Starting to Plan!

Hi there,

I got engaged a few month ago and am just starting to plan my wedding. My fiance and I met in Boston 4 years ago, and want to have our wedding here in the city! I've been browsing wedding sites like theknot.com and wedding blogs trying to get ideas for what we'd like our event to look like.

I've been taken aback by some of the discussions about wedding budgets. One knot.com thread was posted by a bride asking whether $80 THOUSAND would be enough for a city wedding in this area, followed by many comments skeptical about this idea. Then there are all the blogs about low-cost "budget" weddings which generally seems to mean anyone looking to spend $10,000 or less. I guess I find this shocking because $10,000 is all that I think a wedding, even as the best day of anyone's life, should cost. Why should reaching this goal be a stretch?

I've made a budget of $15,000 for myself, and at least currently perceive that this amount will allow me to have my "dream" wedding, not just a "budget" one. Importantly, I think this cost should include all food, drinks, venue, ceremony, DJ, musicians, officiant, photographer, gifts, and decorations! I already keep careful documentation of all my expenditures, but I thought this blog would be a fun way to keep track of ideas I'm considering and see how close my predictions about cost are!

My fiance and I are extremely busy and I'm overall a no-fuss type of planner. When I see something I like, I can make a decision on the spot and rarely regret it. So here's what we did over the past 2 months:

Ceremony -
I wanted something not too chuch-like (neither of us are religious). We booked MIT's chapel because I've seen it and like the architecture. $250.

Venue -
My family is Chinese so I wanted to have a catered banquet by an authentic restaurant. Some people associate Chinese food with poor quality food courts, but in reality none of the typical plated dinners I've been to at non-Chinese weddings compares to it. I'm imagining 8-10 courses, served piping hot family style, beautifully plated with gourmet ingredients. However, I did not want to use a chinese restaurant because I really dislike the standard red and gold decor. So I sent an email to 3 venues with river views (why not start high) asking what costs would be to allow outside catering. Two didn't respond, and one (hotel in Cambridge) said yes! Fiance and I went to take a look, and decided to book without seeing anywhere else.

Here's their breakdown so far:
$1900 - service fee, including servers, tables, linens, utensils/plates
$3500 - 4.5 hour open bar with top shelf liquors (yes this is quite a deal)
$99 - wedding suite

Photographer -
Did our engagement photos in the snow ($150 for 2 hour shoot) with a local student photographer. I loved her portfolio, and she did such a great job! She's willing to shoot our wedding for $700 but isn't sure yet where she will be after she graduates next year.

Dress -
My plan is to have 2 dresses, one white for the ceremony and one red for the reception. I've bought the white one! It's Pronovias Fedra, and I got it on Ebay for $350. It's beautiful, and the seller was just my same size and height (yes I religiously did bi-weekly searches for dresses with my specs until I found it!) I've always thought I'd buy the white dress used, and plan to resell it after the wedding. I'm more excited about the red on which I will wear for longer throughout dinner and dancing! And I plan to keep it to wear on rare special occasions in the future :)

Notes:
Our non-traditional request probably really saves us on costs though I can't tell you what the cost would be if we booked the hotel's wedding package. We'll see how it works out with food. I think because I was only inquiring about dinner catering, it wasn't apparent that it was for a wedding (I did tell them when we were booking). Not sure how we got such a good deal on drinks, but for other brides, it might be worth negotiating costs.

Also, hiring a student photographer is definitely a plus. I see a lot of stress on the weddingboards around whether to do this, but I really had no qualms. I've never believed that professional is better. This is true in any field (I'm in science, and I know some undergrads who I would rather work with than people who have their Ph.D.'s), and I think it's no different for art. So if I hire an expensive professional and have no guarantees about quality, why not hire a student where I have no guarantee either. There will definitely be a difference in experience (i.e. knowing how to organize people, which shots a bride wants to see in 10 years), but not in quality.

As I get more comfortable with the idea of this blog.. maybe I will post some of the pictures. I'm also unsure whether to give names of venue or services we hire in case they don't want their deals posted so publicly?