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gtn

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Hey all, I was wondering if you ladies would mind sharing how much you paid for your:

Centerpieces per table
bm''s gifts per person
groomsmen''s gift per person
invites for the envelope/invite/rsvp/direction card

I am still trying to budget for those things and I am trying to figure out how much I should try to put aside for these items.
 
Hi can I add one thing to your list if you don''t mind? Average cost of bouquets? :) Thanks in advance!
 
Sarah, add away. I would like to know too!
 
I''ve priced bouquets out at about 150-200 dollars, depending on the flowers and the metro area.

Centerpieces are a lot harder. As much as 250-300 each, as little as 50 or 60 each.

We''re only having one groomsman, and we''re giving him an heirloom (mens) diamond ring.

We''re only having one BM-- maid of honor actually-- and I''m going to get her some jewelry, but not sure what yet.

Invites REALLY depend as well on what you are looking for. I would go and do a quick pricing calculation on weddingpaperdivas for your quanity and enclosures and then another at invitationconsultants.com (great site as well) to see what you are looking at in terms of pricing. You can get as little as 1 each if you print yourself and buy stock from Michaels at 50% off, or as much as 10-15 a EACH.

BM bouquets are about 40-75 normally.

Bouts are around 7-15 each.
 
I''m doing my own centerpieces, mostly because I was too afraid of what a florist would charge. I got 30 of those low, wide bowls made for floating candles & flowers in for $2.50 each on sale. I got 100 small floating candles for $20. I''m ordering 30 floating gardenias from 2groses online for $170, including shipping. So a centerpiece of a bowl with three little floating candles and a gardenia is about $9. An insistent florist (who told me I wasn''t going to want to do all the work of making my own centerpieces) quoted me $30 each for the same thing. I''m willing to save $500 to put some bowls on the table, fill them with water, and throw the flowers and candles in. So, the moral of the story is, if you feel like making your own centerpieces (provided you''re doing something relatively simple) you can save quite a bit of money.

My bouquet was priced anywhere from $175 to $300. It''s going to be white roses with stephanotis and gardenias. Stephanotis & gardenias are rather expensive flowers, so that ran up the price quite a bit (as opposed to what a simple white rose bouquet would cost).

White rose boutonnieres for the groomsmen, dads & ushers were quoted to me around $10. The groom''s boutonniere, which is a white rose with a stephanotis, is $15.

I got my bridesmaids Coach wristlets at an outlet for about $35 each. There is quite a bit of variance here -- it depends more on what you want to get them and what you''re willing to spend.

Invitations are tough to price because there''s so much variance in what you can get. I second the invitationconsultants.com suggestion -- the pricing is extremely transparent. You select the number of invitations, response cards and reception cards you need, as well as the turnaround time you want, and it tells you the price right there. Many other websites list the price for each element and you have to add things up as you go, which is rather frustrating. I''m a big fan of invitationconsultants -- we ordered both our save-the-dates and our invitations from them.

I hope all this was helpful -- it''s difficult to nail down exact prices for a lot of these kinds of things. It all depends on what you want and what you are willing to spend, mostly.
 
Date: 2/9/2008 8:51:37 AM
Author: staceybelle
I''m doing my own centerpieces, mostly because I was too afraid of what a florist would charge. I got 30 of those low, wide bowls made for floating candles & flowers in for $2.50 each on sale. I got 100 small floating candles for $20. I''m ordering 30 floating gardenias from 2groses online for $170, including shipping. So a centerpiece of a bowl with three little floating candles and a gardenia is about $9. An insistent florist (who told me I wasn''t going to want to do all the work of making my own centerpieces) quoted me $30 each for the same thing. I''m willing to save $500 to put some bowls on the table, fill them with water, and throw the flowers and candles in. So, the moral of the story is, if you feel like making your own centerpieces (provided you''re doing something relatively simple) you can save quite a bit of money.


My bouquet was priced anywhere from $175 to $300. It''s going to be white roses with stephanotis and gardenias. Stephanotis & gardenias are rather expensive flowers, so that ran up the price quite a bit (as opposed to what a simple white rose bouquet would cost).


