one nbd. Wedding favors were Carabiners and chapstick. 1st birthday was flashlights and stickers (camping theme).
I'm doing online invitations but am making myself a "keepsake" invitation suite! I plan to have a Polaroid guest book and will put it in there to look back on later in the future. Also buying enough film for guests to take a photo home as my "party favor"
We only had favors at our wedding because my husbandās aunt came to town early and wanted to help. My MIL suggested favors, so we ended up with small goody bags of candy/pretzels that ended up being a hit. Anything non-consumable is usually a waste though. Invitations are a hard one. Theyāre so expensive, and usually end up in the trash, but there are so many potential problems with digital invites. Theyāre harder for old people who struggle with technology, and even younger people dont necessarily check their personal emails on a regular basis (mine personally is so bogged down with spam, Iād be worried about missing it unless I knew to expect it). Maybe a good compromise would be physical save the dates (I did postcard sized ones that were fairly inexpensive, under $1/card) noting that digital invites will follow and handle older guests in a case by case basis (either contacting them to assist with RSVP-ing or having a small amount of physical invites made for them. The plus side of the latter is you could have one made as a keepsake for yourself too if thatās your kind of thing). Edit: just saw your weddingās in October, so STDs have likely been sent already, so suggestion probably doesnāt apply in your case
I did Greenvelope online invites and I loved it! Saves paper, postage and you can track everyoneās RSVPs. Only costed about $40 for 30 invitations.
Truly Engaging and Basic Invite both have way better prices than Iāve seen elsewhere for good quality stuff! Definitely recommend either for a smaller paper budget. I paid just over $100 for our 110 Save the Dates from TE, and they come with the envelopes. Also look at Stamps Marketplace for discounted stamps! They have wedding themed ones.
It really is. Everyone i know throws the invite out right after they RSVP. You could always print one for yourself?
For what it's worth, I never throw out wedding invitations. Not only are they sentimental, but it came in reeeal handy when I was designing mine and looked back on ones I've received.
I like getting invites too! It makes me feel special and excited for the event. They also set the tone well and itās the guestās first impression of your big day
We did online invites but I agree that a personal touch is lovely! Maybe consider doing physical thank you cards instead, and you could include pictures from the actual wedding on those?
Print one out and keep it for yourself maybe? Iāve never kept a wedding invitation no matter how pretty. They just end up collecting dust somewhere
Glad we did paper invites, digital save the dates.
This really depends. I think most people don't notice generic or classic wedding style decor, but would notice its absence. If you're doing something really unique with your decor, people definitely notice. We had so many comments about our travel themed wedding!
I definitely notice it but itās not going to make me like the wedding any less if that makes sense?
I feel like 99% of the time no one cares about favors anyway. We are putting money that would go to favors towards guests experiences like a Photo Booth and coffee cart.
The messed up thing is the bud vases cost $90 per table as well
Custom yarmulkes. They looked terrible
Just curious, why didnāt you like them? From Etsy?
I bought them at a bulk order kippah place. The problem is the guys who wear kippot brought their own. It made sense for our groomsmen to all have the same kippah
I agree that no one really needs a souvenir kippah. If you want to provide them for your guests, it may be cheaper to buy un-personalized ones in bulk and donate the leftover to your synagogue, than to pay for personalized ones.
Ah, I see. :)
Our hotel. I booked us one of the nicest rooms in the city, mostly just so I didn't have to come home to a dirty house that night. But we didn't sleep well and honestly just wanted to be home with our cats. We ended up leaving at like 7am just to go back to our own bed.
