Jason and I met with a photographer yesterday evening and...long story short, photography is now a priority for us. We are willing to cut back in other ways to have it. Everyone has been telling me that photography is the one thing you will always have. The flowers will die, the food will be eaten...but with the photos you, your kids, and grand kids will look at for a life time. Jason loves photos too. He likes albums and looking through them. So, a photo package it is! We were maybe going to "rent" the photographer for 3 hours and just do her $200 an hour fee. You don't get anything with that though. We were then going to see if we could talk a friend into taking pictures for the reception. Anyways, if we in fact go with this photographer we will receive 5 hours of photography, 2 photographers, an engagement session with 50 5x7 pics, 3 month password and online viewing, black and white, sepia, color, and cross processing, a $200 photo credit for prints, and the digital negatives of the wedding on a DVD that are printable. Phew. Honestly...I feel REALLY good about this move. I was kind of stressing over the photos but was just going to settle and be ok with what we can afford. It comes at a price though...we need to cut back in other areas.
So, here's where your opinion comes in. We were going to do an open wedding and reception...but still send out invites. In order to afford the pics we are going to have to cut back on the reception (It would be an appetizer and cake reception). This can happen in 3 ways:
1. We make it an open wedding, but don't have everyone come to the reception...so the reception would be "closed." This way we can have the quantity and variety of food that we were planning on but with less people so we can afford it. Thus some people would be invited to the ceremony and not the reception.
2. Have the ceremony and reception be closed but cut down on the numbers all together. Everyone that would get an invitation then would also be invited to the ceremony and reception. This would also allow us to keep the food the way we were planning on it.
3. Have both the ceremony and reception be open and cut down on the variety and expense of food. There would be less of a variety...it probably wouldn't be as fancy.
So what do you think? The problem that I see with #1 is the fact that the reception is in the MC which is right across from the sanctuary. It seems like it would be weird for some people to get to go and others not. I'm mean what do you say at the end of the ceremony..."There's a cake reception for those that were invited." It's not like it's a dinner reception where that would seem almost more acceptable...since those are so pricey.
Also, being that this is a very thrifty wedding...we aren't really keen on having people that we don't really know attending. We wanted to do the open wedding and reception though because it's Grace...and it just seemed right with all the people we know there. I wonder though if we would really have that. It doesn't seem like people would come that we don't know that well...or at least I think. :-)
Finally, obviously you can invite more than you plan on coming right? There's going to be a percentage of "no's" on the rsvp's. How do you plan for that? Hmmm. So many questions, none of which I know the answer to. Maybe you do...! :-)
7 months ago
13 comments:
Okay Anna, so I rarely blog comment, but I do know something about this very thing, so I have to share. When I was a wedding coordinator at Grace we were told that the rule of thumb is that the number of invitations you send out is the number of guests to expect. Here's how it works, you send one invitation to a family of four and they can't come, but you send an invitation to a couple and they come. So out of two invitations you generally get two people. Does that make sense? If not, just stick to the rule of thumb - the number of invites is the number of people to expect. And, if you use this rule of thumb (and numbers don't have to be exact) then you can save on RSVPs and RSVP postage too!
Now, as to your other question - and this is just my opinion, so take it for what it is worth - I would go with option #3. I would want to have people celebrating our union. Who cares about the food? We want to see the bride! That way more people can bless you and celebrate with you. Like I said, it's just my opinion.
Oh, it's me again. I always forget that my posts don't have my real name!
hugmom is Debbi Weeks.
YAY! Thanks Debbi!!! <3
Honestly, i think some guests may take offense to being invited to the wedding but not the reception. It's like you're choosing who's worthy of eating with you and who isn't! :) I know that it's simply a matter of money, but it may come off the wrong way. Just a thought...
Yes, #1 is by far the least fav. I think our thinking behind it though was that if we know them and are at least some what friends with them...then they would get the reception invite. We figured that if they weren't really all that close to us but just wanted to see the wedding part, then they wouldn't be offended...or it would seem. It also allows for the open invite but not the unknown factor of how many people will end up coming to the reception. But...#3 seems like the best option anyways.
Also, we were guessing WAY high on the percentage that would come that were invited. It's nice to know that that will probably be lower than we were thinking...which brings down the numbers for sure!
