Prices?

[KatyCruel]

Sorry about how general the title is, but I had several questions. Some may go outside the realm of prices, but most of them are about money.

1. To caterers, photographers, and planners: How much are you willing to flex your pricing to fit a budget? Obviously it's a case-by-case basis, but I, for example, will probably be on a pretty tight budget, and if I didn't have to spend half of that on a professional photographer, that'd be magnificent. =p

2. Same people: Keeping question 1 in mind, what are ways that I could cut back on how much the final cost is - provided that whoever I pick for these services is willing to mix-and-match. (as it seems most are. =p)

3. To people who are already married: How much did your wedding planner cost?

4. And to vendors in general (But wedding planners particularly): Be honest - how seriously do you take younger couples? Because I'm planning on getting married the summer before my senior year. And I want it to be a happy memory, but if I'm getting sarcasm and that from everyone I have to work with, it won't be.

Thanks!
~Alexa

EDIT: Oh! And
5. How far in advance should I hire/book/reserve everything? Just curious. =p

[WebLady]

Since this is kind of a broad topic, I moved it to Vendor chat here so vendors and others can comment :)

I think most of the price issues will vary on your location and how busy the vendor is. Experienced pros will cost more than those that only do it on the side and/or have not been around as long.

In general though; I think you should start booking vendors (venue first) 6 mos to a year in advance. Many vendors won't book more than a year out.

Good luck!

[Smurfette]

Sorry about how general the title is, but I had several questions. Some may go outside the realm of prices, but most of them are about money.

1. To caterers, photographers, and planners: How much are you willing to flex your pricing to fit a budget? Obviously it's a case-by-case basis, but I, for example, will probably be on a pretty tight budget, and if I didn't have to spend half of that on a professional photographer, that'd be magnificent. =p

2. Same people: Keeping question 1 in mind, what are ways that I could cut back on how much the final cost is - provided that whoever I pick for these services is willing to mix-and-match. (as it seems most are. =p)

3. To people who are already married: How much did your wedding planner cost?

4. And to vendors in general (But wedding planners particularly): Be honest - how seriously do you take younger couples? Because I'm planning on getting married the summer before my senior year. And I want it to be a happy memory, but if I'm getting sarcasm and that from everyone I have to work with, it won't be.

Thanks!
~Alexa

EDIT: Oh! And
5. How far in advance should I hire/book/reserve everything? Just curious. =p

1. My photog ended up being a total flake. He showed up
with a videographer but never produced our pics. I heard
a rumor that he went bankrupt and moved but... yeah. The
videographer ended up being a great fella and we're still
friends.

The costs are completely in your control. You want a glossy
wedding book or 10 million shots before, during and after the
wedding then expect to pay for it. If not, just give your
guests cameras and let them take pics.

2. SKIP

3. My wedding planner was amazing. She was completely on
board with everything I wanted and she was free. I planned
my own wedding. From start to finish. The only reason I DIY
was because I enjoy planning parties.

4. Money is money. The youngest couple I coordinated for was
19 and 23 back in 2002. They're still married. I couldn't care-
less about whether or not your marriage will last as long as you
put up a deposit and sign on the dotted line.

You will hear this a million times but really - there is no rush!
When I was your age, I wanted to be married and play house too.
Now that I'm 35, I look back and think WHOA, I knew nothing!

Good luck to you! :beer_smile:

[SkippyNXC]

It depends a lot on your area too... where I was getting married, the good and/or cheap wedding venues were booked up 2 years in advance (my first choice location had been booked 3 years in advance for my date!) so I didn't have much to choose from when i called 15 months before our date.

[saltyveruca]

You have to have special circumstances to get a discount from us. For example, a 10 hour Saturday wedding in the middle of October is pretty popular. We know we're probably going to be hired for that day, so getting a discount for it is just not going to happen, especially if there are still several months left between booking and the actual date.

So with that in mind, I'll tell you how you CAN get a discount from us (and maybe this is how others work, too):

1) Have a short wedding. And I do mean short, not small. I don't care if you have 20 people at your wedding, if we have to be there 10 hours, it's still generally the same amount of work. We offer hourly packages for weddings 6 hours and shorter, and they are much cheaper than our typical offerings.

2) Wait until the last minute. I know it sounds bad, and scary to leave things up to chance, but it's true. If we still have 6 months left to book a date, we're not going to jump on the opportunity to do a really cheap wedding. But if there's just a month or two left, we know that it's really unlikely we're going to book a full price wedding, and we are very open to discounting, provided we still make enough to profit and not work for free, because that's not fun.

This point also works for off-date weddings, like a Friday or Sunday. 99% of our weddings are Saturdays (in 5 years, we've done ONE Friday wedding, no Sundays), so if we have the opportunity to book a second wedding that weekend, we just might discount it if you ask. I would add a caveat though: if it's going to be grueling, as in extremely far out of town, and/or long hours that will completely wear us out for the other wedding that weekend, we probably wouldn't be able to book a second wedding anyway, so it doesn't work.

3) Have an AWESOME venue. This one is really special, and the only time we've done it was in conjunction with #2 (last minute). We did it for an aquarium wedding because we really wanted the photos for our portfolio. The client was also the sweetest person I've ever met in my life, it was less than a month before her wedding, and she was very unhappy with her photographer. This one is not extremely likely, but hey, it can and does happen.

So in summary: be willing to get less for paying less (hourly), wait for a fire sale/off date, and/or have something really, really exceptional about your wedding.

[sandy03]

I agree with a lot of what has already been said - a lot depends on your date and location.
My biggest tips are to start early because sometimes you can lock in a cheaper price or some kind of special and don't just use "wedding" specific vendors. I used a local restaurant rather than a catering company, and I got to customize exactly what I wanted and it was cheaper than if I had gotten something from a "reception package".

Photography was my single biggest expense, but you really do get what you pay for, and that was the one thing that was a serious priority for me. It depends on what is most important for you!

And I didn't have a planner/coordinator. I just assigned jobs to various friends and family members and everything went great.