GayWeddings.com

Anyone have any advice to share on saving money, especially with wedding vendors? If you have a tip on anything, from gown shopping, to invites, to flowers, please share!
My best tip- tell your potential vendors what your budget is early on. I would have loved the 12-hours-of-photography-plus-full-leather-album package offered by our photographer, but knew we couldn't pay the hefty $2500 or we'd be out of money for everything else. So I told him how much we love his photography but that we're on a budget. He responded by offering us his minimum price, $1000 (which usually only gets 4 hours of his time)for a full day of photography, and also allowed us to delay 1/3 of the payment until after the wedding so that we can have a few extra weeks to save money if we want to buy that fancy album after all.
Ditto for our officiant. We love his style (and I hate to perpetuate the poverty of ministers) but we couldn't quite afford the whole fee, so he knocked off $100 right away. We've probably saved over $800 just by being honest about our financial limitations. No need to haggle with vendors ungraciously, but do ask if you can find a compromise when you really have your heart set on something- it's your day, and you should have it all!

Kate - I noticed that your location is western mass - that's where we're having our wedding this upcoming fall.

Do you have any recommendations for vendors etc in the area? When is your event? Where are you having it?

-Rachel

Hi Rachel! Congrats on your upcoming wedding! Ours will be on Labor Day weekend in Northampton. We have some pre-wedding activities planned (things like lunch at the Woodstar Cafe, a walking tour of Northampton, and dinner at the Teapot.) The wedding will be at the Unitarian Society church on Main St. and the reception will be at the Northampton Brewery (we love the place and it was also part of our first date, so it's really sweet to be going there for the reception). My best vendor reccommendation is actually far away- our photographer is Stephen Eis (he runs Coolwater Studios from his house in Wrentham). We wanted to make sure our photographs come out really well, so we went for a professionnal photographer (rather than friends). We knew his photography was great and that he did a great job photographing a lesbian wedding that we had attended last September (we didn't want to go with someone who had never done a same-sex wedding before or who was remotely uncomfortable with the idea- we want someone who can really capture our moment). He had no problem cutting us a great deal- no other photographer came close. We reccommended him to our friends who were just married last weekend, so it was fun seeing him work. I could ramble more about him, but I'll just put the website: www.coolwaterstudios.com.
Bridal Heirlooms in South Hadley did well with our bridesmaids' dresses (although I don't know if they know it's for a lesbian wedding, so they may or may not be good about that for someone else.)
Dwyer Florist in Northampton is great! They've been my florist for our whole relationship- I guess that sounds kind of funny- but really, from the first flowers I bought for her, to the 20 bouquets I used for my proposal, to our wedding flowers, they've been super excited for us and totally professional.
The Best Western on Conz St. Northampton is where we reserved a block of rooms for out-of-towners. They're expensive, but no more so than any of the other hotels in town, and the rooms are nicer than the Autumn Inn (which we toured and were not impressed with- sparse rooms and cigarette smell).
The staff at the Northampton Chamber of Commerce are very helpful if you're looking for info to send to your out-of-town guests.
Adam Scottera is a jazz musician in the area who works with some friends to form jazz groups for weddings- he used to be a co-worker of mine and is a great guy. I suppose he's probably in the local phone book.
I'd reccommend you a cake-baker, but my sister is doing our cake (although if anyone's looking, she's an amazing cook and she just might be interested in doing this again). Likewise for a stationer- we made our own save-the-dates and invitations.
If you're looking for a pretty place to take pictures afterward, the Chapin Garden at Smith College is beautiful and can be used for pictures (no ceremonies unless they're under 7 people)- you have to purchase an insurance policy for your use though- it costs $99.
Two vendors I would not reccommend- LaSalle Florist in South Hadley is openly homophobic and refuses to serve same-sex weddings; The Knoll Bed & Breakfast in Northampton also had unkind words when we called for reservations for our friend (we're putting him up since he's flying in to do the music for us) and his boyfriend.
That's about all I can think of! What about you- any rants or raves? Good luck! -Kate-

Sit down with your fiancee early on in the planning process and figure out what aspects of planning and a wedding are really important to each of you. Do not scrimp on those things that you envision when you imagine your ideal wedding day. Cut back elsewhere on the things that neither of you find critical, and you won't miss it.

We did some things that might be considered extravagant, and totally disproportionate to our overall budget, but those are the things we look back most fondly on because they were splurges that we both really wanted. We knew that photography was important to both of us, so we cut back flowers, videographer, alcohol, having a DJ rather than live music for reception.

If you delegate vendor-type roles to friends/family rather than hiring someone, adjust expectations accordingly. A friend offered to do a wedding video which we weren't planning on having at all. While we love it, especially the *hour* of toasts it captures, it might have been a disappointment to someone for whom the video was a major thing - i.e. missing vows in ceremony, no first dance which we had choreographed and practiced like mad. I know people who did lots of delegating to friends and then regretted it -- so only do this if you are okay with their vendor-type job coming in second to their place as a guest... and if you really trust the friend.

That said, consider going with hiring strangers who are not full time professionals at their wedding business. We hired a woman who bakes wedding cakes out of her kitchen to supplement income from her regular job, and we had a music student doing ceremony music. Both had lots of prior experience, but did it on the side. and while we paid both of them as professional vendors, it was still a huge savings and they both did fantastic jobs. Obviously you need to research a bit more closely and working with semi-professionals requires a bit more work on your part to figure out that all bases are covered in negotiating the itinerary, but it can be enormously successful and also cheap!