White rose boutonnieres for the groomsmen, dads & ushers were quoted to me around $10. The groom''s boutonniere, which is a white rose with a stephanotis, is $15.


I got my bridesmaids Coach wristlets at an outlet for about $35 each. There is quite a bit of variance here -- it depends more on what you want to get them and what you''re willing to spend.


Invitations are tough to price because there''s so much variance in what you can get. I second the invitationconsultants.com suggestion -- the pricing is extremely transparent. You select the number of invitations, response cards and reception cards you need, as well as the turnaround time you want, and it tells you the price right there. Many other websites list the price for each element and you have to add things up as you go, which is rather frustrating. I''m a big fan of invitationconsultants -- we ordered both our save-the-dates and our invitations from them.


I hope all this was helpful -- it''s difficult to nail down exact prices for a lot of these kinds of things. It all depends on what you want and what you are willing to spend, mostly.
Click to expand...


Coach wristlets are a great idea! Mind if I borrow it like 2 years from now? Haha.
 
Haha! Why on earth would I mind?
 
Centerpieces - our venue is providing simple flowers, so we won''t have them, but the arrangements the florist will do for a couple of spots around the room are around US$90

BM gifts - I have 7, I spent about $50-60 / per girl, but bought on sale after christmas, so the gifts are ''twice as nice'' They haven''t done anything, helped with anything (except one), or bought anything... no dress... so it''s basically a ''thanks for being my good pal'' gift.

GM gifts - Not sure FI''s thought about this yet.

Invites - cardstock with folder, ribbon, & envelope - $3 each, RSVP with envelope - 50 cents each

Bouquet - around $250 with black callas, peacock feathers, etc.
 
Centerpieces: $175 per table for a ring of orange lilies surrounding tall green dendrobrium orchids, in a tall vase

Bouquet: $165 for orange lilies, orange roses, green cymbidium orchids (Please forgive me, btw, if i''m butchering these flower names)

Wedding party: n/a, not having one. will probably spend $200 or so on some earrings for my sis

Invites: about $5/each for invite, response card, reception card from White Aisle (a company I give mixed reviews to)
 
Hmmm... I wonder if I''m overpaying for my flowers. Everything else seems so much cheaper in my home city. I wonder why I''m paying $20 for the bout and $250 for the bouquet.
 
Centerpieces: $18 each
Lantern-$10
Candle - $5
Cranberries - $3

MOH (only bridesmaid) - $250 for a purse that she loves (we also paid for lodging for her and guest)
Groomsmen gifts (2) - $100 per gift (we also paid for the tux rentals)

Flowers: $120 for my bouquet--mango calla lillies, various shades of red roses and red hypericum
$85 for bridesmaid bouquet -- red and orange roses
$12 per boutiniere (mango lilly or roses) and $25 per corsage.

Invites: $6 for the invite, RSVP card, direction card with inner and outer envelopes (and envelopes for RSVPs with our address printed)
 
Peonies are out of season for me and english garden roses aren''t cheap so we have to be creative... Pricing really depends on flower choices and availability.

So far I''ve gotten one quote back out of three florists. This is a ''fancier'' more reputable florist who has a shop vs working out of her home. Here''s what she quoted me:

Centerpieces:
Each table is to receive two tea pots, three creams, and three sugars provided by client. There are 8 tables as of now:
16 teapots filled with boutique roses, large headed roses, dahlias, feathers, stock, sweat peas and perhaps mini carnations.
$35.00ea - $560.00 total
24 creamers filled with a single floral such as a rose, carnation, dahlia, stock or sweat peas. $22.00ea - $528.00 total
24 Sugars filled with a single floral such as a rose, carnation, stock, sweat peas, or dahlia. $22.00ea - $528.00 total

To cut back on cost my planner and I worked out that we can actually do 1 creamer, 2 teapots and 1 sugar (since we''re adding candy dishes and candles). So instead of $202 per table it''s about $114 per table. I had to buy the teapot, creamer and sugar from ebay though, silverplate antique. I probably spent $10 on avg per teapot, maybe $5 or less per cream and sugar (the shipping really gets you on ebay though costs more than the items do!) So add on say $50 more for that and it totals out to be $164 a table.