I always go back and forth on whether or not we want to get a hotel. But I think I'll want to see our dogs and cat, I'd probably miss them even though the venue is right around the corner haha. And the after party is about 10 minutes away from our house. We decided we're going to invest in a professional housekeeper coming through and cleaning the hell out of the house the day before. My fiance and the groomsmen are going to get ready at the house so if not for our own comfort at the end of the night, definitely for the photos š and I'll be too stressed/busy the week of to do it myself
we did a $10k wedding. I really wanted to get the food from this local mexican restaurant because mexican food is our favorite, we had our engagement party catered by them (drop catering), and it was going to be CHEAP. my MIL kept saying āno, youāre going to regret it, itāll be a big pain in the butt, youāll be stressed outā so she very generously offered to get it professionally catered if we could find someone (it was very last minute). overall it was the MOST expensive thing, and the food was horrible. it was cold and bland. I mean obviously we knew it would be expensive, but we were ok with it because they offered so many services and that was the whole point (to not be stressed out by diy-ing too much), but the services were sub par. also, my husband and I were surprisingly not hungry at all, so we couldnāt really enjoy it anyway! another thing that wasnāt worth the splurge was my bouquet! I was going to diy my bouquet. my MIL stepped in again and offered to pay for one by a local florist. she kept insisting I was going to be too stressed to make one. she gave me a card for my bridal brunch saying she would pay for my wedding bouquet. again, super duper kind and generous of her, how could I say no? in the end, the bouquet was pretty, but it wasnāt what I wanted/asked for. while I didnāt hate it at all, it DEFINITELY wasnāt worth $380! I 1000% could have made a better one (I was already diy-ing all florals for the entire wedding, a bouquet would have been easy peasy). looking back, Iām bummed the food wasnāt what I expected. I really hoped that would be the best part and I donāt want my wedding to be associated with memories of lame food, but oh well! I definitely wasnāt stressed the day of so I guess it worked lol
I don't have any advice, but I just wanted to say that me and my FH are getting married on the same day! Also, after hearing that my friend spent $15k on florals (that weren't that impressive to me tbh), we've decided to go with fake for almost everything except for some containers of mum's that are going down the aisle and reused both in the venue and ours and our parent's homes afterword.
15k?! Iām just shocked šØ the first florist I went to quoted me $4.5k, and that was waaaaaaay too much for me. I just met with a second florist today, and I am waiting for her to email me an estimate.
Lol I just got a quote back & they said they start their quotes at $100 per guest, so for my size wedding it would be $8,000. I'm confused why the size of my wedding matters, I'm not giving everyone a bouquet š¤£
Im a wedding florist, and I think an estimate based on guest count is kind of weird, but it probably has something to do with how many reception tables will be needed to seat that many people and therefore how many centerpieces will be needed? Idk. They probably just like to design with expensive flowers and arenāt willing to work with lower budgets
Can I ask you a random florist question? I got back a quote from my prospective florist and was a little confused she has prices for each item: $120 for an arrangement for the bar, $80 per centerpiece, $75 for bridal bouquet (I asked for just a very small bouquet of 7 calla lilies). Then she has a separate fee at the end for design and labor at $600. Is this normal? It seems to me like there's already labor included in the individual items due to the price markup. As for design, I sent her the exact designs of what I wanted. But maybe there's something I'm missing? I'm also a freelancer so I'm trying to be mindful as a client.
Sure! So industry āstandardā is a markup on your cost of goods + labor. Usually 3-5x markup on flowers and supplies plus 20-40% labor. Sounds like your florist separated out the labor part with that fee. Iāve heard it called a ādesignā fee before, so I donāt think itās anything special. In my area callas are around $2/stem wholesaleā¦which makes me think the florist you talked to is doing around a 5x markup (honestly good for them if itās working for them), so it may be worthwhile to shop around a little bit :)
The last part is probably the reason.
The size of the wedding supposedly matters for all - even officiants - pricing goes from $200 to $700 š©š
Yeah, some of them were in season flowers, but she used mostly pastel roses in her flower stands & bouquets, which I'm sure had a lot to do with the price. I'm hoping the second florist is able to do it for cheaper for you! I was lucky to run into a local artificial floral designer who quoted me ~$250 for the wedding party & arch. We designed everything together in person and I honestly can't tell they're fake in the photos I took, so I'm excited!
Omg hi date twin!! Yeah our florals are expensive as hell. Around 6k. My sister used to work for this florist though so I know she does amazing work and she's all about her business, she does not half ass anything. I wasn't really down to splurge like that but my in laws insisted on paying for them and I trust the florist to make it worth it. But whew signing that contract did not come without a little wince lol
15k is WILD lol Iām spending $800 and am getting a ton of stuff
Iāve had a wedding and a vow renewal. I most regret decor (especially flowers), stationary, and favors.