Consider having your wedding in a small town setting or during a less busy season rather than in a major metropolitan area or during the peak season for weddings in whatever area you're looking. We saved a LOT of money by opting for a rural area in VT rather than the big cities we lived in during planning, or where our parents live (Connecticut). Seriously, we would look around at local vendors in the other areas where we were living and found prices many times higher than what we ended up getting in the small VT town in January. Our wedding budget which got us a big lavish event with lots of extra details would not have gone even remotely as far in any of the cities we were living in during the span of our engagement.

Also: destination wedding = smaller guest attendance = huge savings. We had 100 people at our destination wedding of the 200 invited.

That's pretty much it. Also, for flower budget - focus on flowers that are worn and carried by all members of the wedding party. These end up in all the photos and really make a big impression, so they should be awesome. Reception flowers are not that important, and ceremony flowers even less so. Pick venues that have lots of character on their own and keep the majority of your flower budget to bouquets, boutonieres and corsages.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Countess,

Hello Kate!

Thank you so much for the long and thoughtful response - we're getting married in Lenox, at Seven Hills Inn http://www.sevenhillsinn.com/home.html which for us will be a destination wedding. When we walked into the Inn for the first time, we knew we'd found the right place for us, even though from the website, we thought it would not fit our style and what we wanted from our weekend - it wasn't the first place we looked at and we're so glad that we shopped around. We also got quotes at all the places we visited, so we knew what things cost in general, and where there was room to move around in the contract at the Inn. (We stayed at the Best Western where you blocked your rooms when we were in the northhampton area shopping for wedding venues!)
We've been lucky to have some of our vendors also as friends - my former landlords and very close friends are in a band I used to *love* to go and see - since they'd be at the wedding anyway, their band is playing our reception. Since they're professionals and do stuff like this on a regular basis, we're super excited and also confident with their ability to perform! My roommate from college and best friend, is first-hand to a famous costume designer on broadway, and she'll be making my dress...
Our invitations did cost more than we wanted, we had them done in the city, where we live, at a place in park slope called "Lion in the Sun" http://www.lioninthesunps.com, I loved our final product, but there were some hidden costs that put us over budget. I would still recommend them, but also recommend getting a solid and VERY specific quote before deciding to go ahead. (I suppose that's good advice for any vendor really.) Also, for anyone going to them - avoid the staff (especially Amanda), except Melinda, the owner. The rest of the staff were completely rude to K and I, and we were getting quotes elsewhere when Melinda rescued our business by giving us 10% off the final cost.
For photography we wanted something professional, but very gay friendly, and through a colleague from work, we found Kelly with her one-woman company Closed Circle Photography http://www.closedcirclephoto.com/800index.html, she's GREAT! She operates out of Burlington VT, but for a nominal fee she's traveling down for our wedding. She offers couples a free "couple portrait" session, which we took her up on, and really liked her style. Also, she's done a lot of gay and also alternative style weddings, which also made us feel much more comfortable...so we don't have to explain anything - I couldn't agree with you more, we want someone who will want to capture our wonderful moments very naturally.
Something that surprised me in the whole process is our website and how much we LOVE it! it has helped us communicate with our family and friends who all live very far away from us, not only with the details of our day, but more importantly with our philosophy and ideas around our weekend, our commitment, and our lives. If you want a peek, check out: www.karenandrachel.com. We used www.wedquarters.com - because they were the cheapest and offered us the services we needed. We couldn't be more pleased! (And I thought it would be a necessary evil!)
Flowers are the last thing we're really worried about, and a ketubah, although for the ketubah we have found a few online shops we're considering... Thank you so much for your advice on the florist - I don't know if they'll travel to Lenox, but if not - they might have a good idea of someone in the more immediate area for our wedding.
I think that's it - at least for now! the plan continues day by day as we get more rsvp's and try to pull all of the planning around our weekend together.
Ummmmm - i think that's it! Unless i'm forgetting something - i constantly feel as though I'm forgetting something!
Anyone else out there with raves or rants?
-Rachel

Wow, great responses! Countess, you are absolutely right- splurge on the things that are important to you and your betrothed, and skimp more on things that neither of you care about as much. For us it was the reception site and the photography- though we were still on a budget for both (and both have offered a superb deal), we're definitely spending more on those than other things. We love our photographer- like Rachel's, he offers a complete "engagement" photo session (we just had ours last week) with the wedding package- and $1000 may seem piddly for some wedding budgets, but it's a big chunk of change for us little social workers- given how important it is to both of us, it's so well worth it. We got lucky with our reception site- the Northampton Brewery- ours is the first full wedding reception they've done (since adding their new sunroom- very beautiful and romantic) and we reserved it for our reception before they realized it's potential and added $1000 to their fee. It's so great, though, we would have tried very hard to pay the extra grand, because this particular site is very meaningful to us. For anybody considering the Northampton Brewery, you'll pay for the food, any open bar/drinks, a $25 cake cutting fee (miniscule compared to some places), and an 18% gratuity, plus $500 for each hour after 3 hours up to 5 hours (which is easily extendable- they won't get many dinner customers after 10pm). You can see their site for more info- the complete banquet menu and contract are available online..
Listen to Rachel! A wedding website is easy and cheap and great! We used www.theknot.com to make a website, but I would actually reccommend getting your own. Afterwards I discovered that it is very cheap ($3-10) to get a website all your own (as in www.whateveryouwant.com) I would have done that, rather than having a long, complicated web address through The Knot. Many internet providers offer really cheap rates- it sounds like Rachel found one of them. So, take heed! -Kate-