AnnaS
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2001
- Messages
- 10,025
90 Day Update - Floral Ramblings
I can't believe we are at 89 days!! I remember last February when I first reached out to DFTW and had NO idea what I wanted for my wedding day.. the sad thing is it's been a year and I still feel indecisive about some of my decisions LOL
We paid our minimum expenditure, so I guess we are in this for good! My planner got back to me with an updated BEO last week.. I only cut around $10,000 from our discussion.. still another $20K or so to cut
Most of the rest of our cuts will be from floral.. I've been trying to review floral since the end of November, but my florist is sort of hard to get a hold of. She doesn't respond to emails, which is frustrating. After our planning session, our floral and decor came in close to $30K.. I'm hoping to bring it down to $12K ($10K would be ideal).
Since our reception location is basically a blank canvas, I want to put most of my budget there, which means I will need to cut pretty much all of ceremony decor. I've seen previous brides do minimal decor in the WP and it honestly looks really good. It keeps the focus on the bride and groom, whereas a lot of decor in the WP can kind of get distracting. I'm thinking I'm going to do the 5' gold candelabras without any floral (this will save $1200) and a custom aisle runner (I'd like to cover up the blue carpet!). My bridal bouquet is $450 (I know I could save some money there, but I want to have a pretty bouquet since I'm spending a good bit of money on photography and videography) and we only have about $100 in the groom's floral and my MOH floral. We are also cutting the aisle petals (they cost over $500 and don't really add anything to the decor) and candles down the aisle (again, $500 for low impact). This brings our personal floral and ceremony floral to close to $2000.
That leaves $8K-$10K for the reception floral and decor. We are renting the farmhouse trestle tables for $230 each (will probably need 7 or 8 of these) along with the mismatched wooden chairs that cost $16 each. I feel like the table and chairs are really the basis for my wedding "theme," so those are staying for now.
I also have a boxwood wall to go behind the sweetheart table with our names cutout in gold and coordinating drapery and floral for $4400 This is one of those things that I plan on asking my florist for a cheaper option.. something around $2500 if possible. I want something that will make an impact behind the sweetheart table, and I'm thinking I'm going to give up the carriage, which would basically pay for this and the custom aisle runner
The centerpieces are the other thing that I HAVE to cut down. I was quoted $1100 for floral garland to run the length of the tables, which came up to like $11K for 9 tables. I'm hoping that I can decrease the amount of floral in the garland and the length of it and get them for around $600. Even then I will need to do 3 tables with the garland and another cheaper centerpiece for the other 4 tables (maybe candelabras?) to keep the centerpieces around $2500
I've asked 3 or 4 times about a black and white dance floor and have yet to get this added to my BEO, but it's something I think will really tie our whole look together. So that adds around $650 I think?
Then we are replacing the deluxe greens package (10 ficus trees with twinkle lights) with 5' candelabras. We can get 8 of those for $500 versus the $3125 that the deluxe greens package costs.
We are upgrading our flatware to gold, which costs around $700 (something that could be cut, but all of our other decor is gold so I'm trying to keep it)
And we got our cake price down to $825 from $1575 We cut it down to 3 tiers instead of 4 and I think that's the only thing that was changed? Mental note to double check that though!!
So basically I've been crunching numbers for a week Other than that, I FINALLY ordered my fiance's suit... I'm still waiting on the jacket to come in though. I was originally going to do navy blue, but ended up going with a little bit lighter color blue so it felt less formal (since we have the morning ceremony). I got him a champagne colored tie (I thought that would be easier than trying to match the blush/amethyst color of my dress) Here it is! It's from Express (I had a coupon )
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ANDDDD I ordered his ring with the $200 Visa Card we got for getting DIRECTV installed
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It's Tungsten (he didn't want an expensive ring and I'm not fond of the traditional gold rings on men, so I picked this since it was a little bit more manly)
Anyway, I have a phone call scheduled with my florist on Thursday, so hopefully I'll have more to update then!
I tried to put in bold some of these prices..........I can't believe the prices of the floral. Who are you using may I ask - a Disney florist? Outside florist. Sounds steep but I am sure these are the going prices..........Are you saying the tables used for the reception are rented and there is a charge? They do not provide tables/chairs?
I hope they have samples of centerpieces, etc. to choose from when selecting. But I guess there are no prices regardless....are these chosen during the planning session a few months before?
I have another question - I am sure not the last......looking at some of the venues for the reception - many say it holds so many people. How can anyone really know the number of people who will attend a destination wedding until about a month before. Did you set a limit before hand?
You have no idea how helpful this is and I admire you for your great planning and details!!!! Getting close!!!
I love, love his wedding band!
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