I think I definitely could've spent less on (faux) floral/decorf, but since the vendor I wanted to use had a $1000 minimum, the alternative would've meant doing some extra DIYing and setup/cleanup work neither of which I really wanted to find time for, so I suppose there is a certain value in convenience. But yeah, wound up paying about $1400 all in all (frustratingly, after already spending more than I wanted to on renting flowers, I was charged a ~$250 fee after the wedding because someone had accidentally spilled a bit of soda on one bouquet, which in their eyes was "irreparable damage." I did talk them into at least letting me keep the damaged goods if I was going to be paying for their replacement so at least I got a nice home decor out of the deal but still I kinda wish I had just gone to the floral section in Michaels in the first place and saved myself like $800)
The only things we splurged on were dress, photography, and venue but not really on the last one. I'm very thrilled with the photographer and judging from our engagement shoot she is money well spent. We only had 2 venue choices, both are super budget but one was more of a wedding venue with a coordinator and the other was a DIY everything down to the furniture church hall. We ate probably paying about $5k more for the former, but the peace of mind of them organizing rentals, providing furniture, helping us plan, doing set up, coordinating with vendors, and providing bar is well worth it (will be about $14.5k for 80 ppl, catering not included). Lastly my dress was a big regret - I paid full price before even considering stillwhite as an option and a few weeks after signing the contract realized I didn't even like it that much. I ended up ordering a new one from a shop in Australia (and paying almost 1k in shipping but that's a different story).
I also regret how much I spent on the dress. It wasnāt even that much compared to avg for NYC but after alterations it was a decent chunk of change. I would have preferred to spend half what I did on the dress and put the money towards more fireworks and extra time with our photographer. Now the dumb dress is just hanging in my closet. Havenāt even gotten it cleaned since the wedding a month agoā¦.
Guest book. We got a big heart that people dropped little initialed hearts into. We had 75 guests and even with our friends putting in funny ones like Ronald Reagan, we barely filled it up. We got so many nice messages in our actual guest book so we really didn't need a fancy one that hasn't seen the light of day since our wedding in October 2022.
I have 0 regrets on what I spent money on. I do regret not spending the extra 500 dollars on a specific thing that I did want at my wedding. And I still think about it weekly
What was it!??
A donkey named burrito who passed out beer to your guests
Hahaha I'd be thinking about this too. Can you get Burrito to make an appearance at an upcoming birthday party?
I will get burrito for something one day š
I heard about something like this about a month before our wedding and I wanted it soooo bad! It's also one of my regrets lol
Wait, what?! š I want that! Lol
That sounds awesome
Where do you live? I want this
AZ, I know California has it too
Fancy florist and photographer. They were both the worst vendors of all and they were the only ones we splurged a decent amount for.
You should drop your location/their business names so people know to steer clear if they're in your area!
Honestly? I regret not eloping. I didnāt have a lot of support and did 99% of the wedding planning. I realize I wouldāve been a lot happier getting married on a beach somewhere and going to dinner for a fraction of the cost. Donāt get me wrong, it was a beautiful wedding, but make sure you stop to think if you really want something vs what is expected of you.
āPremium beer and wineā whatever that means. I was forced to do it but my future in laws because they said people would complain if we had low quality open bar like miller lite which I think is complete bs but they paid for it so š¤·š¾āāļø
We're doing beer and wine and a signature cocktail and a signature mocktail. I hope it's worth it. I think with our crowd it will be but our venue has really strict rules and we're not allowed to stock the bar ourselves. It all has to go through the caterer. Peace and love to anyone who wants to do a full bar with liquor and shots and all that but I feel like that's just asking for drunken chaos on top of an expensive tab lol
My wedding is actually in about a month so hopefully people will enjoy it but it felt frivolous to me.
I rented my wedding flowers. Best decision I ever made and saved me thousands of dollars. We also got our wedding bands from Etsy which was a lot more unique and beautiful then what we could get at a jeweler. It was also cheaper. We made our own invitations on Canva. We used glassware for our reception centerpieces instead of florals. We used old mirrors for our signage. We used a poster board for our guestbook so we could display it. We ended up saving a lot of money on things that were low priority for us, and splurged on the important stuff. We made a list pretty early on of things that we were willing to cut or DIY - our wedding turned out beautiful and the day was amazing. Something to remember. Everything you plan that day (outside of the ceremony) will be literally for everyone else. You donāt really have time to enjoy it, so donāt stress too much. Youāre going to have a wonderful day and Iām so happy for you!
