A Man’s Perspective on Pulling Off a Cheap Wedding
If you are lucky enough to not have a bridezilla for a fiancÃ?© then you may have a fighting chance. Certainly, every woman has dreams of their Special Day that have been forming and coalescing since they were little girls. Dreams of tastefully elegant surroundings, beautiful dresses, photographers, perfect weather, horse-drawn carriages and magical romance have filled the head of every young woman since they saw Cinderella when they were five. A five billion dollar industry, supported by a slew of magazines devoted to that one Special Day, have reinforced the idea that a perfect wedding costs a small fortune, and anything less denotes a dismal failure on the part of the bride. But what many men don’t realize is that the actual execution of this elaborate party may be more negotiable than you think.
Face it: the night you pop the question, on bended knee or on a sports scoreboard, you have made the last free and unfettered decision you will likely ever make. What follows may be a whirlwind of romance that confirms your every dream about this special woman. Or it may be a spiraling whirlpool of despair as you see your fiancÃ?©’s inner-dictator spring to life. Your first step is neither to backpedal, and try to weasel out of it, but neither is it to capitulate to her every expensive whim and unreasonable desire. Start out your new life by firmly adding a codicil to your proposal: I want to do this right, but this is my day as much as it is yours. I want input and veto power over the ceremony, or I’m not going to be happy about it. Remember: engagement is also a military term. Approach your tactics accordingly. Do not, under any circumstances, tell her that it’s your way or the highway, because that will not only insecure about the wedding, it will also call into question your level of commitment to the relationship. Save the ultimatums for later: you’re going to need them.
After you have expressed the desire to be involved, no matter how painful that prospect is, make sure that you and your bride-to-be sit down and do some planning before her mother gets involved – or your mother, for that matter. If possible, do this before you even tell them. As well meaning as the best mothers are, they still think of their children as snot-nosed little kids who couldn’t plan a five-year-old’s birthday party, much less the most important party of your life. Head them off at the pass by presenting them with a complete outline of what you want to do and how you want to do it. By taking this proactive step you have put them on the defensive, making them respond to your wishes as opposed to them filling the planning vacuum with their own idle ideas about how your wedding should be. When you and your fiancÃ?© have your first wedding planning meeting, do yourself a favor and get matching notebooks for the occasion, which she will likely take as an affirmation that you are soulmates and truly committed to the idea of matrimony. In actuality, you want to write everything down for evidence later. There is nothing worse than a seething bride who declares, “I told you from the beginning that . . .” when you know for a fact she never mentioned her desire for a horse-drawn carriage. When you can refer to a dated sheet in your notebook as proof you may not improve the tenor of the conversation, but you can ensure that she won’t steamroll you into paying for stuff she never mentioned.
No doubt her idea of the perfect wedding is very different than yours. Be prepared to compromise on what is essential for your mutual happiness, what is merely a nice idea, and what would make either of you unhappy. Make up a worksheet that you can use to plan the essentials. Make several copies, as this will be a living work that will change as your planning progresses. Use the worksheet to cost everything out. For the first round, go ahead and let your mutual imagination run wild – you haven’t had to pay for anything yet, and it’s best to let her get her most unrealistic fantasies out in the open before the checkbook comes out.
If possible, try to attend a bridal show together. These things are held in elegant hotels and convention centers every few months. Track one down and propose making a day out if it. Sure, you would rather have a root canal, but there are some definite perks to the practice, starting with getting accurate pricing information. But the most important thing you will accomplish is letting her get her bridal ya-yas out.
Pick out five tasteful and cheap things that you like. Write them down. These are bargaining chips. Let her visit every booth, sample every cake (practice the phrase, “It’s wedding cake, honey, the love takes out all the calories”) and interview every floral designer in the joint. If possible, let her try on dresses. Take a digital camera and take lots and lots of photos of her favorite dresses. These will be used later. Most importantly, get business cards from every vendor and file them in your notebook. Never, ever, even once should you complain about the experience. Complaining means you have lost control.
Afterwards, go out to a nice dinner, discuss some ideas, and quickly move the conversation towards how happy you will be together. If you are agile and adept, you may parlay her romantic feelings into some extra-special premarital sex for the evening.
