By Anne Phyllis Pinzow, Special to JTNews
Several years ago, a character on my favorite television show expounded on the cost of modern weddings, finishing up his tirade with, “and next morning you wake up and realize that for the same price as the down payment on a house you’re married to that.”
Unfortunately for many a wallet, the means people use to plan a wedding is generally the same they use in choosing a spouse. They want beauty and romance and a grand expression of their love or, in some cases, their purse.
However, those brides and grooms who are more focused on the marriage than the wedding are seeking some cost-cutting ideas which will preserve the grand expression, while leaving enough aside for a nest egg for the future.
• Unless the guest list tops 300, don’t hire a wedding planner. Their service won’t save you any time or trouble, since they will constantly be calling you and meeting with you to get your decisions and offer you more choices in how to spend money. What they might save in prices with vendors will be spent in their fees. Aside from that, they are in the business of selling you services, so they’ll push for more unnecessary extravagance.
• The first item on the list in planning a wedding is often where to hold the event; while people generally think that having a wedding at home is the least expensive, it can cost as much as a hall to rent the tables and chairs, hire a valet service to legally park the cars, and pay for the catering service to provide and serve the food.
• Having the wedding in a catering hall only gets expensive when all the extras are added in. Those extras that aren’t needed include: White glove service, hostesses finding seating cards, serving champagne to guests upon entering, handing out mints to guests before entering the sanctuary, and ushers escorting guests to their seats.
• Another place to cut is the food. At a recent wedding, guests were served apples and champagne before they could get their coats off, and then there were exotic hors d’oeuvres, tables filled with fruit, cheese, crudités and dip. Spoonfuls of mints were handed out as guests entered the sanctuary.
Then, as they left the ceremony, they were offered goblets of a variety of soups. Entering the hall for cocktails they encountered deli, Japanese, Italian, French, Hispanic and Chinese buffet tables, as well as servers bringing everything from “pigs in blankets” to lamb chops and mashed potatoes around.
By the time people were ushered into dinner, the three choices of entrée were hardly as appetizing.
The best place to cut here are the assorted buffet tables. Instead of stuffing the guests before the dinner, serve some platters of hors d’oeuvres and drinks and allow the guests to mingle without having to get in long lines. Aside from being appreciated, as many people are fitness conscious, a step up in entrée will probably be much more welcome than all that food before the dinner.
Alternatively, have a morning or early brunch wedding and forego elaborate dinners.
• Next comes invitations; these seem to get more elaborate each year. A recent one came in a box that lit from the inside when opened. Even the postage was exorbitant! Go for more imagination in the printing and the design than the size and grandeur of the presentation. Leave out response cards. Most people will call anyway and tell you whether they’re coming or not.
Speaking of imagination, some couples who are handy with desktop publishing programs are designing and printing the invitations themselves.
• Everyone wants music at a wedding. Unfortunately, the music seems to get louder and louder and the “entertainment” more elaborate with streamers and horns and hats and even hula hoops being handed out just to keep everyone occupied and having a good time.
Cutting out all the handouts can save a ton of money, perhaps enough to get a higher quality band that will play music that won’t blast out the eardrums. All the “chakahs” tend to get thrown out rather quickly, and it’s literally money down the drain.
• Of course, every bride wants to look like a vision coming down the aisle and so much thought is given to the gown. Top-of-the-line, custom-made designer gowns can cost more than $6,000, and they’re only worn once.
However, there are alternatives, such as off-the-rack gowns that can be purchased for as little as $500. Another practice which is becoming more popular, is to get a secondhand wedding gown at a thrift shop, a secondhand clothing store, or, for the more adventurous, by bidding for a gown on EBay.
A recent search showed that the starting price for gowns started at anywhere from $1 all the way up to $2,000. Hiring a seamstress to alter the gown won’t cost more than $100 or so.
All in all, the best way to save money is to focus on quality, think seriously about what is important and the best reflection of the values of the soon-to-be-happy couple. Throwing out money keeping up with the Joneses is a poor start to any marriage.