UNCOMPROMISING points of planning.

[Gypsy]

We've all mentioned our splurges, or our pet peeves, and our priorties with spending and planning. So let's hear them. What did you refuse to compromise on that's required a (slightly painful) allocation of resources/$$? In other words things you had to have the you compromised in other areas to get.

1. Outdoor ceremony
2. Non-hotel venue (cost us $$)
3. Hosted Bar (wasn't even an option).

 

[largirl]

A venue that was EXACTLY what I wanted. Literally the only thing that could make it better was if the ballroom had wood floors. All the other venues I would have had to compromise something on (i.e. beautiful place for the ceremony but ugly, conference room reception). Included in this were two of my other non-negotiable areas - an outdoor ceremony and a full bar instead of just beer/wine bar. Lucky for me, this venue doesn''t offer a beer/wine option.

What *did* I compromise on? Everything else. DIY flowers, invites, cheap dress....

 

[musey]

1. Photographer

That's it. I didn't really care too much about the rest, so I just picked stuff that I thought would make it fun and a nice atmosphere for all those attending.

Oh, well, I guess I wasn't willing to compromise on the groom, either.

 

[lucy.lucy.80]

1) having our reception overlooking a body of water (ie- river,lake,puddle i didnt care just wanted water

)
2) full top shelf open bar

 

[FrekeChild]

Um, still not engaged but I''ll post it anyway...

1. Blue shoes (Been thinking about this for YEARS)
2. My and his immediate family have to be there
3. Good food
4. Making my own cake (Italian buttercream! Hazelnut/yellow cake with milk chocolate frosting/spice cake for him-all different tiers of cake!)
5. No religious officiant

 

[Neveah]

To get:

1. Venue I loved and food I wanted served (surf and turf)
2. open top shelf bar
3. flowers
4. photographer


I sacrificed:

1. Limo (we''re not having one & using shuttle provided... not really a big deal. Church/Reception is downtown and only 2 blocks from each other)
2. My dress was under 1k. Not the Melissa Sweet I was lusting after... but that''s OKAY! In the end I''d rather put the $$$ into my guests!
3. DIY Menus, Programs, Placecards. Saved a ton!

 

[SarahLovesJS]

1. Photographer
2. Venue - I really want chandeliers if possible. I love them.
3. Trying to spend as little as possible on alcohol since most of our families don''t drink (I''d cut it all together if I could)
4. Politeness and customer service - if I am not getting my money''s worth then I am not going there.
5. Value - I require that everything be at minimum somewhat reasonable.

 

[Harleigh]

Since I told my FI that if we were paying for the wedding ourselves, we could have it wherever he wanted, he chose Maui, soooo, the things I said were non-negotiable were:

Photographer and videographer (which were of course the two very most expensive parts of this wedding)...if only to be able to share with our guests back at the reception in August that weren''t invited and/or able to make it to Maui for the wedding.

Everything else has really been pretty much a crap shoot!

 

[ladyciel]

1) Outdoor ceremony venue - The rental fees for the garden are a huge chunk of our budget. thankfully, we should be able to save a lot on ceremony decorations by having almost none
2) Photographer - We HAD to have somebody we loved who would give us printing rights to the photos. By far the biggest single splurge/expense of the day (but, thankfully, something we will keep forever)

 

[Gwyn]

No room for compromise:

1. No floral carpet in the reception hall - Really limited our choices and, though we ended up with a beautiful venue, it definitly cost us.

2. FI would not compromise on having an outdoor reception

3. Serving Liquor - We looked at several different wineries in Cali that were so beautiful but would only allow us to serve wine or beer or just their wine and toasting champagne.


Compromises:

1. Menu options - i always wanted lobster and steak but more then half of our guests are vegetarian and most of FI''s side (including himself) hates lobster. Out of the whole wedding about 5 people or so would actually chose the option and just having it as an option means ALL of our dinners go up an extra $10 a plate! Not worth it. I will stick with the bacon wrapped filet and have lobster on my honeymoon

2. Dress - I got my dream dress in taffeta instead of silk, cutting the cost of the dress in half!

3. An outdoor reception - it was just too much of a pain to find a nice outdoor stone pavillion or something that would allow us amplified music/liquor/all the other stuff we wanted. We ended up in a nice wine room with open walls that face a lake that the room kind of sits on, we love it!

 

[bee*]

For me the uncompromising parts of planning were:

Having Cabra Castle as our venue no matter what date they had free.
Good food, which is renowned in above castle.
Gospel Choir for the church-D''s cousin had them years ago at her wedding and they blew everyone away.
Having my Manolo Blahnik Sedarabys.
A photographer that can stand up to D''s mother when she''s demanding that her family get another 50 photos-think I''ve found one that can!!

 

[areagirlsbestfriend]

uncompromising was the venue, definitely. the ambiance of a reception venue really sets the mood for the whole party, IMO.

I was willing to sacrifice in terms of food and drink (as in, a buffet or heavy HD dinner and B&W only bar) but the place I ended up booking was not only gorgeous, but gave us a great deal for the package. We ended up with a three course sit down meal, cocktail hour with 15 HDs and cold displays and an open, premium bar. So i didn''t have to sacrifice anything! except my actual date/season, but that wasn''t non-negotiable either.

i''m trying to cut costs with everything else. i think the only other things i don''t want to compromise are the photographer and the dress .. but I have a certain number i''m willing to spend on both, too.