Entertain her wildest whims with a warm, murmured, “Oh, that would be so nice, wouldn’t it?” or a sharp “that was the most romantic idea I think I ever heard.” Don’t discourage her yet – she’s brainstorming, and out of that fog of wacky ideas may come a few low-cost gems you can bargain with later. Do your own brainstorming, and be sure to include your wildest fantasies as well. Don’t let her ruin your dreams – remind her that you are merely thinking out loud, trying to engage the creative process. Make certain that you pick out one wild, expensive thing for yourself – say, renting a fifteen-piece live-music combo to play your favorite song at the reception, or how you would really love to have clowns entertain at the reception, or a romantic honeymoon in the jungles of Madagascar. You won’t have a chance at doing it, of course, but placing one of your whoppers on the table right up front gives you leverage in the negotiations that follow. When she insists on the horse-drawn carriage, insist on the jungle safari. Be stubborn. Do not budge until she backs down.
Make sure you price everything out for that first worksheet. Round up on the numbers, and make sure you include how much lost revenue you both will have due to missing work for planning and execution. Total up the numbers and be prepared: likely it will come to tens of thousands of dollars. That’s when you close the notebook quietly and whisper, “I had no idea. That’s enough to put a down payment on a house. A really nice house.” Kiss her thoughtfully and walk away. Refuse to discuss the matter again for at least a week. During that time she will likely be wondering whether or not you are going to bolt. Let her sweat.
When you revisit the matching notebooks, do it casually – and make sure you are the one to bring it up. “I was thinking about the wedding, honey, and I’ve got a few ideas – you want to discuss it?” There hasn’t been a woman born who wouldn’t leap eagerly on that opportunity. Show her a pre-prepared list of the most basic, cut-down wedding you can plan – a step above City Hall, but just. When she looks at it, speechless, and goes pale, assure her, “I know. It saves a lot of money, but that isn’t how I want to start out our marriage. I mean, can you imagine anything more disappointing?” Then show a revised list, based on how much you estimate you can actually get away with, and begin to bargain: white doves, out. White balloons, in. South American Orchids, out. White roses, in. Put in everything that you think is reasonable. She will probably still be recovering from the shock of your bare-bones proposal, and be thankful enough that you aren’t a thoroughly unromantic miser to be willing to listen to you seriously.
When you total up the revised plan, it will probably be an order of magnitude lower than the Donald Trump monstrosity that you started with. But it will still not be up to her standards, and you can expect her to add at least another 50% increase to your budget. Don’t panic. It’s only the first quarter. Let her add everything that she thinks is essential, price it out, and write it down.
During the long negotiating process, fake an interest in things like the cake and the flowers and the music. Find out what really matters to her, and what she can do without. Then start scheming.
Your first hurdle is setting a date. There are advantages to Spring and Summer weddings, of course – out door venues tend to be less expensive, but unpredictable weather issues can be a drawback. Winter weddings, especially those around the holidays, likewise have their plusses and minuses. One big plus is that around the holidays you are more likely to have distant relatives and high school buddies in town anyway, which will cut down on the inevitable grumbling about taking time off from work. If your wedding is just one more fete in a long list of holiday parties, your friends and family will be more comfortable and more casual than if it was the focus of the whole month. But be willing to be flexible about the date, at this initial stage. Pick a season, not a specific date, as you will have to negotiate with a number of scheduling issues yet, and having the flexibility to change as you go is invaluable.
After a date, your next obstacle is finding an appropriate venue for the wedding and the reception. Your best bet is to find one that has facilities for both, thus reducing rental charges and keeping your logistics simple. Pass right over country clubs – expensive for non-members. Likewise, hotels are hardly romantic, unless you find some recently-restored grand old hotel, full of 19th century splendor. A good place to start looking is actually your local Parks and Recreation Department. Many municipal parks departments have perfectly splendid facilities that have plenty of parking, adequate restroom and dining facilities, and still maintain enough of natural splendor to make a gorgeous backdrop for your nuptials. Often these facilities are far, far less expensive than comparable commercial areas – if booked far enough in advance. If you elect to have your wedding at a church – people still do that – it is likely that the fellowship hall will be ideal for a reception, and can be rented fairly inexpensively. Check out their policies on alcohol, however, as some places restrict it entirely or require the presence of a law-enforcement officer.
Consider a historically themed wedding. Yes, it seems unmanly – but the possibilities are outstanding for cutting costs. 19th Century Romantic, 19th Century Western, Medieval English, French country peasant, even Ante-bellum South are entertaining themes that have interesting facets that can save you money by eliminating some of the idiotic customs that have evolved into the modern wedding. You can always point out that they didn’t have caviar in the 14th century, or that more than one bridesmaid was uncustomary in 1850 South Carolina. Use your imagination.
