Love extravagantly, but cut wedding costs
LYNDSEY MIHOLICH is a bride on a budget. By the time she and Mic Waugh get married in the fall, they intend to have paid off the cost of their elegant wedding ceremony and reception.
To reach that goal, the couple are skipping movies and meals out, aiming to sock away the bulk of their discretionary income before the special event. And they aren’t hesitating to break wedding traditions that break their budget.
“It’s important to us that the wedding feel warm and inviting and look classy, but not cost a fortune,” Miholich, 26, said. “We had to prioritize, taking a look at the things that we really wanted and the things that we figured we could save some money on without ruining the day.”
With matrimonial season well underway -- and due to peak Saturday because thousands of couples decided 07/07/07 would be a lucky day to marry -- love is certainly in the air. But if you’re planning a wedding for 2008, perhaps on Aug. 8 because Chinese numerology deems eight to be especially auspicious, you might not want to get too wrapped up in sentimentality. If you do, you could pay later.
That’s because the average wedding in the U.S. costs $27,000, according to wedding website the Knot. And with Americans marrying later than in years past, the bride and groom are more likely to pay for much or all of the cost of their nuptials. But if you and your life-mate-to-be try to do that without cutting costs, you could very well start married life deep in debt, which wouldn’t be auspicious at all.
What can you do, short of turning the affair into a potluck at the park? Plenty, experts say.
Here’s a look at the prime targets for saving money:
The gown: Something old or discounted
It’s a wildly expensive dress that you’ll wear just one day. Then you’ll spend $100 or so having it dry-cleaned and packed in a special box that will gather dust in your closet.
So instead of buying a designer dress at a bridal store, the modern, sensible bride seeks out sample sales, at which designer dresses can be marked down by as much as 80%, according to Christa Vagnozzi, senior editor at the Knot.
Or you can apply your finely honed Web shopping skills in the brisk online market for very lightly used wedding wear. Search for “used wedding gown” and you’ll get countless hits. Placed high in the list of results are likely to be usedweddingdresses.com, preownedweddingdresses.com and rsvpbridal.com, all of which allow prospective brides to peruse once-worn gowns -- sometimes never worn -- each for sale at a fraction of its original price.
Regardless of how much you pay for the dress, give serious thought to selling it after the ceremony, suggested Mike Sullivan, director of education at Take Charge America, a credit counseling firm in Phoenix. Chances are you’ll never put it on again, even if you remarry, he said. (Who would plan for that eventuality anyway?) And don’t count on any of your offspring wearing it when they get married, said Sullivan, whose two daughters had little interest in donning their mother’s neatly packaged wedding gown for their ceremonies.
Flowers: Impostors offer sweet savings
Miholich, who works as a community service manager in Phoenix for a nonprofit that fights autism, said she got an idea for saving on floral costs from dinners she helped arrange. Pricey tabletop floral arrangements were replaced with candles, mirrors and a sprinkling of cut flowers. It looked elegant at a fraction of the cost, she said.
Miholich also had no intention of walking down the aisle with a $200 bouquet. She arranged to have a high-end supermarket make the bouquets, boutonnieres and provide the flower buds for the tabletops. Total cost: $250.
Those who want the traditional tabletop sprays can cut costs in less aggressive ways, Vagnozzi said. The simplest: Talk to the florist about what’s in season.
Consider the popular peony -- a top choice for today’s brides. Buy it in the spring and it’s $7 a stem. Insist on it in the fall and it will cost $14 to $19, Vagnozzi said. A certain variety of rose looks similar but costs just $3.
Likewise, the sought-after lily of the valley runs $5 a stem -- more than double the price of the look-alike white wax flower.
“Talk to the florist. Explain what your budget is and see what they suggest,” Vagnozzi said. If the florist isn’t helpful, find another one.
For a church wedding, Sullivan suggests seeing whether you can share flowers. Many churches have back-to-back weddings on summer Saturdays, he said. Ask the pastor if you can contact the couples marrying before or after you and see whether they’re up for splitting the cost of the floral displays.