Boquets:
For the bridal boquet:
Bridal Bouquet: $225.00
English clutch style bouquet composed of ivory Fair Bianca roses. Stem treatment still to be decided.
Bridesmaids: $100.00 ea - $200 total
Nosegay composed of muted pink garden boutique roses as well as large headed roses. Stem treatment still to be decided.
Jr Bridesmaid: $45
Man of honor: $22 boutonniere
Groom, 3 Groomsmen, 2 Fathers, 1 Brother = $22 ea
Ring bearer: $12.50
Mother of the Bride, Mother of the groom, Grandma, Sister = $28 each

Invites incl all inserts (except RSVP which will be online) = $9-$10 per invite, ordering 60, handmade from http://www.penelopepaperie.com - Online RSVP saves me like a hundred bucks, no postage, no extra envelopes, cards etc.
 
Right now on Platinum Weddings they are spending $8,500 per centerpiece.
6.gif
I''ll be lucky if I can spend that for my whole wedding.
 
my bouquet will probably run around $300, which is average for the florists I looked at in the city. it is also quite big (approx 40 stems plus greens), but i needed something substantial b/c the dress is pretty simple and small-scale. bouquet is black magic roses, circus roses, message (ivory) roses, dark flame callas, orange ranunculus and pale yellow cymbidium orchids with seeded euchalyptus.
BM bouquets will run around $85. they are the 3 types of roses from my flowers plus hypericum berries.
High centerpieces will be around $175, with the low ones at around $125. This was the lowest I found for what I wanted.
Like invites, flowers are a lot about what you want and how work-intensive that is. Prices are also relative to place and time. Because of the way our wedding is set up logistically (the ceremony and reception are in the same room with a turnover of the room during cocktail hour), there was no opportunity to DIY centerpieces, so that meant that my invites will have to fit within a much tighter budget -- they will probably be around $3-4/piece since we won''t be doing a separate reception card and will just refer people to the website for other info.

AceP -- I am thinking of using whiteaisle for invites. I''d appreciate any insight you have. Your earlier review of them (https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/white-aisle.74259/) was quite favorable. Should I be concerned?
 
Date: 2/10/2008 5:57:34 PM
Author: enbcfsobe
my bouquet will probably run around $300, which is average for the florists I looked at in the city. it is also quite big (approx 40 stems plus greens), but i needed something substantial b/c the dress is pretty simple and small-scale. bouquet is black magic roses, circus roses, message (ivory) roses, dark flame callas, orange ranunculus and pale yellow cymbidium orchids with seeded euchalyptus.

BM bouquets will run around $85. they are the 3 types of roses from my flowers plus hypericum berries.

High centerpieces will be around $175, with the low ones at around $125. This was the lowest I found for what I wanted.

Like invites, flowers are a lot about what you want and how work-intensive that is. Prices are also relative to place and time. Because of the way our wedding is set up logistically (the ceremony and reception are in the same room with a turnover of the room during cocktail hour), there was no opportunity to DIY centerpieces, so that meant that my invites will have to fit within a much tighter budget -- they will probably be around $3-4/piece since we won''t be doing a separate reception card and will just refer people to the website for other info.


AceP -- I am thinking of using whiteaisle for invites. I''d appreciate any insight you have. Your earlier review of them (https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/white-aisle.74259/) was quite favorable. Should I be concerned?
Click to expand...


