Attire (Part 2)

So.... time to get honest about what my actual attire cost will be. So here goes....

Wedding dress $418 (tax inclusive)
Alterations $175 (the max my seamstress will charge, worse case senario)
Shoes $50 (haven't bought, but I plan on heels for the ceremony and flip flops for the reception.)
Veil $160 (OK....this I haven't bought at all, but this is the price of the one I love.... I just need to ask myself if it is worth the cost)
Jewelry $80 (I am thinking tiara or a new neclace perhaps)
Garter $30 (I am wearing my favorite football teams themed garter)
Undergarmets $75 (Slip...my "something blue", panty house, so on)

Grand total: $980

Now, granted I haven't bought some of these things yet, the alterations, and so on....but this is basically a realist budget for me, especially since I have already incurred the biggest expense. Something about spending a grand on dressing myself for my big day feels off.

Lets include the groom

Tux Rental $200 (We havent served yet, but this is what I think it might be the upper edge, and I'd like to leave that option for him).
Shoes $75 (He needs a great set of dress shoes, so I figure we'll get them)
Hair Cut $20

Total Cost $295

Total Cost for Attire- $1,275

This seems like an awful lot to me, but its certainly a far cry from the average in the city where my wedding will be. $3,856 is the local average, so I certainly did better then that.

But I cannot help questioning my spending decisions.... Is a $160 veil really a reasonable thing to get for my wedding? Am I getting wedding brain and just ratitonalizing out of control spending because its "My very very special day"?

I would love some feedback....especially if you have been there and done that.

You Don't Need This Stuff!!!!!

There are plenty of things to buy when you get married....believe me, I know that. But, there are also a lot of useless things....things that you truly do not need to make your day any more special. In fact, I think these things are so little value for money spent, just don't buy them, you wont miss them, I promise! You don't have to spend this money!!

1. Wedding Confetti.... Many venues no longer allow you to throw confetti, but some people are able to. Now, most people would simply go to the Party Palace (or whatever your local party store is called) and pick up a huge amount or you could go to a site like this (http://www.chicoparty.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=84&SetPageSize=75) and browse their huge selection of wedding confetti, which you can buy at about $2.50 a packet or $50 a pound (a pound is a ton of confetti).

OR..... if you could go to http://www.photofetti.com and actaully have your photos put on confetti, mixed with small sparkles for a whole lot more. You could buy the started pack for $23.95 for a whole 3 ounces of confetti. So, if we compare pound for pound, your photo confetti will run you $127.73 for the same amount of confetti. Why would someone chose to spend an extra $77.73 to have photo confetti? (and thats just for a pound, if you need two pounds thats over 150 bucks extra!). Think of that almost 80 bucks as a whole month of daily Starbucks, or 2 new pairs of shoes, a small appliance, in your savings account.....

2. Have you been wondering what the perfect touxh to the reception bathroom would be? Well, wonder no more....because for the low low price of $6.00 a roll you can have wedding toilet paper with cute little stick figure bride and grooms.

OK ladies....lets get this under control. Last month I went to B.J's and purchased a 36 pack of that charmin ultra super soft fancy toilet paper. It cost me $12.00, putting the cost of each roll at about $0.33. Assume you have 100 people at your reception, plus staff, caterers, and your other vendors. So, 120 people using the bathroom for 6 hours would require....lets say 20 rolls of toilet paper (I would rather be safe then sorry with these things.

You could either (a) use the paper provided (hopefully) by the venue, or (b) Buy a bulk pack of Charmin at a cost of $6.66 for the 20 rolls, OR (c) buy this wedding TP for a cost of $120 for 20 rolls, plus whatever shipping on 20 rolls of toilet paper costs. Why would you purposefully when so much more then you need to? Do you think guests will be super amused by the toilet paper? Impressed? Does it pull the whole "theme" together? Why????

3. Lets talk wedding favors. Many people don't have them (cost $0) some people do something small at $1-$2 a person ($100-$200 for a 100 person wedding).... but there are pricier options out there.

