Backy

wow, it looks amazing!

This is a honest and detailed break down. Thank you for sharing

Originally Posted by Jenny2014 

Alright, so our wedding costs seem to just keep on growing. However, as things are still so far away, I am hoping I will find ways to make them much cheaper. So far our costs are looking like (estimation for most... and I am sure I have WAY over compensated... plus, we have told our parents that the extras over 29 people are being divided up between them, as we only want 29 to be there. IE. additional guest charge, std, invite, oot, bonfire, etc... i will be calculating the costs and letting them know what they owe haha):

 

Wedding Package for 20 people: $3000

Additional Guests (50 people): $4250

Chairs for 70 people @ $7/chair: $490

Total: $7740

 

Ceremony costs:

Programs/signs: $300

Bubbles/ fans: $300

Sand Ceremony: $50

Decor: $200- $400

Total: $1050

 

Reception:

Decor: $500

Favors: $200

Lounge chairs: $480

Fire show: $750

Total: $1930

 

Flowers:

Bridesmaid Bouquets: $200

Blue orchid extra cost: $150

Jewels for bouquet: $100

Rose Petals: $100

Total: $550

 

Music:

DJ: $825

Vendor Fee/ Dinner: $200

Total: $1025

 

Photography:

Package: $2000

Vendor Fee/ Dinner: $300

Total: $2300

 

Attire:

Dress: $800

Veil/ Alterations: $350

Shoes: $100

Jewelery: $100

Groom Outfit: $500

Groom Shoes: $200

Pre-pampering (nails, hair): $400

Hair & makeup for BM's: $500

Total: $2950

 

Rings:

His: $150

His ring tattoo: $500

Engagement Ring: $1500

Hers: $600

Total: $2750

 

OOT Bags/ Welcome Books: $900

 

Paper Costs:

STD: $150

Invites: $250

Printing: $200

Postage: $300 (Canada-wide, to the US, to Europe and Pakistan)

Guest Book: $50

Menu Cards: $100

Signs: $50

Guest Cameras/ Sign: $150

Total: $1450

 

Miscellaneous Costs:

Bonfire: $850

Legal Ceremony: $500

Passports: $200

Set-up fee: $150

Gifts: $500

Trip Clothing: $1000

Travel Agent: $500

Misc. expenses: $1000

Total: $4700

 

Trip Cost:

Airfare and Resort stay for 2 weeks: $6000 ($3000/person)

Tips: $1000

Taxes: $1000

Total: $8000

 

Grand Total for 70 people: $35,345

 

 

 

<---- I think that will be me, if this is what the actual cost looks like at the end of all of this...... LUCKILY, there are many costs I am willing to cut, if and when the time comes to do that (ie. bonfire, lounge chairs, fire show, and decor from the ceremony/reception,oot bags)

 

I think I just need to do an absolute worst case scenario, so that way when the prices start to come in and they are cheaper.....woo hoo!!!!

I am getting married in sandals Montego Bay next year april,,,, so excited. 

Originally Posted by calchik 

 

yay i'm married i can join in the fun

 

would do again:

- have a destination wedding. spending the week with my family and closest friends was the best decision ever

- get married in the gazebo. the beach location was seriously in the middle of hundreds of beach chairs. besides we went to the beach to take pics after the ceremony

- get legally married at home first it really simplified things to not do it legally there

- not upgrade our suite we didn't bother so we could be in the same complex our guests were. we were barely in our room anyways

- spend the money on a good photographer

- have a wedding video done! we didn't actually want this but it came with our package. it far exceeded our expectations, was funny, entertaining, captured our wedding ceremony and all the picture taking time. it had all our guests say something to us about our wedding. we provided songs for the video and they were used very appropriately and you can tell our personalities from the music used

- do OOT bags. our guests loved them and was totally surprised that we did this for them. the travel mugs were used daily by almost everyone. fully worth the time and effort putting them together

- completely trust the wedding coordinators they are experts at their job and it shows. they had every detail under control and surprised us with another walk down the aisle with our guests on both sides throwing flower petals for us while dominican music was playing. the pictures and video of this were fantastic