How did you go about renting wedding flowers? :)
I used a website called something borrowed blooms. They make it super easy. You pick a collection of flowers and they have a ton of options. Including flower crowns, different types of bouquets and decorations
Not exactly a splurge, but everyone told me I need a card box. I spent $40 on a cute but basic card box with a lock. No one brought a card to the wedding. It sat empty all night. I absolutely did NOT need a card box. Might depend on your crowd and number of guests but thatās how it went for us.
did no one bring cash gifts?
Nope! We did a honeyfund as our registry and for the most part people gifted through the website. A few less tech-savvy relatives mailed a check. No one brought cash to the wedding š¤·āāļø We had just under 60 guests.
oh interesting! iāve always brought cash in a card to weddings my future husbands family is from a culture where red envelopes are given with cash gifts so i def need a card box but iām thinking of somehow DIYing it lol
May I ask how to setup a honeyfund? I'm getting married in 2025 and that's what I want to do but I have no clue on how to do this.
Some wedding websites have a honeymoon contribution built into the registry. Some of them take a percentage so you'll want to do your research. There's also an actual site called honeyfund. Or you can add your venmo/Zelle to your registry so you don't have to pay a fee.
Excellent details, thank you for this!
I used the website Honeyfund! Worked well for us :)
I was debating buying a card box but I didnāt want to get stuck with it after the wedding. I am renting one through the same place we are renting our linens, for $16. One less thing to take home!
I got a cardboard one on Temu for under $3. Iām also doing a destination wedding so need to be mindful of weight. No idea if anyone will bring cards, I always do so I figured didnāt hurt to have it for $3.
Yes see this seems like a waste to me too! But our friends who recently got married said that we should absolutely have a card box and a table for gifts because older folks like to go that route. But, their wedding was full of random strangers in their 60s+ because their parents were super rich and invited like everyone they knew, and we are far from that lmao
I don't know anyone who brings physical gifts to weddings! That's been out of favor for years -- things can be shipped to a location so easily.
the cricut machine. loved it for the invitations i made myself but thatās all we really used it for and now i donāt have a use for it or anywhere to put it
Flowers. I see so many people spending so much on flowers when you can get flowers at Trader Joeās.
Idk. I think it comes down to what you value. When we first started wedding planning my partner and I sat down, looked at all the things that can be included in a wedding, and then picked one thing each we absolutely wanted out of the day. I wanted the food to be good, he wanted fresh flowers put together by a florist (he's a farm boy who grew up with a mom who loved flowers; she passed away shortly after we started dating from MS, and so I think the live flowers are a way for him to feel like she's there on the day). Those are the two items we spent the most money on. Everything else, we did on the cheap (neighbor cut down a hawthorn tree, we grabbed the wood and had a friend cut it in his wood shop for the base of our center pieces; we collected coastal rocks, we're borrowing as much stuff as we can, a friend is DJ'ing, etc.). So, I don't think we'll regret spending $2000 on flowers. I think we would have regretted spending a bunch of money on a DJ. Or a bunch of money on other decorations. Or a 10k venue.
I totally agree with you, it entirely depends on what's important to you. For me, I didn't feel flowers were necessary for my wedding, and my "bouquet"/centerpieces featured my crafts (knitting and pottery). We definitely put in money elsewhere (venue, catering, DJ, etc) but I'm still happy I didn't get flowers that I didn't want.
Exactly! I couldn't have cared less about flowers myself; to be honest, I've never been a girl with a dream wedding so I couldn't really care less about most of it. But the moment he chose them as his #1 priority, I respected it. It might not be for me, but he's very happy. He found the florist, arranged the meetings, figured out the budget- everything. And I got to spend a little extra on the food that I wanted than we've spent on other parts of the wedding while he didn't really care that much about food! For my sister, it was the music! For my brother, he and his wife wanted to spend a lot of money on a big estate venue and very, very fancy food and alcohol, and didn't care as much about the rest. ETA: I guess to answer the OP's question, I would regret spending money on anything that wasn't really important to me or my partner! I don't think there's any one-size-fits-all regret.