I would go with #3. I've been to several weddings that were appetizers and cake only and they were definatly elegant. I don't think you want some hurt feelings, especially if you "accidentaly" send out a wrong invitation to someone you want at both. Now for the invitations, this is where I got frustrated the most with wedding planning. I GOT half of the RSVP cards I sent out. We sent out over 100 invitations and we only got half back and we had almost 250 people at the wedding (so not necessarily what Debbi said, otherswise we would have expected 100). So this was totally frustrating to me because I ended up having to call/e-mail those people that hadn't sent out their RSVP card (also had meal choice on it) and it turns out that 25 of those families were in fact coming to the wedding. It was just a headache having to deal with it. So if in fact you are going to do appetizeres, it makes it a little easier to "guesstimate" how many people will be at your wedding and how many people that didn't RSVP actually show up.
we did number three due to our large amount of invitees. we ended up having a ton of cheese, crackers, fruit, veggies, yummy punches, and other small items ( i can't even remember all of it now) and if one eats enough of that, one can really fill up! besides, like debbi said, we're not coming to eat a gourmet meal, we're coming to watch you get married! and enjoy celebrating you two together, and hey, if there is snacks along the way its just like icing on the cake! :)
also we sent out invitations to everyone in the church who we thought would want to come instead of putting it in the bulletin so that we could get a better head count, but then again, that comes at the cost of having to dish out several more invitations...
good luck!
well, it's totally your preference and what you value. we had an open wedding (having grown up at Grace) and wanted everyone to come. (and it was over 400 i think.) that was important to us, having lots of people there to witness and fill up the church. we did do a cake reception (in the MC) that everyone was invited to, and it was literally just cake and punch. after that we had a bbq dinner reception (informal) at my in-laws for just family, wedding part, and very close friends.
i don't think you need to feel bad if you decide to have an open wedding and a closed reception, even if its in the MC. it's very common for the pastor to make an announcement about the reception at the end of the ceremony, either to include everyone or to politely say "by invitation only". (maybe you could ask ken's opinion on this.) people totally understand that. (and if they don't understand, it's only because they've never had a wedding or maybe never been in a wedding, and they can just deal with it and get over it!)
so i guess either #1 or #3. (and you could always do a simply bbq or something afterward for all the family that came to town, or to celebrate more, and heck, maybe family would even pitch in to pay for it!)
i have no idea how you figure out actual numbers of people to plan for. that part always drove me crazy!
opps, i don't mean to offend anyone by saying if they don't understand they can just deal and get over it! it's just a pretty common thing at weddings.
also, i went through so much stress trying to not offend anyone with our wedding and all the details, and worried way too much, and ultimately you have to remember it's your special day and you should do what's important to you. and most likely, everyone understands that.
Hey, I think I'll add my 2 cents as well...
#3- I think. Do you remember our reception and the dessert table? That was all free! Many people asked how they could help with the wedding and we just asked them to make pretty desserts - and then had a mini cake just for us on our table. that's an idea to save moolah.
Ha! You're funny Kristen! :-) 400 people!?! Wow, that's big. I don't think we know enough
Jenny...we're totally using your idea at our wedding except we're going to do the sheet cake thing from Costco that's been suggested by many! :-) We'll have our own little pretty cake though! Maybe people can bring appetizers!?? :-)
Kate, I like your idea of sending the invites to everyone that you want and not putting an announcement in the bulletin. I think that will save a ton of stress with food and how much to buy.
Good ideas lady!!!
Sheila, I HOPE and PRAY that we have a better RSVP than you guys had. :-) That would be a lot of tedious calls!
I'm a friend of Jenny's and just happened to read your last post so I thought I would leave a comment...
I just got married this last year and we had a small budget because my husband and I had to pay for everything so we tried to get as creative as we could to save on cost but still make it look beautiful. For the reception we had a bunch of the ladies in the church (who of course all want to help in whatever way they can) make the food. We just choose some of our favorite dishes and they did it all. We did hire a guy who did the main dish but all the other side dishes were made by ladies in the church which was such a blessing. Also, for cake we asked a friend to make us a cheesecake (it's our favorite) and that's what we used for our "cake" and we served that to all of our head table. As for the other cake my mom and aunts did all the work with that and just made a bunch of our favorite cakes which people loved! we had so many comments on it all and we saved so much money. People are always more then happy to help out with making the perfect wedding for someone. Asking someone to make a tasty cake or something else is so easy for someone to do and saves you and your husband to be so much money. One other thing...as for RSVP's we once again were trying to save on money so we set up a new e-mail account and had people either RSVP there or by phone and we added one of our phone numbers. We really only had about a handful of people who didn't RSVP and plus we saved a ton on not having to make RSVP cards and pay extra postage. We ended up only spending about 4,000 on our wedding in total and I know I am biased but it was beautiful. Everyone commented on how beautiful it was. Also, remember that ultimately you are not planning for a wedding but planning for a lifetime together.
Blessings.
Hope this can help a little.
Wow, thanks Tanna! Those are are all great ideas. Your name sounds familiar. I must have heard Jenny talk about you!!! Anyways, thanks so much for the tips! Yay!
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