How can I really stretch my wedding budget?

Question

Is it possible to have a big wedding (300 people) on a $9000 budget. We have decided that we will be having an open bar. What food should we serve?

Answer 1

Get married in the park or someone's backyard. Set a date that the flowers will be in full bloom and do wild flower bouquets for your attendents. Have the reception in the same yard as the wedding. Get your/his aunts & close friends of the family to bring a dish for a buffet line. Ask cousins to be servers so the the head table doesn't need to get up and get their food.
Hire a cousin to serve the alcohol.


Good Luck & Have Fun!

Make sure that you rent a tent in case of rain!

Answer 2

Keep in mind that an open bar will automatically be a couple thousand dollars. That dramitically reduces the budget you have. Food is another huge expense. Even if you go with a buffet style, you will still spend around 15-16 a person which is another 5000 dollars. Thats pretty much your whole budget right there. I would first off suggest not inviting so many people if you dont have a big budget. I would cut that in half. If you don't want to reduce the # of people you invite, then you will have to find a cheap hall that actually can hold 300 people, and you will have to find a cheaper option for food. You might even want to consider just having an outdoor wedding with the reception at the same sight. Then you can rent a big tent and some tables and make a lot of your own decorations. You may just want someone else to take pictures for you because a photographer will cost AT LEAST a thousand dollors (unless you can hire a college student in photography who wants to make a couple bucks). I think 9,000 is really unrealistic for 300 people. The average cost of weddings these days are $25000-30000. Thats a lot. But I think if you up-ed your budget by $6000-7000, you may be alright. But like I said, consider inivitng less people.

Answer 3

First, try to have the wedding at a private home or somehwere that is no cost or as low cost as possible.

Second, if you have a later ceremony (6/7pm) you can follow that with a cocktail reception and dessert only. This will give your guests a chance to eat a bigger meal before the event so that appetizers, cocktails and dessert will sustain them. Usually cateres will offer some more filling appetizers, suggestions I would make to you are beef tenderloin or flank steak with an herbed cheese and baguette, or some sort of finger sandwiches along with other appetizers. See if your caterer will let you provide your own booze for the bar, or to keep it an affordable open bar, serve one (or two) signature cocktails and then just have beer and wine. I am an event planner for a small catering company in Maine, which is my source for all this information. Good Luck!

Answer 4

Is the $9k for the entire wedding or just the Food & beverage?

First off don't get caught up in the misconception that a "buffet" dinner will cost you less than a "sit-down" dinner.

I just booked a wedding for 2009, 250ppl at $95.00 a head on a Saturday night. My usual per person on a saturday night is $165.00.

We are doing several things ~
Cocktail hour will only be: (1) action station, (1) non-action station
(8) butlered hors d'ouevers
Dinner we will serve: Salad, Entree ~ Single (filet for all guests and a veg option available), Wedding cake as dessert
Beverages: Open Bar all night (5 Hours)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can always do Beer, Wine and Soda. No liquor.
Print your own invitations, place cards, programs and menus
Keep flowers and favor simple

Good Luck

Answer 5

An open bar will really restrict your budget, instead of serving liquor try serving just beer and wine. And keep the wine to vintages that are affordable and keep kegs nehind the bar instead of bottled and canned beer.

For that many people go with a buffet meal and tlak with a caterer about your budget, they can probably tell you what is in your budget.

With that many people you may have to get fairly creative with decor, instead using large amounts of flowers buy one type in bulk on line arranging them in smaller groupd around the venue. Or no flowers at all but doing mosses and branches for an outdoor wedding.

Make sure you find a venue that allows you to use your own catere and bring in your own liquor with out charging a corkage fee.

Answer 6

I'm gonna hold back from being rude here.

I have been to over 30 weddings so far. The best (and it's actually the cheaper way to go) is to serve the food family style. Serve dishes that nearly everyone likes. Chicken alfredo, roast beef, mashed potatoes, dressing, broccoli, corn, and bread. There's no chuck wagon line (like the buffet style) and also food isn't cold by the time they serve the last table. When you serve filet mingon, so many people like it so many different temperatures, it's really hard to serve it properly to them.

The open bar shouldn't be a problem unless you have a lot of heavy drinkers comming. If that is the case, a 4 alcoholic drink max can be appropriated with 'tickets'. If that is too much trouble, only serve wine at the open bar and two different kinds of drinks, Rum and Cokes and Screwdrivers.

Answer 7

With 300 people, no I don't believe that this will be possible. If you spend $9,000 for the reception alone, that will be about $30 a person for food and alcohol. That's very close. If $9000 is all you can spend, perhaps you should cut your guest list.

Answer 8

Go to Vegas baby! Elope! It was so much fun and then you could keep all the money people give you for getting married and not have to pay off those wedding bills.

Answer 9

You can make it an appetizer reception instead of full meals. People would love that. ALOT of people aren't into sit down dining at weddings anyway.

Answer 10

I suggest visiting weddinglenox.com and post your request. Their matching system http://www.weddinglenox.com/membersignup1.php will match you up with local vendors. I tried it and have good result as I only recieved email from vendors according to my request.

One problem I had with my wedding is that it is hard to locate vendors in most website as most likely they group by states and there are too many of them that's too far from me and I have to look at each site to figure out.

The sites I provide above have a easy to use layout to show you pictures, pricing and location in one page plus, you can send out your inquiry for matching vendor to contact you. That save me lots of time to locate the best vendors with the right price.