Photo Source: Odurinde Finance and Business Blog

Heck no! The price for these things would vary, but in most cases I would say, “no way!” Keep your money and spend it on something else for your wedding. Because something like a wedding reception costs so so so much money, it might seem like a good thing just in case something happens. But let me ask you, what will happen? And if something happens, like double-booking on the same day, a vendor will try their best to accommodate or will find another comparable vendor for you. However, if you live in a natural disaster area, then okay, it might make sense. But I think it will make more sense to avoid booking at a risky place. My vote is, ditch it.

To be fair, here is a blog that endorses this ridiculous scam so you can get both sides.

Did you purchase wedding insurance? What were your reasons? I promise I won’t look down at you.

However, I did go to the Bridal Showcase and saw a band play there who were from Washington Talent. I remembered my brother’s wedding where he had a band from Washington Talent and they were fantastic!  The only down side to having a band is that they’re very spendy.  We’re still shooting for a $30,000 wedding.  Adding a band would eat up a good percentage of that.  Anyway, the band I saw was awesome and I thought I would call to get information.  After a brief chat, I learned that I could book a band called Millenium who has Travis Tucker (American Idol, 2004 finalist) as the lead singer.  After a quick text to my brother, I learned that it in fact was the same band that did their wedding. 

Needless to say, my budget concerns went out the window.  I wanted them, and Tony could tell from the moment I found out.   Although still not cheap, since it was a late booking, they offered me $2000 off of their original signing price.  We went to see them perform, checked out the new playlist; they were fantastic!  Voila!  Band booked! 

Music…..check!

What’s left? Bridesmaids dresses, groom and groomsmen outfits, rings, favors, florist, gifts. I think I may just pull off planning a wedding in 3 months!

I never understood what the big deal was about handwriting the addresses on the envelopes to the guests. It seems highly inefficient and rather stupid. Therefore Mr. Mercy and I will be printing out our guests names on LABELS (please refrain from crying out in horror). *rolls eyes*. For the 275-300 invites we send and the 500 invites our parents send, it just seems like the most logical thing to do

The envelopes are a bit plain and a bit thin… but I don’t care– it’s an envelope. If people want to judge me based on the quality of the envelope… I don’t know what to say to their stupidity. To make the envelopes more personal, we’ll have a monogram stamp that will be affixed to the flap of every envelope:

Included in our invitations will be a postcard as our RSVP form (to save on money for postage). The reasoning behind this is that we LOVE playing scrabble so it just seems suitable you know?

Also we’ll include the complimentary cards regarding hotel accommodations from the Crown Plaza where we negotiated a discounted rate for our out-of-town guests. Directions will be handed out at the wedding (since no one remembers to bring them to the wedding anyway and the ceremony and the reception venues are literally down the street from one another).

Save-The-Dates– My fiance made me promise I would stop calling them “STDs”… We went to a photobooth in the mall took our pictures and they upload it onto a website for you… so we got it from there and then added all the extra detail! It goes along great with our photo theme and will be electronically sent out to all of our guests in a few weeks with our website information and the option to RSVP online

Wedding Party Requests– I sent out Smilebox requests to our hopeful wedding party (bridesmaids, make-up artist, gift table, etc.) asking them if they would serve in that capacity.  I love love LOVE smilebox, it was so easy to use and I could customize it with photos… which is a big part of our wedding.

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Programs– will be printing it out on the same cardstock. I just got one of those pre-formatted brochure forms and adapted it into our tri-fold program with the same pink swirl decal with the brown outline on the front.

Thank you cards– We’ll be doing postcards from Vistaprint.com. I got my business cards through this company and was impressed with their quality of service. So I ordered 100 free postcards through them (paid $10 for shipping) and loved the product. Then ordered the remaining 500 to send out to all of our guests and our parents’ guests. These postcards are cheaper than any set of thank you cards I could order, more personal, and the pre-design already goes along with the pink and brown theme!

As for our escort cards/ name cards– please refer to next post about our cake… aren’t you curious to see how they’re related?

Total cost for all the paper details of the wedding? $35 for 5 packs of 250 sheets of 110 lb white cardstock + $66 for white greeting card size envelopes+ $17 pack of 2,000 labels + $3 for save the date photobooth strip + $40 for monogram stamper for the envelopes + $76 for 600 thank you postcards=$237.00!!!!! (+ postage!)

Anyone else having DIY invites? Share your ideas!!

But my engagement ring offered a matching wedding band that would be at least another $300 more than my original idea. Needless to say, I was in a conundrum…

SO I rushed to this fabulous jeweler called “Unique Fine Jewelry” in the Metropolitan D.C. area in order to try on the ring with the wedding set. It took my breath away.