- not have kids for the trip lots of our guests have kids but we requested that no kids come, we only had a baby because well it's a baby. the parents really enjoyed their time for themselves. it was all inclusive so everyone could drink without worry. several couples said it was the honeymoon they never had

- assign one of my friends as my reception photographer after our professional photographers left she had my camera and specific instructions to capture all the reception events. she did a fabulous job and then i didn't have to worry about whether i was going to have pics of everything that happened

- not bring decorations i didn't need them, everything was well decorated, i didn't need centerpieces or bows or fabric or anything. depends on your resort i guess

- not worry about my guests and how much fun they were having i focused on my trip, my fun and whoever happened to be around me. sure i didn't spend a lot of time with DH's cousins but they were never in the same place we were. they still told me they had a fantastic trip

- not plan meeting points and dinners, and drinks and etc. we didn't want to restrict anyone's trip to meeting our schedule of events. so we didn't have any. everyone ended up going to dinner at about the same time anyways. then meeting in the lobby bar after. everyone always found each other somehow

- wash my wedding dress in my bathtub with Zero instead of paying $150 to have it done professionally i had to wear my dress again for my AHR but it was dirty at the bottom. i had no issues washing it in the tub, then lying it flat to dry. then hanging it up to dry once it was practically dry. best $150 i ever saved. lol

 

wouldn't do again:

- use Marlin Travel as my travel agent they were terrible. see my wedding review for my rant about them

- try to plan every single little detail over email with the wedding coordinator this may only work if you're easy going and don't demand perfection. this was actually not by choice since our very well planned mexico wedding got cancelled because of swine flu and we went to punta cana with just our wedding date picked, nothing else planned. wedding was planned in 2 hours once we were there. we could physically see everything and it's much easier to make decisions. again, the WC were pros so we had nothing to worry about and the exceeded our expectations

- get way too drunk on the snorkeling trip the day of my girls night i missed my own girls night because i was sick in the room. i felt really bad about that. if you're having a girls night, make sure you're in good shape to actually go out. lol

- forget about my glow in the dark ice cubes for the reception until 20 mins before it ended oops. then it took us another 5 mins to figure out how to make them glow

- make a hard fast rule that no friends of guests were allowed to come to the wedding stuff again this depends on how many friends of guests are coming. we made the rule in the beginning with zero exceptions. ended up only 2 friends came and i felt bad that i excluded one of them because we spent a lot of time together before the wedding. and she helped do my MOH's hair on the wedding day...then she had to hang out by herself while we were all at the wedding.

 

not sure:

guest excursion - i had one planned in mexico but then didn't have one planned for the dominican when it got moved. we all still went on a snorkeling trip together which was loads of fun. nobody seemed to care that they had to pay for the trip themselves and we didn't provide it. i'm all for the group excursion with all your guests, we had a blast. i'm on the fence about the time, effort and money planning it for everyone. since i did all that planning for mexico and it didn't happen. then i did zero planning for the dominican and it still happened, kind of made it seem like planning it wasn't necessary. i'm sure my guests would have appreciated our planning it if we did and if we paid for it or part of it. but they didn't seem put out that we didn't plan anything or front the cost for it.

I totally agree not using Marline Travel, they tried charging $200 before they even do anything!!! outrageous... i used Flight center at the end, they have excellent customer service, and the girl who helped me even though she never done group wedding package before, she replied my emails quickly and responded to whatever i asked her. I love her

Originally Posted by Cherina 

 

I have read all #737 posts here and they realness and honesty was more helpful then all 40 bride/wedding exc magazines and books that I own. I can't wait until I can give back.

you read all of them!!! there are hundreds of pages, but definitely very useful!

Originally Posted by gkashmira 

 

I just thought it might be helpful to know what i thought was worth doing and what was a waste of time/money/efforts. I think if I had known these ahead of time I could have saved money in some areas to spend on things that were more important...

 

I WOULD DO IT AGAIN:

 

 

Writing our own ceremony - this made it really special and I truly loved every minute of it!