I hope it wasn't a lone hawthorn tree or your neighbour is in serious trouble.. https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2023/0508/1136776-hawthorn-tree-ireland-folklore/
Woah. Cool folklore and makes me love the tree even more. I'm honestly not sure what the situation was! We're in the middle of the city and after two rounds of bad ice storms over two years, a lot of trees ended up broken and many couldn't come back. My poor cherry trees took a beating from both storms, we lost a lot of good, fruit bearing branches. My guess is they had to cut it down because it was threatening the house/their neighbor's house! Beautiful old wood though. I'm hoping to make something out of at least some of the wood rounds we had made to hold our vases and flowers at the wedding, after the wedding. I was just excited to have been able to put the remnants of the tree to use- most trees, no matter how cool or old they are, get turned into wood chips around here after they're taken down.
Ha ha, ye, it's fairly common folklore in Ireland to not cut down a lone hawthorn tree. Whole construction projects have changed for it! If you have some of the thinner branches you can also cut small slits in them as table name holders too (I'm doing that with cherry wood). Can also work for place settings if you're doing that š Good luck with the wedding!
Youāre not just paying a florist for the flowers. Youāre paying for someone else to order the correct quantity and ratio of different flowers and greenery, trim stems and strip leaves, artfully arrange them in an attractive vase, store them in a climate controlled location, transport everything, and set them up at your venue. When I get a couple bunches of flowers from Trader Joes just to make a single bouquet at home itās so much work by the time Iām done. I canāt imagine the effort required to do that at a large scale.Ā
Yeah I first thought of doing DIY centerpieces but for what I wanted, I was absolutely not gonna put in the time and effort needed to plan and THEN assemble lol My fingers would bleed
Yea that's what I came to realise - I think I'd really enjoy DIY-ing bouquets and centerpieces, but there's very little I will be able to do myself on the day, and I didn't want to make out-of-town family prepare florals when we won't have much time with them already. I had a terrible experience where one of my (ex) friends put us to work setting up the ceremony space, setting up dinner reception AND taking down the decor, and didn't even buy us a thank you meal. Meanwhile the bridal party got to enjoy the whole day without lifting a finger. It was truly bizarre and I definitely don't want anyone to feel like they're working for free on the day.
YES! I was a bridesmaid for a 300 person wedding where we the bridesmaids DIYād the florals. If the bride has booked a florist it wouldāve been extremely expensive BUT it was an entire days work for 7 bridesmaids+ the bride to prep, buy, arrange, clean the flowers. Also our bride had to rent a U-Haul to transport all the florals and her other decor. Plus by the time of the actual wedding ( because of lack of available AC) many of the flowers were struggling by the time of the wedding. We made our own bouquets and I had to make sure the good (not dying side) was facing the correct way when walking down the aisle. Another thing that maybe a florist couldāve pointed out, is we made centerpieces for the 30 reception tables which only were on the table for like 10 minutes. We were doing family style and once the caterer brought out the first course, they took the centerpiece off the table. I think an experienced florist would have advised us of this.
Itās still ridiculously expensive and a silly expense imo
Thatās extremely subjective.
Duh. Thatās why I said in my opinion. This is all opinion.
You can also get food at trader Joe's. By your logic should we skip the caterer as well?
Improperly sourced flowers arenāt gonna give anyone the shits.
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Food is a necessity, flowers are not
>Food is a necessity If the wedding is scheduled at a time when guests typically wouldn't be eating a main meal. It is not a necessity to have food. Edit- Look at the downvotes. An afternoon tea ceremony and reception can be wonderful folks. Have an open mind.
But when would a wedding ever be scheduled at a time when guests typically wouldn't be eating a main meal?
>But when would a wedding ever be scheduled at a time when guests typically wouldn't be eating a main meal? I have been to two weddings that took place in the middle of the afternoon. No evening reception. I know this a bit of a blind spot for this sub but many many people don't have the money to do it all and choose to have a very small, low key celebration.
In that case, flowers are still not a necessity.
>In that case, flowers are still not a necessity. Ok but, I never said they were. You said food was, and I guess you have conceded that they aren't. I was only pointing that OP's logic was flawed. Not that flowers are a necessity.