This made my decision even harder! I decided to go to Kay’s Jeweler to see what it would look like with the two thin bands. Wow. So glad I went and tried it cause my gorgeous engagement ring ended up looking like a men’s ring .

So we were set, we’d go with the wedding set for my engagement ring and wedding band… [[which put the budget $300 over]]

But for my fiance’s wedding band, he wanted it to look like this: It’s a 5mm Milgrain wedding band… simple yet elegant to match the milgrain on my band

Anyhow, once place was offering it for $318 (super cheap right??). BUT we are enrolled in their rewards program because Mr. Mercy bought my engagement ring from them… so minus $50 from the price= $268. Then I started thinking… duh! this company does PRICE MATCHING… so I searched on google for the exact same description band… and voila! I found it for as low as $260. I quickly wrote an e-mail to the company and they responded within about 15 minutes via e-mail– THEY AGREED TO PRICE MATCH! so it will be $260- $50 (rewards program) =$210!!!!($100 saved!)

Lesson of the day? ALWAYS ask if a company will price match– 99% of the time they well and you will save money if you do your research!

Chesapeake Bay Beach Club

Wow! So beautiful!  They have 3 different sites to get married at…all great choices, all different but all great!  We love the tavern ballroom because it is centered around the tavern. The ceremony is outdoors along the bay with the amazing Chesapeake Bay Bridge in the background.  The dinner is inside in the ballroom and if necessary tables could be placed in the tavern bar.  It’s a very cool, hardwood floored tavern that really appealed to our relaxed vision of our wedding. I would love to have just heavy hors d’oeuvres all night with tables randomly placed throughout the two rooms.  In addition, there is a roof top deck with a bar in which you and your guests can hang. The view is awesome. The only part I don’t like is that there will be two other weddings going on at the same time as ours and not so far away.  And, it has a beach but only about 10 feet of sand.  The price is definitely steep, and you have to have a minimum of 150 guests if you have a Saturday evening wedding.  So much for our little celebration. They had a lot of Friday and Sunday availability but not so much on Saturday except for Aug. 21.  Of course, that’s to be expected considering it’s April.

Pictures from www.chesapeakebaybeachclub.com

Harbourtowne

Located in St. Michael’s MD, I have to say the only thing really great about this place is the view from the edge of the lawn.  You can see all the way to the Bay Bridge (I like the Bay Bridge) on clear days. The coastline is a small cliff of large rocks. The water slaps up against them and looks beautiful. Otherwise, there wasn’t anything really exciting about the venue. You have to rent a block of 11 rooms which lead right out to where the ceremony and wedding would be held. There isn’t any tent, so if you want shade you and your family would have to go inside to the restaurant or the ballroom (which you can use, but don’t have too.)  The ceremony takes place on a small brick patio which is cute but not exciting.  The reception takes places in an adjacent  patio and lawn.  The whole thing takes place at the water’s edge so that’s cool. Tony loved that the golf course is across the street…but that’s all he loved.  The price here was also pretty steep. More so than Chesapeake Bay Beach Club.

Photos from www.harbourtowne.com

The Oaks!

So we weren’t sure if we were going to have to time to see this place because we were running a bit late. But I’m so excited that we did.  We called and asked if we could have a condensed version of the tour and they were very accommodating!  So we got there to see a precious 1700′s style house which is like a B&B.  It has a pool, shuffle board, paddle boats, bikes and other fun activities to do.  We walked in and Sarah greeted us promptly and immediately began showing us around. To my surprise we were greeted by a well dressed waiter with homemade fudgey brownies and a signature drink. It was the nicest touch and it was nice to feel like they were really happy for us to be there.  This place allows you to have the whole property from Friday night to Sunday morning. No one else has a wedding there and no outside visitors can stay while your wedding is there.  That’s one down side. You have to rent out the 14 rooms for 2 nights which isn’t cheap since it’s minutes  outside of St. Michael’s.  Is it wrong to ask you family and friends to stay at a hotel that’s pretty expensive?  It makes me feel bad just thinking about it. Anyway, that’s the only thing about it that I don’t like. Sarah went through it all. It was like seeing a show. The entry room, the staircase leading outside, the ceremony site along the water, the covered dock, the lounge chairs, the upstairs deck, then back  to the entry room which was now converted into an amazing reception room… all set up just for us!

One word…WOW! You should see the amenities that come along with this place too!! We’d have to have a more formal wedding that at first thought, but I definitely can see us adding our own casual twist to this place with no problem at all!  Price….ehh, definitely more than we should spend, but definitely worth it if we do spend. I can see beer and wine tubs along the house, a full bar in between, a basket full of blankets for chilling in the grass or to keep from getting cold, chocolate fountains flowing in the entry room with fun snacks and a (hopefully) yummy, casual dinner in the ballroom.  They do have dates available that made us both just a little bit excited!