 

Bouquet - I didn't think it would be important but I loved it. It was so bright and beautiful and it gave me something to hold onto for dear life when I thought I was going to burst into tears (of joy).

 

Video - Even though I don't have the whole thing yet I love watching the teaser video that Marci sent me. Plus it's great for those friends who weren't able to make it.

 

Welcome Dinner - Everyone had such a great time at Baja Cantina for our welcome dinner that I wasn't sure we were going to be able to top it for the wedding.

 

Bus for Welcome Dinner - the best decision ever. I have no idea how people would have found it or gotten there if we didn't have the bus.

 

DJ for our iPod - thank god we also hired a DJ to run our ipod. When the iPod froze half way through the reception he had music up and running off his system in less than a minute.

 

Chuppah w/ fake flower garlands - I loved the way this looked. Plus it provided us some shade on a very hot and sunny day.

 

Getting Married in Cabo - Ok, maybe this was the best decision I made (but the bus is 2nd!). Everyone had the best time and a number of people told me it was honestly the most fun they have ever had at a wedding.

 

Maye Cortinas - was awesome and she was able to hire vendors who were much more affordable than the ones the hotel provided.

 

Polaroid Guestbook

 

I WISH I HAD SKIPPED IT:

 

Cupcakes/Cake - no one ate them they were too full or drunk.

 

Beach bonfire - it was pretty unnecessary and people only sat down there for about an hour.

 

Believe it or not... My gorgeous (and expensive) dress. I ended up stressing so much over how it would look. Plus in order to afford it I am selling it so I don't have it as a keepsake. I loved how it looked and I felt beautiful... but there was so much time, money and stress involved in getting it and having it look perfect that if I had to do it all over again I might skip it. Don't get me wrong - if I could have kept it then my feelings may be different.

 

Mariachi Trio for ceremony and cocktail hour. I don't know if anyone could really hear them - they were really soft and in retrospect it would have been cheaper to just have music played through the sound system.

fabulous thread, these are such good tips, thank you for starting one.

Originally Posted by BeachBound2011 

 

Here are my Natural Touch flowers from wedideas.com!!  The first is my bouquet!!  And the other is for my bridesmaids!  I love them!!

 

it looks like real... but i am seriously considering it. I really don't feel like spending $250 for my own bouquet and $150 each for my 4 bridesmaid, when i can spend 1/4 of that and get some beautiful personalized bouquets.

Originally Posted by Lua 

 

Hi there!

 

I've decided on going with fake flowers. My main reasoning is that the free bouquets offered with my resort aren't what I want and then I got to thinking - why spend a ton of $ for a real bouquet that I want but probably can't even really bring back home? So, I've recently orderd the flowers that I want from afloral.com and plan to make my own bouquet.I bought enough for my bouquet, FI's bout and some extras for decorations - all of that incl. hefty shipping to Canada came to $52 (the flowers before shipping were in the $30s). And let me tell you - they look AMAZING in person.

 

I hope to actually get my bouquet together after Christmas (things just suddenly got too busy) and I'll definitely post pictures when I'm done. I love DIY'ing so I figured how hard can it be to make a bouquet?

thank you for sharing, it's good to know this info especially I am from Canada.

they look great. thank you for sharing

this looks amazing! i absolutely love it.
 

should i save some money using fake flower? i am not sure what to do

i am still trying to figure out whether to do an AHR or not, but you guys gave me so much pro and cons. thank you!!

i too am not sure whether to use the resort makeup artist or not, they will probably have to do many trials to get it right...

awesome! THANK YOU!

Backy and Daniel Sandals Montego Bay Jamaica april 2014

thank you for sharing, that's really cool!

any recent bride using a videograhper? i am also looking for one

thank you for sharing!

they look professional made! welldone

awww... i love the postcard which he proposes!

someone is the forum mentions http://www.papercircle.ca/ they seems pretty decent prices

pink! soooo romantic, but this is really cute

great job! lovely passport.

absolutely love the cover. so bright and cheerful!

thank you for sharing. brilliant!