 

[sumbride]

I absolutely HAD to have an outdoor ceremony with no religious overtones. Luckily the outdoor site came FREE with our reception venue. And we hired a Federal Judge as our officiant. It was HOT, and it had been threatening to rain all week, but it literally cooled off an hour before the ceremony and the clouds blew away! We got VERY lucky, but considering that it was my most important thing, I''d like to think the world accommodated ME this time!

I also said we must absolutely have an open bar! That was an easy sell to my parents because they''ve never been to a wedding where alcohol was served that didn''t have that.

I had to have lots of flowers and a big giant cake. And our SPECIFIC music. I said "No violins please!" That was a little tougher to get my mom to agree with, but I really can''t stand high pitched noises so I was very particular about it.

 

[zoebartlett]

Neither my FI or I (or are families) are religious, although I grew up going to a Catholic church. My FI insisted that he didn''t want the ceremony to have religious tones.

Other than that, I can''t think of anything else one of us didn''t compromise on. Well, once we decided on where to have the wedding (near the ocean or in the mountains) and we had found a venue, we were happy with our decision. The decor of the inside of the venue didn''t WOW me but it''s nice and the grounds are beautiful.

Oh, I thought of something else. Originally, when we had considered the mountains, we found one particular hotel that we loved. It''s gorgeous (in a small town, simple kind of way) and the grounds would have been perfect for a tented wedding, with the ceremony outdoors as well. One of the only downsides was that we would have had to choose all of our vendors, as the hotel didn''t have food service. We would have had to bring in our own liquor and find a caterer, etc. We realized that that would have been a pain, especially since we weren''t too familiar with the area. One we actually decided to go the other way and focus on the ocean, we found our venue, which is a restaurant. It was so nice to have everything right there. So I guess that''s something that we ended up not compromising on -- having a full-service venue.

 

[scarlet16]

I had to have a Manhattan wedding with fabulous food and an amazing view. So to afford it (and accommodate a massive guest list), we decided to have a Friday night wedding, which was $70 less per head.

I also had to have an awesome photographer and videographer to capture it.

Because of all that we''re reigning in a little bit on the budget in flowers (I''d have a million roses everywhere if I could), the invitations (probably going semi-DIY instead of something like CeciNY). But I think aside from these two things, even with more money, I''d still plan the wedding exactly as I have already.

 

[dani13]

Date: 3/8/2008 11:30:35 AM
Author: scarlet16
I had to have a Manhattan wedding with fabulous food and an amazing view. So to afford it (and accommodate a massive guest list), we decided to have a Friday night wedding, which was $70 less per head.


I also had to have an awesome photographer and videographer to capture it.


Because of all that we're reigning in a little bit on the budget in flowers (I'd have a million roses everywhere if I could), the invitations (probably going semi-DIY instead of something like CeciNY). But I think aside from these two things, even with more money, I'd still plan the wedding exactly as I have already.

Scarlet-

Where are you getting married?

BTW, we got our wedding DVD fron 5 West Studios this week. Its fabulous and we love it. They did an awesome job!!!

 

[becoming_sadie]

1. He had to have a chuppah (well I guess it is not optional either way).
2. Great photographer.
3. Pretty venue that wouldn''t charge an arm and a leg. Actually the one (cross my fingers). It looks like your typical New England building and had a golf course and it is 6600 for a Sunday wedding in Sept but 30 min outside on the city. So I am really happy!

 

[monarch64]

1. venue (although I DID compromise the day so it was a Sunday wedding instead of a Saturday evening affair...sorry I guess this doesn''t count.)
2. open bar (DH insisted we were not going to shut the bar down during dinner, and that was fine by me, We paid for it ourselves.)
3. nothing else...I budgeted like crazy and found ways around everything to get a very, VERY similar feel to the wedding f our dreams that was just not affordable. Looking back, I would not change one single thing...I didn''t drain anyone in my family, much less ourselves, and things turned out just wonderfully. I loved our wedding, and so did DH.

 

[zoebartlett]

Oh, I thought of one more thing we didn''t compromise on. Actually, my FI and I didn''t really care about this, but my parents insisted on having an open bar for the duration of the reception.

 

[Pandora II]

Invitations - I am paying a huge premium to have my invitations hand-engraved. I know 90% of our guests won''t be able to tell the difference, but I would regret it forever if I didn''t do it!

No religious anything - I have had to compromise on having a humanist ceremony, but I spoke to the registrar last week and it looks like we can work something out that we are all happy with. Hooray!

Good wine - all sorted.

Bespoke dress in silk to my design - sorted, and coming in much cheaper than it would have cost to buy from a bridal shop.

I''m a detail-obsessed control freak and so far everything is going pretty much to plan.

If I was to win the lottery, the only changes I would make would be to spend a lot more money on getting the music perfect, I''m probably going to have to compromise there.

I would also spend even more on decorations and flowers. I would get The Real Flower Company to grow the variety of roses I want in huge quantities just for me!

I''m DIYing the cake, the flowers, the decorations, the favours and the BM''s dresses, but I really enjoy doing it all, and I''m so OCD I''m not sure I even want to pay someone else to do them!

Oh, and I''d send the venue co-ordinator on a holiday a long, long way away for the week before, during and after the wedding!