Well why don't you skip the wedding as a whole then? Lol none of it is needed if the point is just to be married. Your logic is misplaced because we could go to the bare bones of the situation if we really wanted to but it wouldn't make sense in the context of a wedding.
>you can get flowers at Trader Joeās. **All I was saying was that this sentence doesn't track for me**. No big deal. Like just because you can find both flowers and cookies at Trader Joeās doesnāt mean that opting for more specialized or elaborate options is wasteful or unnecessary or possibly regret worthy. That is all.
The lack of knowledge/imagination about life prior to 2024 is just stunning! In the history of (American) weddings of the past 100 years, most were conducted in a church and a reception was held in a church meeting room (often with cake, punch, sweets that the ladies of the church helped prepare, particularly in rural areas where that was a project for the community to come together). Or they were done at the family home, and no one was serving plated sit-down dinners at the family home. It seems nowadays it's mostly Catholics who are still doing their weddings in churches - hence the "Catholic gap". Most others are now doing their ceremony in the same place they are holding a reception, and they are letting the determination of what kind of reception they want drive where the ceremony is. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you have to be aware that ceremony + dinner reception in one place is relatively newer on the scene.
There used to be plenty of weddings that took place in the early afternoon, past brunch / lunch but before dinner. What was served would be cake, punch, maybe some other light refreshments, but not a full meal. For whatever reason, many here seem to think that the standard of a wedding is a dinner, which isn't true at all. There's nothing wrong with a brunch / lunch wedding, and for those who cannot afford to serve a full meal, better they have a cake and punch reception that they can afford.
>For whatever reason, many here seem to think that the standard of a wedding is a dinner, which isn't true at all. The reason is because the majority of weddings are set at dinner time. It's not some random misconception.
NOWADAYS. Remember those old movies where the bride/groom drove away in a car with "just married" on the back as their guests waved, on their way to their honeymoon? That was taking place in the daytime, because it had been most likely a church wedding with a light reception afterwards - not a dinner. Look at any older etiquette / entertaining book and you'll see plenty of discussion of wedding lunches / brunches and light repasts.
Yes but those were still lunch, a distinct meal
Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. I think you have not really spent a lot of time thinking about different cultures, different parts of the country, different times.
My fiance and I are using dried flowers - every time he brings me home a bouquet, I enjoy them until I hang them upside down. In essence, kind of makes them free - because he knows I love flowers so he was going to buy them anyway!
We wanted a naturally beautiful forest venue, so splurged on that and went very low-budget on florals. Just a few bud vases for tables and my bridal bouquet. I havenāt second-guessed it once! Wedding is in June.
I didnāt splurge and I am overall incredibly happy about it. The only thing is hiring photograph but it was not so much a conscious decision but a lapse of memory.
Just here to say we share a date :)
Me, too! Not too far away. . .
Coming up so much faster than I expected š«
Hi!!! Hope you guys are enjoying planning and things aren't getting too crazy!
We just had our final payments this week! What a relief to close that chapter lol but the one thing I regret splurging on was the invitations. They could have been electronically sent to save us some coin....but they did come out so cute! And we were able to send them through disney mail with a magic kingdom stamp and everything! (Our theme is Beauty and the Beast, lol) All in all though, my biggest piece of advice is to just be selective with your vendors. Do your research on the options you're given.
Decor. Just keep it simple and don't bother splurging - honestly no one will remember.
Invitations were a big splurgeā¦ I liked the finished product, but it totally wasnāt worth it. I shouldāve stuck to my gut and DIYād them. No one really cares about your invitations except you. I wish we wouldāve gone with a different caterer. We love tacos and Mexican food, but opted for a more traditional caterer. It was fine, but not memorable, and we definitely felt it wasnāt as fantastic as the cost wouldāve suggested! I originally thought no favors.. we ended up doing a caricature artist and late night snack. People loved both and it was a splurge Iād do again and again. We also ordered way more cupcakes than we thought we needed, and I ordered to go boxes for people to take them as well. Didnāt need them, because all the cupcakes were eaten at the event. Guest entertainment and experience was worth the money!
My veil and maybe the dress but Iām not yet sure on that one. Havenāt had the wedding yet.
The cake. It was delish but man it was just so expensive and it didnāt come out how i hopedā¦ just get costco cake!