24
February
Blog
Congratulations you just got engaged and now you have a wedding to plan. Like most newly engaged you immediately go online and dive into the world of everything wedding. You might fall down a Pinterest thread for 4 hours. You will coe across so many beautiful photos of dream weddings and this will help you decide what type of wedding you would like. You may have had your wredding planned since you were 10 or you might need some inspiration. That is what all these amazing photos are for. However, the big question always falls to how much is it?? Almost all couples have a wedding budget of some sort and what you need to figure out is how much do you want to spend on each part of your wedding.
The first thing I tell brides, is that you should be thinking of your wedding as a pie. Now cut that pie in three. One part is decor, one part is food & beverage and the third part is everything else. Now, depending on where your priorities lay- those three pie pieces get bigger or smaller and adjust accordingly. Then I tell my clients, whatever image you’re looking at… whatever dollar figure pops into your head, times that by 3. BUT! There is a big BUT here. I have designed and planned absolutely stunning weddings for budgets from 20k which can look as beautiful as a wedding you might see in a magazine with a 50k decor budget only. The secret lies in years of experience and a few tricks of the trade. Take a look at the photo below, this wedding was a high budget wedding. Each table had a very large fresh floral centerpiece. The chandaliers were made of fresh Orchids and we had to rent a refigerated truck for all of the floral to be kept in and the floral designers worked for 2 days on this installation. Yet you can get this type of “look” for less.
If you wanted to replicate this but didn’t have a 20k budget just for florals. I would tell you to keep this design for 1/3 of your guests, and the rest of the tables to something simple and tasteful like floating candles in water with a few tossed blooms and greenery. That would reduce your decor cost by 30%. Now if you’re loving this design, but don’t have the budget I’ll tell you think about doing this design for the head table and family “honor tables” only. Leaving simple decor for the rest of the reception tables. Its’ a design principal I’ve been using for years and with fore-thought and intention we can make your wedding absolutely stunning while being budget conscious.
I did have a couple that wanted the same look as the photo above but, different venue and a smaller budget. So the florals are smaller but the “look” is still very similar for a fraction of the cost. This is one advantage of hiring an experienced wedding and event planner. We know all of the tricks to save you money in the long run and still get the look that you really want.
So next time you look at beautiful decor pictures on Pintrest, keep in mind that it’s probably three times more expensive than what you think, but that it can be possible if you’re open-minded.