Ask Questions! | Wedding Planning Tips from Cat

A letter from Cat – Lesson #1 in Wedding Planning

Do you want to know the single most important lesson I learned while wedding planning? Never be afraid to ASK for the things you want! The worst thing they can say is no!

Hello SFP family! This is Cat dropping in for a moment to lend a helping hand as you go on this journey of wedding planning. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Sierra’s Administrator Extraordinaire, Associate Photographer, and Editor. You’ve probably received an email or twenty from me or seen me hiding in a shrub for the perfect photo as the second shooter at your wedding. Now that we’ve gotten introductions out of the way, I want to talk about YOUR WEDDING.

Did you know the average wedding in Florida costs $35,000. THIRTY-FIVE THOUSAND AMERICAN DOLLARS. For some people, that number isn’t that shocking. But if you had told me that at age 24 as I was planning my own wedding, I probably would have fainted on the spot. To a barista at Starbucks who just desperately wants to marry the woman of her dreams surrounded by the people they love most, even $10,000 seemed insane to me. I was determined to plan our wedding on a dime, but not lose any of the things that we found important.

The Savings Breakdown

Here are a few places that we found throughout our wedding planning to save a few buckaroos…this is what worked for us and our wedding. We figured out what our budget was and where we could spend a few extra bucks and where we needed to pinch pennies. It’s about figuring out what you value most for your wedding day and making it happen! If the dinner at your wedding is the most important, go ahead and get the best food truck in town. If the top priority is making sure your day is captured for generations to come, splurge on your dream wedding photographer. You won’t regret spending more money on the things that are most important, but we sure couldn’t afford to splurge on it all. :P

(All photos in this blog were taken by my dear friend, Cary Davis, a NYC based photographer.)

#1. Our Venue

To make a long story short, we had to find a new venue about two months before our wedding. Luckily, we met Kevin at Buca di Beppo in Shrewsbury, MA who was more than happy to do as much as he could for us. Obviously, it is NOT recommended to change your venue last minute in the wedding planning process, but it happened to work in our favor because they were also needing to book the private dining room so we got a great deal. As we were looking at their menus, it was becoming clear that the price per person for their dinner menu was just too expensive for us, BUT we were having an evening celebration. Here’s where asking questions came in handy! I asked Kevin if there was ANY way they could be flexible and let us do the more affordable lunch menu at dinner time. Guess what? He said yes! He also waived the bartender fee and the dance floor setup fee for us. Vendors want to serve you as best they can, and they WILL help you if they can! All you have to do is ask.

#2. Our DJ

The DJ at your wedding is the connection between you and your guests. They are the emcee, the entertainment, the mood setter…they’re kind of everything. A lot of larger DJ companies have several DJs to choose from with a variety of price points. When I got in touch with the company we ended up using, they first offered to book their most experienced DJ with hundreds of positive reviews to back up his credibility. I then asked for their newest face on their team. In came Evin Baird! We were one of Evin’s first few solo weddings with Sowa Entertainment out of NH. Knowing it might be a risk to entrust someone so green with such a huge responsibility, we met with him in person which we highly recommend doing. When he nerded out about 90’s Britney Spears, we knew he was the DJ for us. We also felt confident in Sowa’s trust in him as a pro. While experience is everything in our industry, if your gut is telling you that this fresh face with huge energy can handle the job, trust it. We got an incredible DJ for a fraction of the price tag AND Evin got to add another wedding to his resume at the beginning of his career. Everybody wins!
Clearly, Evin had noooo problem getting our guests dancing!

#3. Our Dessert!

I am all about pulling strings and calling in favors. You might be pleasantly surprised at how super duper talented your friends and acquaintances are. My wife’s coworker at the time was in the process of starting her very own side hustle. Amanda Horne (now Lucy’s Cupcakes) is a stellar baker busy creating delicious confections in her home kitchen in MA during her free time. Sarah asked her if she would be interested in doing our wedding cupcakes and she super graciously said yes! She even said we would only have to cover the cost of the supplies to bake them. Amanda’s cupcakes were quite honestly some of the best I’ve ever had! My father ate six of them…THAT’S HOW DELICIOUS THEY WERE! By asking Amanda, we were supporting a brand new small business and saving some dollahhh billz y’all. Did I mention they were Strawberry Shortcake and Orange Creamsicle cupcakes?!

#4. My Dress

The second you put “wedding” in front of the word “dress” the price seems to jump like WOAH. I couldn’t imagine spending $1000+ on a dress that I would wear for one day. We didn’t have bridesmaids, so I wasn’t dreaming of taking all my girlfriends to a bridal salon and sipping on champagne as I tried on a parade of dresses. Dress shopping for me consisted of my mother and me sitting at our home computer ONLINE SHOPPING. We ordered four dresses that I got to try on in the comfort of my childhood bedroom. For you ladies out there who are into short dresses, I also recommend checking in the bridesmaid dress section! My wedding dress ended up coming from the bridesmaid section at Nordstrom and I loooooved it!!! The best part? It only cost $300. HELLO SAVINGS!

#5. The Bar…

Okay, let me first say, I love an open bar as much as the next person, but I certainly was notttt prepared to foot the bill for all our friends and family to drink the night away. We decided that wasn’t a priority for us in wedding planning. Kevin at our venue very wisely told us that people tend to see “free for me” and don’t think about who is really paying for the bar tab. We wanted our guests to have the best time, so we had a cash bar available for those who wanted to indulge. We also bought champagne for everyone during toasts. That showed our guests that we were so grateful they were there to celebrate with us without breaking the bank.

#6. Our Honeymoon!

This might not be totally connected to wedding planning, but I still think it’s important. For us, the wedding was important and amazing, but the honeymoon was what we were most looking forward to. We did so much to save money on our actual wedding day so we could totally splurge on our honeymoon. We knew we couldn’t do it alone though. We decided we had plenty of stuff in our apartment so when it came to put together a wedding registry, we chose to do a honeymoon registry. BEST DECISION EVER. No blenders, por favor. Instead, our guests could put money towards airfare or our hotel or celebratory cocktails! We used Traveler’s Joy, but there are lots of other honeymoon registry options out there! Our honeymoon to Disney World was 75% covered by the time it was all said and done!

Wedding planning is crazy and stressful, but wedding vendors get into this business to SERVE and to do everything they can to make the process easier for their clients. We won’t be able to help and serve you if you don’t ask for the things you want and need. Ask questions. If you want to ride a horse disguised as a unicorn down the aisle at your fairytale themed wedding at a castle, you go ahead and ask. The worst they can say is no!

♥ Cat