Yup, initially i was very happy with them. But there were a couple of little snafus. first, i wanted orange text and orange "garland" - the decorative element on my invite (called shanghai). they told me they didn''t do the text in orange b/c they were afraid it was too light, and could do orange garland, dark orange text. fine. but when it came, the text was really quite reddish - much more so than in the pdf they sent. and, the orange i originally wanted would have been just fine for the text - it was plenty dark. so, no big deal, water under the bridge - then i ordered matching thank-you notes. i said, since the orange clearly would have been just fine and readable for the text, let''s do garland and text in the same lighter orange on the notes. okay, so i get them, and they''re indeed monochromatic, but the darker reddish orange shade, not the lighter true orange. when i emailed to ask, i was told that i was wrong, that was indeed the lighter shade and sometimes dye lots come out different. which i understand, but i held the thank-you next to the invite and it was very clearly the darker reddish color. which is what i responded to them, and they just never bothered to reply - pretty unprofessional.

so... to sum up, i think the products are great for the prices. it''s very hard to find non-cheesy invites for less than $8-$10 each, and these fit the bill. i also liked that they were large. and my fiance and i lined the envelopes - so they really ended up looking great. but in the end i''m not sure i''d use them again. or, i''d stick to black on white, or a more clear-cut color combo. does that help?
 
aceP -- thanks for the info. that is helpful. i think we are doing either black or brown, so hopefully we shouldn''t have an issue with the printing colors. i did notice that on the samples the ink colors for different runs (they had diff names, so they were clearly not printed at the same time) were different. i will make a note to purchase everything at 1 time if we go with them to ensure that things come out the same color.
 
Thank you all for replying. I have to admit, I am suffering from a little bit of sticker shock. I had no idea that florist charge so much centerpieces, bouquets and bouts. I think I am going to diy the centerpieces or buy orchids ($14 at costco). I will be having 300 guest (we both have large families) and I would rather spend my money on attendant gifts, photographers, cake, etc.

As for the invites I am thinking of these

For the bridesmaids gifts, I was thinking of elsa peretti mongram necklaces, but it is quite expensive ($150/necklace). I like the idea of the coach wristlettes, but I have too many friend who have done that so I might need to nix that idea. I know that a gift isn''t required, but I don''t want to be one of those girls who give the "useless" gift that gets pushed to the back of the closet. I once got a gift that looked like the bride went clearance shopping at the dollar store.

I guess I now I should try to figure out what I should be getting for the bm''s. I want to do cuff links engraved with their initials for the guys.
 
Date: 2/11/2008 1:49:20 AM
Author: gtn
Thank you all for replying. I have to admit, I am suffering from a little bit of sticker shock. I had no idea that florist charge so much centerpieces, bouquets and bouts. I think I am going to diy the centerpieces or buy orchids ($14 at costco). I will be having 300 guest (we both have large families) and I would rather spend my money on attendant gifts, photographers, cake, etc.


As for the invites I am thinking of these


For the bridesmaids gifts, I was thinking of elsa peretti mongram necklaces, but it is quite expensive ($150/necklace). I like the idea of the coach wristlettes, but I have too many friend who have done that so I might need to nix that idea. I know that a gift isn''t required, but I don''t want to be one of those girls who give the ''useless'' gift that gets pushed to the back of the closet. I once got a gift that looked like the bride went clearance shopping at the dollar store.


I guess I now I should try to figure out what I should be getting for the bm''s. I want to do cuff links engraved with their initials for the guys.
Click to expand...


Hmmm...I really like the necklace idea. What about charms and then they could buy their own chain? Do you think that would work? Eh I guess it couldn''t cut that much off. It''s worth a try though.
 
www.raru.com does custom initial pendants -- their site lists single initials starting at 60 in sterling. they will do an online quote. i ended up going with a different project altogether (gemstones instead of a monogram), but they were very responsive and emailed a sketch.

good find on the costco invites -- those look like a great deal for an expensive look!
their letterpress invites looked like a great deal too until i saw that the rsvps cost more than the invitations!!

i had serious sticker shock too. everything is a tradeoff. i still feel like i am spending more than i wanted to on certain things, but i am saving in other parts of my budget. i also keep reminding myself that i have not once picked the most expensive choice, or even close to it. it just all adds up so quickly.
 
