Wedding Wants

[nkarma]

Yeah.. I've read multiple places that the average wedding costs 30K, and that's averaging across all the states! I live in SoCA.. I'd say it's closer to 50k Venues all want about ~5K just to use their location, and on top of that, they have minimum total costs, fees for everything, licensing and insurances, blah blah blah. Worse, most locations force you to choose vendors from their very short lists. I have a caterer that said she can work with whatever budget I give her, as low as $15/per person, but it's hard to find a venue that allows other caterers.

So backyard it is.

Agreed! I found some places where we could swing the venue rental, but it requires so many people (we just want less than 20!), or so much in food costs, don't allow outside food/drinks. Ugh. Or little B&Bs that require you rent out the WHOLE house in order to use it? It's just so much.

Audball,

Have you looked into restaurants??? I am not in FL but there are hundreds in my area that have private areas for groups from less than 10 to over 100 and everything in between. Claritek stands out as PSer who did a brunch/lunch wedding for a small group if you want to search her threads. Also look into places that do corporate events. Their spaces are usually smaller and event fees more affordable.

Also, I am sure there are many churches out there that don't require you to be a regular to get married there. Heck every church wedding I go to no matter the religion, the couple were not members of any church/synagogue/mosque. There are many religious organizations & pastors/rabbis/etc that realize a large segment of their group are non-practicing.

 

[Chewbacca]

Yikes, very expensive cities you two live in! SO and I live in a tiny run down two bedroom for $980/m - its a total steal for the location though. An apartment in the city (we live on the fringe) would probably run as much as you both describe! Same with wages. It seems insane to me because we are such a small nonevent country. Australia kicks our ass re: cost of living, people are moving there in droves! House prices are skyrocketing here too. WHYYYYYYYY.

Anyway, that made for interesting reading, thanks ladies! Its amazing how much these things differ place to place. SO and I always talk about moving to a small town where house prices are halved!

 

[LoveLikeCrazy]

Yikes, very expensive cities you two live in! SO and I live in a tiny run down two bedroom for $980/m - its a total steal for the location though. An apartment in the city (we live on the fringe) would probably run as much as you both describe! Same with wages. It seems insane to me because we are such a small nonevent country. Australia kicks our a$$ re: cost of living, people are moving there in droves! House prices are skyrocketing here too. WHYYYYYYYY.

Anyway, that made for interesting reading, thanks ladies! Its amazing how much these things differ place to place. SO and I always talk about moving to a small town where house prices are halved!

Ahh us too! Home prices here are outrageous for the area, and we want a new home, not a old home - and that's even trickier bc everything is so built up! So we will stay put till I'm done school then evaluate where I get my permanent job and go from there!

Very very interesting convo!

 

[madelise]

Yikes, very expensive cities you two live in! SO and I live in a tiny run down two bedroom for $980/m - its a total steal for the location though. An apartment in the city (we live on the fringe) would probably run as much as you both describe! Same with wages. It seems insane to me because we are such a small nonevent country. Australia kicks our a$$ re: cost of living, people are moving there in droves! House prices are skyrocketing here too. WHYYYYYYYY.

Anyway, that made for interesting reading, thanks ladies! Its amazing how much these things differ place to place. SO and I always talk about moving to a small town where house prices are halved!

Ahh us too! Home prices here are outrageous for the area, and we want a new home, not a old home - and that's even trickier bc everything is so built up! So we will stay put till I'm done school then evaluate where I get my permanent job and go from there!

Very very interesting convo!

Yeah, I've been bringing up moving into other areas, but SO kind of sealed his own fate when he purchased property to put his warehouse on. We're stuck here, forever!!!! Nooooooooooooo!

 

[MayFlowers]

haha, NYC makes me appreciate LA prices!!

LLC: I believe there's a shift in salary here, but not enough to be proportional to the cost of living. Minimum wage here is $8, as of 2007, as an effort to get it to match the inflation.. but other salaries didn't change. I made $10/hour at my previous job that I was at for 6 years, and roughly $17 (there are pay scale differentials for different shifts, and I'm per diem) an hour at my current, but that's without any benefits or guaranteed hours at all. I think I get paid one of the most out of my friends, even some post-graduation. One of my coworkers has his bachelors and masters degrees in mathematics from USC. Starting pay at some financial firms was less than the pay at our company, so he stayed. At the job where I did hiring, most people were bachelors graduates, and they were fighting for me to hire them at a $9/hour job.

