Creating a Wedding Without Going Broke

Anyone that used to read this blog must have thought I dropped off the earth when I got engaged. I loved to blog but once we got engaged I realized that I had to plan a wedding and I never knew how much work it would be. I've planned several large member events for work so I thought planning a wedding wouldn't be a problem.

However, a wedding is a different "beast" all together. This is an event that, in a way, defines who you are as a couple. So you start out determining what is important to you BOTH. We both wanted to have a Christian marriage so we knew we'd have it in a church somewhere. I'm Lutheran and he is Catholic and we determined that we would marry in Dave's church. I liked his priest and I like that the Catholic church requires you to go through marriage classes before you are married.

However the class we went to was for those in their early 20's and the class seemed very focused on reminding all of us what a big decision this is and such. Dave and I were in our 40's we understood this concept. We've seen our friends get married, then divorced and remarried again before we ever even had the chance to get married once! We dated lots of people and knew what we DIDN'T want, we both knew that marriage was WORK and COMMITMENT and we both had pretty well defined identities and knew what we wanted and needed in a mate. It would have been great to have a class targeted towards those couples who were older but they didn't.

One thing I want to add, before I go much further, is Dave was an actively involved groom. He lived a long time as a single guy and he knew what he wanted in life and how to get things done. I'm so glad I have a man who was "grown up" and could handle life. I've heard about younger grooms that have very little involvement in planning the wedding and just say yes to the gal. I've always wanted a man who was strong enough to stand up to me and tell me what he wants. It is not all about me!!! We visited way too many wedding vendors that directed their attention only to me or talked about "what the bride" wanted. (As though the groom wasn't even in the room and his thoughts didn't matter!) I had to keep reminding the vendors to talk to Dave as well as me.

The reception was something we had to work out a bit. I wanted something simple and inexpensive. However, when I talked to Dave he wanted a traditional evening wedding with dancing and drinking. We made a compromise to reflect both of our personalities. We had an evening reception for 80 people in a historic home in Farmington Hills, MI. It is called the Longacre House. Visit this site to view: http://www.gourmetexpressevents.com/longacre.html.

This house is owned by the city of Farmington Hills and their exclusive caterer is Gourmet Express. I liked this venue because it was exclusively ours for the night and it felt like having a reception at home, but in a really nice home. Our wedding party even had private sitting rooms upstairs and that was great. They had a big screen TV for the guys and a cute ladies room with a sofa and indoor patio area with lots of windows. We loved it.

The way I write this it all sounds SO simple but it wasn't simple at all. We spent so much time trying to find a venue to have our reception that we felt was a reasonable price, that was also centrally located to both of our families. Once we found the venue we had to determine the menu selection that was within our budget that still reflected who we are as a couple.

Dress color for the wedding party has to be determined. I really had no idea on what I would want but we settled on a wine colored dress. We had a historic home and a classic style wedding dress in satin so we wanted a classic color floor length dress in Satin.

Favors for the wedding and centerpieces had to be decided. We decided on match books and chocolates with potted ivy that folks could take home after the reception. We figured that folks would hold onto a match book from our wedding and remember the date for many years to come. Most of Dave's friends smoke and many of my friends like candles so matches were cheap and useful.

I went to pick up the matches and there was one of those "20 year old brides" with "mommy and daddy" picking up the tab for the wedding and when she heard I was picking up the matchbooks for our wedding she very rudely said "Mom we are NOT having matchbooks at the wedding." I wanted to say something to that gal but I thought, she is a young, spoiled brat that has NO idea that marriage is not about what expensive favors you give out at the wedding. I still love our matchbooks and we kept our wedding on our budget . I wonder if that gal is happily married?

We had to decide on the DJ and that was the easiest decision of all. We chose Mike Staff Productions. The entire purchase experience was great and there was no buyers remorse after the wedding either. I highly recommend using them.

The photographer was the most difficult buying experience of all. I recommend every couple take a long time exploring options and learning the pricing guidelines and policies of photographers. The pricing structure for most photographers we talked to was tricky and confusing. We ended up with Rawlinson Photography in Plymouth, MI and that was the worst buying decision of our wedding.

Our photographer, Kathy was great and if we could have just worked with her it would have been great. When you buy the services of a photography studio you want to meet the photographers that will shoot your wedding. You don't want an rude, pushy photographer at your wedding ---- it will ruin your day. However you also purchase the staff at the studio and you'll be dealing with them before and after the wedding.

We did not like the staff at the studio, we found one of them to be overly talkative and pushy and the other person was cold, quiet and pushy. They showed us pricing when we came in to book our wedding and we plugged that number into our budget but when we came to design our wedding album they mentioned that certain parts of our bill that had tax added to it and we had to pay this AFTER the wedding or they wouldn't give us our book. I've never purchased something at one price and then when I pick it up they said I owe about $100 more in taxes. Then she said she would have to charge us tax on our wedding CD with all our photos on it. We paid $600 for the rights to our wedding photos, meaning we could print them on our own. The way they give the photos to us is on a CD and she wanted to charge us tax on the $600 for our CD, which cost them maybe $2 or less. They could have been up front about that when they created our contract. We eventually got them to waive this fee.

When we asked the talkative staff person about these extra charges and why it was not explained earlier she ridiculed us by saying "It is absolutely clear in this document" My husband and I both have advanced degrees and successful careers, we are not stupid. We were offended that she ridiculed us because of their confusing pricing structure that was NOT explained in their contract.

We paid to have our wedding book designed by the studio, we thought they would sit with us and create a book we liked. This was not the case. You tell them what photos you like and they send those photos to a business in California to design. Our first draft of what the folks in California designed was awful. We spent two frustrating weeks designing a book that we loved on our own and asked the California studio to match our design. We removed a few photos from the book and added a few more in and Rawlinson said we would have to pay for the photos that we added. We were told we could pick 60 photos for the book and we never went over that amount but we found out later that if you want to trade photos out for other photos that they shot they will charge you $2 more a photo. Another hidden charge! We got them to waive this also.

Designing the book was the worst part of our entire wedding experience, we felt the customer service from the studio was awful. I encourage everyone to ask potential photographers how they handle putting the book together. I had another friend that told me that she booked a photographer and she thought she paid to have the book designed by them but when the wedding was over she was sitting at the computer designing her own book. She was also very frustrated. Make sure to ask if they design the book there or send it out, will you sit with them to design the book, what are the charges for changes and how many changes are allowed without incurring additional charges. If we could have sat with the designer and gave them our thoughts on what we liked and didn't like it would have been great. Instead we had to type up every change we wanted. It was awful.

There were also lots of little decisions we had to make for the wedding that drove us a little crazy and I would have never thought it was so complicated but it is. All this decision making helped us get to know each other better and gave us chances to compromise and deal with problems that came up. Marriage is fun but it is filled with problem solving and compromise. Planning a wedding for ourselves and paying for it ourselves made us a stronger couple and gave me a greater appreciation of Dave.