Wedding invitations are extremely expensive when ordered from a professional printer. Yet there is no magic in the process or the paper. Do yourself a favor and design your own. Then spend an afternoon at a full service print shop and produce them yourself. You will save about 75% of what you would have spent on the printer’s package. It also gives you a chance to express yourself, establish a theme, and give your guests an idea of what to expect.
You both have plenty of friends and relatives, or you wouldn’t be having a big wedding. Use them like rented mules. Delegate responsibility to one person and give them a budget and some idea how to spend it. Use a website and email lists to coordinate – indeed, an official wedding website, complete with maps and pictures and requests for assistance, is invaluable for coordinating a wedding, and it severely cuts down on the number of phone calls in the days before the show. It also keeps your delegated help in line. Check back at least three times to make sure there are no issues. Put one person in charge of the decorations, one for flowers, one for the reception food, one for the music, one for the ceremony, one for the honeymoon prep, and one for mundane issues like parking and running out of toilet paper. Also delegate one person, preferably a tough-looking guy and a strong willed woman, as masters-at-arms. Their job is to make sure that Uncle Erwin doesn’t start pinching bridesmaids on the ass after he’s had a few, or that Aunt Becky doesn’t get trashed and start talking about what a tramp your new bride is. At the first sign of trouble these people should swoop down and politely ask the offender to come outside and help them with something.
Your costs are going to multiply with the number of attendants you have. Try to limit them, or, better yet, eliminate them altogether. While your friends and family may be honored, they will also be under a financial burden that will cause bitter resentment after they have paid for a dress/tux, wedding present, bachelor/ bachelorette party, transportation, possible hotel room, and all that crap. That doesn’t mean they cannot feel included – there are simply other ways in which you may honor them and yet save both of you some money. Consider writing your own vows (or having them custom written) and making certain that the most important people in your life have small but key roles in the ceremony.
The wedding cake is bound to be a problem. In recent years it has become traditional to have a groom’s cake, as well as the main wedding cake. Instead of one giant, expensive, mediocre tasting cake, try doing multiple cakes, instead. Everyone has a mother, grandmother, aunt, or cousin that is known for their baking. Divide up the task between them, and make each cake a different theme about your marriage: Love, Respect, Patience, Passion, Honesty, etc. It gives them a way to participate, it makes your reception look classy, and it won’t cost you a dime. It also ensures that everyone has at least one kind of cake that they like. Just make sure you meet with them before hand and spell out exactly what you want. Most good bakers will rise to the challenge, and they all appreciate a little card next to the cake with a blurb about their attribute, perhaps with a poem, and a little “this cake was lovingly given to the couple by Bob’s Aunt Gertrude”.
As far as the meal goes, buffet is definitely the cheaper and easier option. Sit down dinners require massive planning and perfect timing to come out right. Instead, during your planning meeting with your bride insist that less time that your guests spend waiting for the waiter to come around again is more time spent socializing and writing checks to the happy couple. Pick out easy, low-maintenance fingerfood, and be generous with the portions. If you are smart you will pick the most culinarily gifted person you know and turn the whole thing over to them. If you don’t have friends in the restaurant industry, cultivate some quick: they are great resources to hit up for donations and discounts on fancy food items. If you are really brave, consider a spring or summer wedding, outdoors, and make it a picnic.
Liquor is going to be pricey – so either eliminate it, restrict it too beer and wine, or, better yet, encourage your friends to donate one bottle of booze as the admission price for the bachelor/bachelorette party. Mixers and garnishes are fairly cheap, and if you can’t get them donated then plan on buying them at a wholesaler to cut down on costs.
Flowers – never have you spent so much on something that’s going to be dead moments after you cut the cake. But every wedding needs flowers. If you are lucky then your bride will want wildflowers (in season, of course) which can be picked a few days before in most rural areas – a good task to detail to younger siblings or cousins. Failing that, consider the other ultra-cheap method: stealing them. During the holiday season there are plenty of affairs – even other weddings – that use tons of flowers for the occasion. With a little footwork and some sweet talk to the proper authorities, you can often talk them into taking the arrangements away. In the case of a hotel manager or church steward, it’s likely they will thank you for sparing them the task. A word of warning, however: while you may not have the slightest superstitious bone in your body, flowers taken from a funeral are a little creepy, even if they aren’t bad luck. Don’t hand your new bride a sore point that she can bring up again and again over the course of your relationship. If worse comes to worse, spring for the flowers.