It's why there are so many multidimensional family homes here, and why most of the areas are now predominantly asian or hispanic. The caucasians have mostly moved out of my city. Asian and hispanic families usually stick in multidimensional households culturally, so they can "afford" (ugh, I can't even call it that!) to live here. The middle class white families moved away, and the rich white families never were in my "ghetto" city anyway; they live in the old money area, where the smallest houses are at least $1 mil. I'm sure I've shared this somewhere on PS before, but I live in an apartment condo building thing. Each apartment is separately owned. They are all identical: 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms. Oh crap! I just checked Zillow right now, and the pricing has dropped! They're now estimated to be worth ~400K each. About a year ago, after the housing bubble already crashed, one of the apartments owners passed, and they had it up for sale. It was going for $640-something thousand. At the height of the housing bubble, I've seen it at over $800k. Anyway, sorry, I just got excited from Zillow dork. Anyway! I think we're one of the few families that actually has 4 or less people living in the 3 bed room. My neighbor on the right has 2 30 year old brothers, and their 1 25 year old + 1 18?19? year old cousins, plus two sets of parents. The apartment across from me has a young husband and wife, the husband's mother and both grandparents, and they rent the house out with random partitions everywhere. I think they have over 10 people living in their 3 bedroom. It's almost disgusting. Cross out almost, it is disgusting. It just SUCKS that people have to live like that, but they do.

It's probably a small % of reason why I was able to get such a large e-ring stone. Everyone else across America thinks, "Oh that'd be a great downpayment for a house though!", but it's a joke in our area. People buy cars, purses and jewelry, and they indulge on vacations and eating at fancy restaurants. It's no longer normal to buy homes.

So yeah. I buy myself a bunch of random sh!t to make myself feel better about our crappy lives, but it doesn't mean I'm going anywhere. None of us are.

madelise, I am so sorry that your cost of living is so high! I can see now why you all rent instead of buying. Where I live, BF and I had looked at small apartments around 600 SF with 1 BR and 1 Bathroom that cost around 550-600/month including water/trash/sewer. As for homes in the area, I just did a search for what 700k can buy you here. One home was 10,000 SF on a golf course with plenty of other amenities. Another was in the "prestigious" area of town with 7000 SF and 6 acres of land. I can't believe that there is such a huge difference and it doesn't sound like much of a difference in pay. Minimum wage here is $7.25. From what I have experienced, most jobs here that don't require a degree pay around $11-$13/hour. I just looked up teacher salary in LA's public schools and it actually isn't much more than what I currently make. Crazy...

As for wedding talk, BF and I have pretty much agreed on most of what we want for the wedding. We are both very laid back and pretty introverted. So, it will be a small wedding with less than 50 people. We don't want to invite some of his family as many of you know, and we don't want to invite family that we never see. As for a bridal party, I don't think we are going to end up having one. BF is an introvert and has friends, but none that he would consider close enough to include them as groomsmen. He did have one really good friend that he grew up with, but he has been having issues with drugs recently and so BF hasn't talked to him in a while. He did want his brother to be his best man, but since he passed away, BF was really upset about having a bridal party. I had only planned to include my sisters as BM's and I'm sure they will still help me out and do BM jobs with me. They just won't be titled as "bridesmaid".

I'm pretty sure I know the venue for the ceremony, but I haven't staked anything else out yet. We both want more of a buffet dinner with appetizers and finger foods. We don't want it to be formal, but also not super casual. We will definitely have alcohol, but it won't be a completely open bar because that is just so expensive.

 

[audball]

Have you looked into restaurants??? I am not in FL but there are hundreds in my area that have private areas for groups from less than 10 to over 100 and everything in between. Claritek stands out as PSer who did a brunch/lunch wedding for a small group if you want to search her threads. Also look into places that do corporate events. Their spaces are usually smaller and event fees more affordable.

Also, I am sure there are many churches out there that don't require you to be a regular to get married there. Heck every church wedding I go to no matter the religion, the couple were not members of any church/synagogue/mosque. There are many religious organizations & pastors/rabbis/etc that realize a large segment of their group are non-practicing.

Not seriously thus far since we aren't officially engaged yet. It is an option, I guess. A lot of the restaurants I know of in my area that have private rooms are mostly dinner based restaurants. We're not sure we'd want to do dinner (as lunch or brunch would be more our style). We don't want a drinking/dance party evening reception of any kind. It's just not us.

There is one place that does a lovely Sunday brunch in downtown on the water. I'm not sure if we could afford it though as the room is large enough to hold a 200+ wedding and we're talking a very small party of 40ish or less. We will definitely look into other local options, including restaurants, though!