Budget Tips: Wedding BYOB

Considering that the food and beverage cost for your wedding will be the largest overall expense, it makes sense to think about ways to trim this portion of your budget… without sacrificing service and style, of course!

More and more couples, thus, are choosing to buy their own alcohol (rather than order a package through their caterer or venue) for the festivities. Certainly, having the caterer manage this is much more convenient and spares you from having to make additional decisions about what to serve and how much. However, for the budget conscious, BYOB wedding booze may be a great option. Even if you go this route, the caterer can still provide the bartender (and glassware, napkins, stirrers, etc.) as a part of your contract.



First, you need to have a good estimate of guest attendance. Next, you need to determine what types of beverages are important to you to serve. You can stick with beer & wine, or go for a full-bar, but the more you include, the more it will cost. Other questions to ask:

-          How many hours will you be serving drinks?

-          Do you want to have a champagne toast?

-          If you’re serving liquor, do you want this for before / after-dinner only or for the whole evening?

-          How much do your friends and family like to drink? (Seriously – this is important to know!)

Next – tally it up to figure out quantities. There’s a great wedding alcohol calculator here that makes the math easy, if that’s not your thing.

Call a few local stores (large liquor stores, grocery stores, and even club stores) to get a rough estimate of pricing. Some stores even deliver, but you can also pick up. Just get it to your venue, and make sure that whomever you hired to bartend knows where to find it and what they need to do.

The other bonus of buying your own? If you have a surplus at the end of the evening, it comes back to you! Nothing wrong with starting out your married life with a nicely stocked bar and fridge.

White Wedding Cakes

Elaborate wedding cakes certainly have their place in the world of matrimonial desserts, but right now I just think there's nothing like a beautiful, simple, monochromatic (or anti-chromatic?) all-white wedding cake.

Like these, with just a touch of white floral accents:

Alliance Bakery

Sarah's Pastries and Candies (now closed)

Tipsy Cake

Oak Mill Bakery



Fall 2012 Events for Chicago Brides & Grooms

For Chicagoans just getting started on their wedding planning, here are a few upcoming fall events that will help inspire you!

1) The Green Wedding Alliance and Fork in the Road are putting on a unique event called Partners & Pedals for any bride & groom looking to create a more sustainable wedding - a bike tour on Sunday, September 16th!

There'll be 4 stops on the tour, including potential venues, each featuring vendors committed to being more local, more seasonal, and more handmade. (Tasty treats included!)

We should note the last stop will be Goose Island Brewery... what better way to cap off some afternoon biking and wedding planning than with a cold, local beer?

For more details: http://www.forkandtheroad.com/partners-on-pedals/

source

2) The charitable CS Brides Oak Street Wedding Walk will take place on Sunday, September 23rd and a percent of proceeds will benefit the American Heart Association.

The event features gowns, decor, floral, jewelry and more... and each bride will leave with not one, but two, luxury gift bags.

3) Dimitra's Bridal hosts their semi-annual sample sale from September 13th through 16th.

Savings on designer wedding gowns range from 30 - 70% off the retail price!

Who Pays for What, Traditionally

These days, people pay for their weddings in a myriad of different ways. For some, the bride’s parents foot the bill. For others, both parents contribute. However, for a larger and larger percentage of couples, it’s the brides and grooms themselves who pay for the festivities – about 30% in 2011[i]. There is no right or wrong approach in 2012.

However, there was a time when traditional etiquette dictated who paid for what. I recently came across a couple different lists that outlined all the expenses of getting married and who should pay for what. I imagine most modern couples are flexible and not expecting to stick to such a stringent list of guidelines, but that being said, I still found it interesting to read.

For example, you can probably guess that the “Bride’s Father” (always indicated as the father in these lists, naturally) is traditionally responsible for the bulk of the wedding expenses. After all, women used to come with a “dowry” that would consist of various amounts of money or property to be passed to her husband on marriage, and this tradition likely is an extension of that. So, according to etiquette, the Bride’s Father pays for the ceremony and all the reception expenses, among other things.

However, some things do traditionally fall on the Groom or the Groom’s Father’s shoulders. I was surprised to learn that according to these “rules”, the Groom pays for things like the Bride’s bouquet, boutonnieres for the groomsmen, the marriage license, and the honeymoon. Additionally, and I think this is still pretty common among couples splitting the wedding costs in a traditional way, the Groom’s family pays for the rehearsal dinner.

In our contemporary reality, it seems that these rules are hopelessly out of date. Sure – a Bride’s parents may still want to host the wedding, and that’s great. A Groom’s parents may want to host the rehearsal dinner – wonderful! However, couples should go into their wedding planning with a flexible mindset. If both sets of parents want to contribute to all events, why turn that down? Also, as couples get married later in their twenties and early thirties, it’s reasonable to assume that they would take on a large percentage of the costs themselves.

Etiquette certainly still has a place in this world – and certainly in wedding planning. Nonetheless, there’s a difference between modern etiquette and out-dated rules based on things like the assumption that women belong to their fathers or their husbands, and come pre-packaged with a “bride price”!

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[i] Brides Magazine

Wedding Hair: Long, Wavy & Sideswept

I wore my hair up in a low bun on my wedding day. It was almost a requirement, due to the intense 90 degree heat and the excessive thickness of my mane!

However, I love a long, loose, wavy look. If I could do it all again, I think I'd lean towards this sophisticated and glamorous style.

Some inspiration, courtesy of our red carpet celebrity friends:

Source: brides.com