Check out this one (http://www.americanbridal.com/fortunecookie.html). Yes you saw that that right. Lets check out the cost of this item overall for a wedding of 100. Say you buy 10% extra (because you never know!). So...

$8 x 110= $880 for the silver fortune cookies that fit 6 hersey kiss candies/or Jordon amonds that are not included. So lets add $20 for the candies. We're up to $900.

But wait.... you need the clear take out boxes that these should be placed in to "gift" the guest this wonderful useless knicknack. Luckily this very same site will sell you the clear take out boxes for $5.95 for a pack of six. So, we get to buy 20 packs of that for a brand total of $119.

In the end these favors, minus the shipping and assuming you're not buying some sort of expensive candy to stuff into them is $1,119. Thats over $10 a guest! This about the food you'd be able to get for an extra $10 a plate. You could get some favors, your dress, and the groom's tux rental for that price.

Attire (Part 1)

I will be upfront here, I am sort of a lazy bride. I have bought my gown, but I have not finalized my accessories, I am planning to do so when the dress comes in and I begin having it altered. However, I doubt I will be able to match the $3,856 figure given as the average in my area.

So far.....

My Dress- $418 (tax and price included) from David's Bridal (who else). To be honest with you, I love the dress....it looks great on me and I fell in love with it. I was able to keep this cost down because I feel spending thousands on a "wear once" item is just obscene. I mean unless you actually rich or from a rich family....do not, and I repeat do not spend a few thousand on a designer gown. There are an endless array of option available. I could have spent much less then I did. Try these options:

1. Ebay- Some of these dresses have actually not even worn once, apparently some brides actually purchase more then 1 dress??? At the very least, if you are so obsessed with getting that ritzy designer gown (and if it is the most important thing to you, well it just is I guess, I personally wouldn't but I am not you) at half the cost. A savings is a savings, and if its a must have....why not check it out? When I put in "wedding dress" in ebay it spat our thousands of hits. check it out.

When I searched I found a dress almost identical to mine

This gown is currently up for $199. It is also brand new, available in all sizes from a reseller.

A similar gown, going for $120 right now....

So, apparently I was rather spendy. This dress is also brand new and never worn.

If budget is not your style there are a zillion designer dresses deeply discounted. Check it out, make E-bay you friend. If you just HAVE TO HAVE that $3,000 wedding dress why not buy it new on ebay for $1,700 and bank the other $1,300. Unless you're flush with cash, thats a huge savings.

2. Resale shops- In some areas there are entire stores devoted to "once worn" dresses. These shops fix, clean, and make sure these dresses are in excellent shape.

Are you in the Chicago area? Check out http://www.whitechicago.com/ .

If you check out http://www.preownedweddingdresses.com/... I found a Vera Wang dress, original retail of $5,000 for $2,000. Also, I found an Ian Stewart dress, originally retailing for $2,700 selling for $250. You CAN have your dream dress, but you don't NEED to spend so much on it. Look in your own city. I am sure you'll find a reseller, expecially in larger cities.

3. Try searching local areas of www.theknot.com and www.craigslist.org. There are brides trying to unload their dresses. I put a quick search for "wedding dress" into the search feature of the Craigs List in New York City and found dresses originally priced for 3K for $900 and so many deals. Some of them haven't even been worn yet!

4. Online Discount Stores- Just google "discount designer wedding dresses" or some combination of that and you'll get thousands of sites.

So.... I guess this is my plea. I know this your very very special day. I know you want to look absolutely perfect. But if you're not willing to get a knockoff of a designer style (ala David's Bridal) then why not at least try to cut the cost in half by exploring the other options? Imagine what you can do with the saving. Say you were planing on spending 2K for a dress and you only spend 1K. That extra grand could be used for

1. Food for 4 months for the two of you.

2. A really nice mattress set to last you 10 years.

3. Savings, to secure your future.

4. A super nice reclining lazy boy couch to last you many years.

5. A new fridge!

6. A new desktop computer.

7. 3 credits at a private university.