Photos courtesy of www.the-oaks.org

Today was a fun day!

I don't know where I got this picture from... I saved it a long time ago when I was joking around with my bridesmaids about their dresses... eek!

So my goal was to make my bridesmaids dress no more than $60 each. I’ll be having 6 bridesmaids and my colors are chocolate brown and some shade of pink (haven’t fully decided that yet!) The first store I looked at? My favorite: TARGET!!!

I ended up finding 2 different dresses for $14 each! I decided to order one of each for myself, try them on , and take photos. Target has a great 90 day return policy, so if I hated both, I knew I could return them and get my money back. Here we go with the results though:

#1–> Merona Collection Petites Party Dress with Sash

#2–> Merona Collection Party Dress with Sash (Satin)

Ultimately I liked #2 better, but the sizes offered were pretty limited and because my bridesmaids are all thin beautiful gorgeous ladies, they would basically need to alter the dresses down 4-8 sizes (aka very expensive). So we went with #1 since the material did not draw attention to back fat, the v neck is flattering to all people, and last but not least… it’s $14.00!!! The only issue is that the V in the back is pretty low cut and you can see a snippet of the bra. For that reason I’ll be asking my bridesmaids to sow their bras onto their dresses just for the day… they can snip off the string later and detach their bras.

My lovely ladies will be wearing this chocolate brown dress… and I’ll be finding them a pink sash to accent it. I was thinking of this DIY Ruffly Belt by Rachel from Heart of Light. She gives you step-by-step instruction and it looked really cool… but for 6 bridesmaids it might be a pain in the butt to make…

Source: Heart of Light (Etsy Seller)

But I ended up with going to G Street Fabrics, which was having a 25% off ribbon sale when I walked in… how awesome is that??? After toiling with great customer service… below are the colors I chose: Dusty Rose & Petal Peach… I think one of them will work, and the other we’ll use for centerpieces…  I bought the flowers from Forever21 and I bought the alligator clips from Michaels and sewed them on. Total cost for the sashes then? roughly $6.

And the end product looks something like this!

As for shoes, I’ve informed my bridesmaids that I don’t care what shoes they wear as long as: 1) they are brown and 2) they have heels.

So my bridesmaids will be dishing about $20 a piece for my wedding= success!

Searching on "Black tie affair," I found this Nicole Miller dress that you can rent for $100. Retail is $630. Source: Rent the Runway

You know how every bride tells their bridesmaids that they can always re-wear their bridesmaid dress for another occasion? And 99.99% of the time, they are wrong? Well this time, you can be right. One morning, I was watching the Today Show on NBC and they featured Rent the Runway, which is a company that allows you to rent expensive dresses at a fraction of the cost. Such a great idea. For instance, you can rent a $3,500 dress for $200 or a $560 dress for $50. You can rent it for 4 days (or 8 days for extra cost) and they take care of the dry cleaning. You can schedule delivery and if you live in NYC, they have emergency same-day delivery. If you’re like me and you’re afraid of ruining the dress, there’s a $5 insurance you can purchase so you’re totally covered.

Rent this dress for $150, retail $1595. It was under "Meet the parents." Source: Rent the Runway

I love shopping for dresses and will be a customer for myself, but I thought it would be a great idea for bridesmaids dresses. If you use this idea, please let me know. I would love to see pictures!

We are three days away from the BIG DAY. The great thing about being so close is that most costs are finalized, and there are no more big surprises. I know, I’m cheap, but even the most loose-spenders can appreciate that.

That said, I have a question for you ladies. My woman is having a make-up person come on-site. I’ve read in various places that if someone comes on-site, then you don’t have to tip them. The rationale is that these vendors charge an on-site fee, so that pretty much covers that.

What say you? Are we supposed to tip, even if the on-site fee the make-up artist is charging makes up nearly 25% of the day-of cost?

Source: Washington Post

In an earlier post, I mentioned a trend of brides holding their wedding at their home or home of someone they know. The movitation is usually to save money but Washington Post writer Dina ElBoghdady shares the highs and lows of doing it at home. You could save money by having your wedding at home but there are many extra things you have to pay for, such as tents, power generators, parking valet, etc. In the end, you could spend more and you risk the negatives, like property damage. I’ve never attended a wedding at home, but in my opinion, I would recommend it only if it were a small wedding, nice house, and the bride had a good deal on something like catering that would set the budget on a good foot. Otherwise, it seems like too much heartache and risk.

Have you attended an at-home wedding? How did it go?