Limited Budget - Question!

[Kaylyn]

Hello ladies! Happy Tuesday in the land of Pricescope!!! I hope everyone is having a beautiful day today and that your sparklies are looking especially wonderful!!!

Okay, this is my scenario. My wedding will be taking place on a Friday at 7PM. Since it is a Catholic wedding, we are not looking for the reception to start until almost 9. Luckily, the venue is only a ten minute drive from the church!!

My fiancee and I are receiving a lot of financial help from my parents for this wedding. However, we don''t want anything extremely expensive, so we are doing the best we can to keep things inexpensive but beautiful, which often means searching around a lot!!! We are paying for what we can, though, considering we are both in school.

Anyway, back to my question. A big reception dinner was never in the plans. However, we thought maybe we would do the typical meat and cheese trays with buns and salad and of course wedding cake. The only problem with this is that even something that sounds so simple would still end up costing close to $600 to feed everyone. Maybe to some of you this is inexpensive, but for us it is a lot of money.

With this option, we were planning on having a nice reception hour with just the food and the cake.

My second option is to just serve punch and cake, with things like mixed nuts and mints on the tables (which would probably cost less than $200), and be able to have a DJ ($500 is the cheapest). Although we weren''t initially planning on a dance, I kind of had my mind changed about this. I live in an area where wedding dances are the norm, and people expect it. I just attended a wedding with a church basement- cake- and -hors d''ourves- reception, and it was...well...nice...but boring.

So now I''m thinking a dance would be kind of fun. I''m thinking that for most people, by 9 PM you''re not looking for a lot to eat anyway. In my family, supper is over by 6PM. So I''m thinking I might be able to go lighter on the food and be able to afford the DJ.

I love tacky midwest weddings...

I know at first I said I wasn''t going to have a dance, but now it just seems so much more fun and a little bit more romantic to be able to dance with my FH. Plus, our reception hall has a pretty dance floor.

Okay, so the bottom line question is, would I be able to get away with less food to afford the DJ, or is this a bad idea? Just curious...

Thank you for reading this!!!

 

[JCJD]

Hi Kaylyn! Our wedding was also at 7pm on a Friday night, although our reception started at about 8:30 I''d guess. We did hors d''oeuvres and desserts and a wine bar for our reception, and with a 9pm reception start time, you can totally get away with doing a dessert and espresso bar, or dessert and bar, or dessert and punch reception. We wanted to make sure nobody was expecting a meal, so on our website, invites, and programs, we said, "Please join us after the ceremony at XYZ Reception Hall for hors d''oeuvres and dessert." With just hors d''oeuvres, we were able to spend more on quality food, and we got by far the most compliments on our food - our pastor said it was the best food he''s ever had at a wedding! People kept mentioning the food on our video. Also, with the 7pm start time, you can be sure people will have eaten before hand - if you were crazy enough to serve a meal, people wouldn''t be eating until at least 8pm anyways, unless your ceremony is like a minute long!

Do dessert only!! Oh! And if anyone in your families are bakers, you can just order the cake but make brownies, cookies, pies, whatever you like on your own and save more money!

Also, if you have an IPod or even just a laptop, you can rig up some speakers and do the DJing yourself to save more money! We rented speakers and a receiver and still made off $300 less than the cost of a DJ, and several other former BIW''s on here have done this with great results. You can enlist a younger brother or cousin or a friend to be in charge of the playlist at the reception.

 

[ivanadiamond]

I think it is ok to serve just cake and punch, but I would make it really clear to your guests that you are not serving them food and tell them to eat before hand. I think most people will assume if there is a reception afterwads that you are going to feed them.

This is just my 2cents too, but I would also suggest feeding your guests over having a dj, you can download a lot of great music on a IPOD or ask a friend to burn CD''s perhaps to save on your budget and then have the best of both worlds?

 

[codex57]

Let the guests know beforehand and it shouldn''t be a problem. They can all plan on an early dinner before your ceremony so they won''t be starved.

 

[eks6426]

You should be able to do the music part on an IPOD or make your own playlists on CDs. If you ask around you''ll probably find someone with a good speaker system that you could use and do the music for almost nothing. Then you''d have more money to spend on food.

I second the idea on getting people in your family to supplement the cake. They could even make some basic h''orderves such as tea sandwichs, veggie trays, etc. Then maybe hire a server or 2 to set things out and refill the platters. That way all the h''orderves could be dropped off and taken care of before the wedding.

 

[monarch64]

I''m from the midwest as well, and my brother and SIL''s reception (they got married in a package deal in the Smoky Mts.) was in her church basement with no alcohol or dancing. I''ve been to a few weddings like that since friends of mine started getting married...afterward what usually happens is the people who like to "party" go out to a local establishment and celebrate with or without the bride and groom. Whatever fits your budget, will be fine with the friends and family you invite. There''s no sense in going into debt over a wedding, IMO. Don''t worry too much about what everyone else is doing...keep your own perspective and do what''s right for you as a couple.