8. Over 300 gallons of gas!!

9. Flights to your honey moon.

10. Debt reduction.

11. A wonderful dining room set.

12. A kitchen aid mixer and every last attachment.

13. A new summer/fall/winter wardrobe.

14. A luxury weekend away.

15. Down payment fund.

16. 500 bases of beer.

17. Car Insurance

18. A designer bag to last many years.

19. A purebred pet bringing you joy and love for 10-20 years.

20. A washer and dryer lasting many years.

You get the point, there is so much you can do for that money, things that will last you years and years. If you want to spend the money, well then thats fine...but why not cut back on at least one aspect?

Lets Break It Down

So, in my first post I expressed my surprise at the average cost of a wedding. So, I decided to investigate exactly what people were spending on their weddings. In doing so I found this nifty site (http://www.costofwedding.com/) that shows the national average cost of weddings, and also allows you to put in your own zip code.

The National Average: Price Tag $27,690


Wedding Attire- $2,606
Wedding Ceremony-$2,525
Wedding Favors & Gifts-$1,121
Wedding Flowers-$1,969
Wedding Jewelry-$2,066
Wedding Music-$953
Wedding Photography & Video-$3,688
Wedding Reception-$14,169
Wedding Stationery-$847
Wedding Transportation- $410

Some of those don't seem so bad, but others appear completely out of control, given the average finacial situation in this country.

Digging further, I looked up the wedding cost in the local area of my wedding, have decided to do a serious of posts comparing the average to my own wedding.

Average *Local* Wedding Cost: $40,980 (holy god that is a LOT):

Attire- $3,856 (includes bride AND groom)

Ceremony- $3,737 (includes Ceremony Accessories, Ceremony Location, Ceremony Site Decorations, Officiate, Pastor or Priest, and the Rehearsal Dinner)

Favors and Gifts- $1,660 (includes Attendant Gifts, Parent Gifts, and Wedding Favors.)

Flowers- $2,914 (Boutonnieres & Corsages, Bride Bouquet, Bridesmaid Bouquets, Decorations & Centerpieces, and Flower Girl Flowers)

Jewelry- $3,057 (includes Wedding set for His & Her Rings)

Music- $1,410 (includes Reception Band, Musicians, or DJ)

Photography and Video- $5,459 (includes Photographer and Videographer)

Reception- $20,969- (includes Bride & Groom Hotel, Reception Beverages & Bartender, Reception Food Service, Reception Venue & Rentals, and Wedding Cake & Cutting Fee.)

Stationary- $1,254 (Invitations & Reply Cards, Save The Date Cards, Thank You Cards, and Other Stationery.)

Transportation- $607 (include Limos, Car, Carriage Rides, or Other Transportation.)

***This site also includes a disturbing category called "Additional Expenses" of $410,325, which includes the following: New or Used Car, Engagement Ring, Financial Services, Furniture & Household Items, New Home, Honeymoon, Bridal Consultant or Wedding Planner, and Insurance.

I am not going to be using this silly measure, because these aren't all "wedding" related costs, but I point it out because it means that the following items are not included in the costs related above:

1. Engagement Ring (I thought this could be included in the 3K)
2. Honeymoom (Yup, thats on top of the 40K)
3. A wedding planner/consultant (Isn't this usually about 10% of the total budget? So you could incure another 8K if you have one of these).

Scary!

First Post

I decided to start this blog because in planning my wedding (In the beginning of September), I realized that the wedding industry is completely out of control. I mean, seriously out of control. I was first disturbed by this information while browsing www.theknot.com where brides from hell are spending tens of thousands on their wedding. When I think about spending that much, I think about a house downpayment, a brand new car, an IRA, investments, and so on. But apparently, this ONE VERY SPECIAL day has melted the brains of brides to the point that dropping 30K on a one day party seems "reasonable".

This got me thinking....what is in fact the "average" wedding cost.

CNN says (http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/20/pf/weddings/) that the average cost for a wedding (I believe the stats are for 2005) is $26, 327. Oh what I could do for 26K (a new car, a 10% downpayment on a S260,000$, and so on).

Am I the only one that sees this as a little out of control?