The music: Settle for a digital playlist
Bad news for bands: The latest hot trend is the “iPod wedding.” Instead of paying in the neighborhood of $1,000 for live music, the wedding couple compile playlists of their favorite songs. Miholich and her fiance e-mailed close friends, asking for suggestions and photos for a slideshow that will run along with the iPod music loop during the ceremony. Several groomsmen have been enlisted to make speeches and ensure that the music and slideshow go off without a hitch.
Photos and videos: Scrimp at your peril
Vagnozzi cautions against going no-frills in this area.
“You’re going to have these photographs for the rest of your life,” she said. “You want to make sure that the photographer gets all the shots.”
Miholich said she would normally agree. But her fiance works in the movie industry and has talented friends who have agreed to photograph the nuptials -- in video as well as stills -- for free.
“I realize that most people can’t save money on the photographer, and it’s not an area that I’d recommend cutting corners,” she said. “But everyone has friends and family with resources and professional experience that can enhance the wedding and save money. You need to get some creative brainstorming going.”
The cake: Opt for a false bottom
Serve a formal wedding cake, and your dessert costs $10 a slice, Vagnozzi said. But put out a pretty “display” cake -- with the bottom layers made of beautifully iced cardboard and just one cuttable layer -- and it costs about $4 a slice.
The happy couple still get pictures of the ceremonial cake cutting, but the rest of the guests are served a sheet cake that’s quietly sliced up in the kitchen.
Cutting courses -- and the guest list
Your biggest cost will be the food and drink served at your reception -- and the room itself. There are many ways to save:
* Limit the list. The top tip, offered by virtually everyone, is keep the guest list small. By and large, reception costs are calculated on a per-head basis. So you might want to decide that distant relatives and friendly acquaintances needn’t attend. And think twice before writing “and guest” on invitations.
“Don’t invite people from a sense of obligation,” Sullivan said. “A lot of couples think it’s a badge of honor to have 500 guests, but it does nothing to make the wedding nicer. Invite only people with whom you want to share the day.”
* Bundle. Miholich said she started out looking at sites where tables, chairs, linens and catering would have to be brought in. That can be costly because you have to hire several providers, each of which needs to cover the cost of transporting its goods -- and make a profit.
The solution: a hotel, which has everything you need on the premises. Miholich and Waugh settled on a boutique hotel in Scottsdale, Ariz., where they could hold the ceremony and reception in one place. The hotel also offered a group rate for out-of-town guests and a complimentary room for the couple.
* Cut down on the courses. A five-course dinner in New York, Vagnozzi said, will run a stunning $305 a person. Opting for a three-course meal shaves $50 off the cost. To be sure, sit-down dinners are more reasonably priced in other cities, but the general rule is the same: The more frequently the tables are cleared and fresh plates are delivered, the higher the cost.
Buffets are less expensive than sit-down dinners, she added. And they’re now often set up as “food stations” offering different fare in different parts of the room. That adds variety and eliminates the endless snake of one giant queue for the buffet.
* Shut down the bar. An open bar is not only a huge expense, but it also can become a liability issue if intoxicated guests cause damage or worse, Sullivan said. He advocates a cash bar, to save money and reduce the chance that guests get plastered. Barring that, limiting the selection to beer and wine -- and perhaps one “signature” drink -- can save thousands.
* Beware the special markup. A wedding dinner costs about 20% more than a comparable business dinner, Sullivan estimates. Why? Because the people planning the wedding are so giddy and sentimental that they fail to haggle.
He noticed the difference when pricing a wedding at a hotel where he had held a business meeting. The hotel defended the price gap by saying the menus were different.
But the difference was minor, he said. “I told them to give me the regular menu.”
--
--
Begin text of infobox
A priceless day?
Here are average wedding costs in the U.S. A city-by-city comparison is on Page C4.
*--* Average cost Site, food and drinks $20,391 Photos 2,751 Event planner 1,656 Video 1,584 Florist 1,485 Gown 1,279 Music 977 Cake 514 Total* 27,000
*--*
--
Source: Knot Inc.