Date: 2/11/2008 11:21:47 AM
Author: enbcfsobe
www.raru.com does custom initial pendants -- their site lists single initials starting at 60 in sterling. they will do an online quote. i ended up going with a different project altogether (gemstones instead of a monogram), but they were very responsive and emailed a sketch.


good find on the costco invites -- those look like a great deal for an expensive look!

their letterpress invites looked like a great deal too until i saw that the rsvps cost more than the invitations!!


i had serious sticker shock too. everything is a tradeoff. i still feel like i am spending more than i wanted to on certain things, but i am saving in other parts of my budget. i also keep reminding myself that i have not once picked the most expensive choice, or even close to it. it just all adds up so quickly.
Click to expand...


great find on the necklaces. I like some of the tiffany pieces, but not all of them. I didn''t like the a and o which I would need.

I know what you mean about the invites. I thought that was odd too. One of my bm''s did her own flowers, maybe I can have her help diy some bouquets.
 
If the church would let me, I just might do that.
 
if the candles are an issue take a look at the LED lights. you could also think about adding lanterns to some of your tables -- that could become a theme and could jazz up some simple flowers.
 
That is true, I could used the LED candles. It''s so funny, if it wasn''t for me, I would have recommended the LED candles, but when it comes to me, I can''t think of anything to save my life. I was also thinking of doing votive candles like these with a custom logo as favors.

americanbridal_1984_475202588 candles.jpg
 
This is inspired by another thread, but: photographer? I have quotes ranging from about 4000 to 9000. $9000 seems just a little crazy to me. Is that unreasonably high? Photography is REALLY important to me, but I think $6000 is more reasonable. So anyway, what are you spending?
 
I feel I'm getting a great value at 5,000 (including tax).

2 photographers
shooting unlimted film
for eight hours
plus an engagment session
In the SF bay area ($$$$$$)

I'm thrilled. I found my photographers three years ago, and they are just wonderful. I love the fact that they shoot film. And their style really suits us.
 
gypsy, your photographer shoots in film? That is awesome. I am working on getting quotes for photographers now. My friends have paid on average $7000 on photos, all in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sarah, where are you having your wedding? What type of pictures are you hoping for. Also, I think you should ask for recommendations from the photographer. My friend went with a photographer/videographer team and if they had to do it again, they would find another photographer. It took, their photographer over a year to complete their wedding album.
 
My guy is 5k for the whole day.
Free engagement photo session.
Photo album incl in fee.

http://www.jeffnewsom.com - Check out his wedding photos but in particular check out his blog. He was booked a year out when I called him.

His work is amazing. One of his photos was used for an ad in Martha Stewart Weddings and In Style weddings. I found him online by luck. He's traveling here from San Luis Obispo. No travel feeds, no accomodation fees.
 
Prices in CAD, sorry.

Bride's bouquet: 125$
BM's bouquets: 65$ each
Groom's bout: 12$
GM's bouts: 8$ each
Corsages: 9$ each
Centerpieces: 30$ each
Gifts: No more than 50$ each
Invites: 60$ for the DIY kit and 15$ for the extra cards, so 1,50$ per invite.
Photographer: 1230$ for 8 hours, the album, an HD CD and 60 thank-you cards (I did see someone charging 20k at the bridal fair, though!
23.gif
)
 
Date: 2/12/2008 2:55:30 AM
Author: gtn
gypsy, your photographer shoots in film? That is awesome. I am working on getting quotes for photographers now. My friends have paid on average $7000 on photos, all in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sarah, where are you having your wedding? What type of pictures are you hoping for. Also, I think you should ask for recommendations from the photographer. My friend went with a photographer/videographer team and if they had to do it again, they would find another photographer. It took, their photographer over a year to complete their wedding album.
Click to expand...

It''s going to be in Virginia, probably central Virginia. I really want the photo-journalistic style photos with some traditional thrown in. I am kind of an amateur photographer myself, so it''s sooo important to me. They need to look at least like photos I would take, preferably much better since they have an expensive better camera and are more experienced than I am. My quotes include engagement sessions and bridal portraits. Wow one year? That''s so long! Hmm that''s a question I should start asking, how long it takes to complete the album.
 
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