Monogrammed plates, cups, napkins, etc.: Do away with them. They rarely look elegant, they always cost too much, and everyone knows who you are. As for other decorations, balloons and ribbons are cheap, as is fresh greenery. A hall filled with freshly cut cedar boughs or magnolia leaves, tied with white ribbon and floating a few balloons, is as elegant as anything you could rent, and all you need is a cousin with a chainsaw.
Then there is the dress: prices on wedding dresses are obscene. Designer dresses can cost upwards of $1000.00. If this point is at all up for negotiation, inquire with her mother about her wedding dress. While it may be a little out of style (if wedding dresses can go out of style) then see if one of your relatives has enough tailoring acumen to re-design it and restore it into something your bride will be proud to wear. Don’t stop with her mother; try aunts and cousins on both sides of the family. Pitch it as creating an heirloom, extending a tradition, founding your family with roots deep in the past, etc. Mention passing it on to your own daughters.
If you insist on a tux (or, rather, if she does) shop around, and consider buying a used one rather than renting it. Most formalware shops do both, and if it means the difference between a sale and losing you to the competition, they would rather take your cash and clear out their inventory. Tuxedos do not go out of style, and having one in your closet can be handy. Or you can re-sell it on eBay, recouping some of your cash. Personally, I opted for a theme that honored my heritage, and rented a Scottish kilt from a costume shop at about half the price I would have paid for a tuxedo. Should you consider this option, don’t worry about how manly you may appear. It takes big brass ones to get married in a kilt on a windy day.
Photographers and video techs are expensive, and a “wedding package” including album, snapshots, and formal pictures, as well as a multi-angle edited video of the ceremony, can cost as much as a dress. Instead have your bride get one professional portrait done before the wedding, when she can be in her dress, made up, made over, with perfect hair and a blissfully romantic pose. Then rely on a few dedicated talented amateurs that every family has. With digital cameras becoming so ubiquitous, rely on them for the candid shots, and quit worrying. Ten years from now your bride will not even remember that you didn’t have professionals. And sometimes your amateur will turn out higher quality and more meaningful photos than a professional who isn’t familiar with your family. Then there is the wonderful practice of putting disposable cameras on each of the tables to allow your guests to get candid shots. Establish a collection site for said cameras, and have your photographic delegate round them up and get them printed. You can also make him or her responsible for posting them to the website.
If you do not have a musician friend who will volunteer their services for free, consider dispensing with musicians altogether in favor of electronics. Custom crafting a CD with your chosen music, for the ceremony and the reception, allows you to skip with hired professionals, who may not show, or show late, or may not know everything you want them to, or fight over the bill, who may get drunk at the open bar and hit on your little sister, or all sorts of other unforeseen circumstances. With CDs you reduce the control issue to two variables: timing and volume. If you can’t find a relative who you can rely on to push the play button at the right time, perhaps you should reconsider breeding. A lovely side effect of this plan is that you can then dupe a large number of the CDs and send them home with your guests as souvenirs.
If the details of all of the above are just too much for the both of you, and you fear the inevitable interference of in-laws in your carefully thought-out plans, then consider a surprise wedding. Most families expect you to have an engagement party where both sides can get to know each other a little before they are officially related. Enlisting the aid of a few close friends you can dispense with the whole mess by surprising everyone there and announcing that you will be getting married on the spot. Have dress and tux, minister and bouquet concealed in another room until the appropriate time, then make the announcement, cue the music, and get married. The party preparations nicely mask your real plans, and any outrage on the part of in-laws is rapidly diffused by the excitement and fun of a surprise wedding. It can also mean a more generous gift table later on.
Finally, there is the Final Solution to all wedding woes: elope. Consider it, really do. Because as much as you will work on this circus before it’s done, as much as it will cost you, in the end it is still just a big party. It isn’t as important as starting off your new life together, and in truth it will probably be easier to deal with the residual argument fodder from not having had “a big wedding” than to deal with the fallout from an emotionally charged event with coordination along the lines of a small army, with the attendant headaches. Your relationship can survive a small regret about eloping – it may not survive your wedding. Relatives will get over it. Girlfriends will get over it. And you can always renew your vows later, when you are better able to pay for a big party. The important thing is your love, and your passion and commitment for each other, which is far more important than a big party.
Tell her that. She might buy it. Really.
