eat, drink, and be married

Food and drink is what ultimately makes weddings so expensive. It really doesn't matter what the quality of the food is, at the end of the day, when you're feeding 70 people (which is a small group compared to most weddings), even if you go to McDonald's it's going to end up costing you some serious money. And if a wedding doesn't have an open bar I just want to throw a tantrum because, come on, seriously?

Having the reception at our house afforded us some more flexibility - I know most venues have caterers you are required to use when you rent their space, and so we were lucky in that we didn't have to deal with any of that. We were also the luckiest ever of all time that my mom is a superwoman and took care of basically all the food for our entire wedding.

When she asked what she could help out with and I said the food, I did not expect for her to caterer the entire thing and not ask for a cent from us. She came early Saturday morning with crock pots, prepared foods, serving trays, you name it, and spent the entire day cooking and setting up the spread in the basement. She brought a friend to help and also to keep an eye on things throughout the evening, and not once did I have to worry about trash or drink refills or any such thing. It was magical. It was by far the biggest help and largest money saving opportunity we had throughout the entire process.

Thanks, Mom!

And on top of that, the food was excellent! From fruit salad, to sausage and peppers, to hotdogs and hamburgers, there was a ton of variety and it all tasted amazing. The basement worked great for it - we had sangria set up on the upstairs kitchen table, so people could grab it as they walked out, and then put together a plate of food in the basement, and then take it all outside to the backyard where the tables were set up. The tables all had a bucket of beers and a carafe of white wine and one of red wine, which were refilled by my mom's friend as needed. Flawless.

So I know you aren't all fortunate enough to have a mom that can do this for you - my mom has a background in hospitality and knows a lot of caterers and so on. But you can definitely try to take advantage of those kinds of connections. She bought a lot of things at a restaurant supply kind of place where you could buy food in bulk, and that saved her a lot of money. And of course like I said, having the reception at your house will give you some more options, like cooking yourself or having people bring dishes, that you wouldn't have at most venues.

David and I were only responsible for the booze and the dessert. We knew we wanted cupcakes, and after a lot of searching decided to go with a company called Jimmies Cupcake Co. They were definitely the most reasonably priced and had the biggest selection. All the cupcakes are named after a famous "Jimmy" - we went with the James Bond (red velvet), James Caan (vanilla with strawberry frosting), Jesse James (vanilla with chocolate icing), and James Monroe (chocolate with vanilla frosting). They asked what our colors were and even decorated the cupcakes to match, and delivered them on Saturday morning. They were bigger than I expected and looked great, and were absolutely delicious!

For drinks we decided to go with beer, wine, and sangria. I found a sangria recipe online that was super simple - just blush wine, strawberry lemonade (actually it called for watermelon lemonade but good luck finding that), strawberries, and watermelon. We filled a giant beverage dispenser with that and it was gone in about 8 minutes. We got all the wine in boxes which was way more affordable, and from Total Wine in Delaware, which is super cheap and there are no taxes! I've heard mixed opinions on whether or not it's exactly legal to buy alcohol in Delaware and bring it to Pennsylvania but after doing some research it looks like as long as it's just for personal use it's okay. There we also got a bottle of wedding cake flavored vodka, which we did shots of at the reception.

The beer we got from a distributor by our house, just some Miller Lite and Yuengling. Overall, we spent just over $200 for the cupcakes (and that's including delivery), and about $400 on the alcohol. I just googled the national average cost of wedding cakes and desserts and it came up as $451, and a beer and wine bar for our size would have likely been about $1500. Nobody complained about the selection, and there was more than enough for everyone (in fact, I still have about half a box of red wine in my refrigerator).

Cheers!

pitching a tent

It was almost 95 degrees when we got married in Atlantic City. Our photographer's drenched shirt in this picture says it all (don't mind my weird face):

Since both our ceremony and our reception were taking place outdoors, our eyes were glued to the weather forecasts all week leading up to both events. Even though it was super hot in AC, I was just glad that it was sunny with not a cloud in sight. It looked less promising for Saturday - hot, with a 50% chance of thunderstorms.

We had no back up plan. Our row home would not accommodate 70 people. There was no budget for a last minute venue change. I started calling tent companies to see if we could rent one at the last minute. Tents & Events was extremely rude to me, making me feel like an idiot for waiting until the last minute (even though they totally had tents available, as I knew they would), and then even laughing at me when they asked how the tent would get to the yard and I said "through the house." Look lady, I've never rented a tent before, I don't know what the right answer is! She then said she would get back to me later that day, and never did. They were extremely unprofessional and I would not recommend doing business with them.

After searching for a bit online, we once again found that like the dance floor, it was actually cheaper to buy a tent than to rent one. We had only a few days before the reception, so the biggest issue was shipping. We purchased a 10'x30' white tent on amazon, with two day shipping, and it came to about $250 - still over $100 cheaper than renting it, plus we got to have the tent then, or sell it, or whatever. I think this is the exact one. We got some mixed messages about shipping and thought we weren't going to see the thing until the Monday after our reception, so that caused some anxiety and elevated blood pressure, but all we could do was wait. And then on Friday morning, we saw a gigantic box on our stoop and let out a huge sigh of relief. Oh, and PS, we got it into our yard by carrying it THROUGH THE HOUSE. In your face, Tents & Events.

Assembling it was actually very easy. The tent looked really pretty, and even though it wasn't really heavy duty, I was confident that it would do the job. We tied the poles to the fence to give it some extra support and that seemed to do the trick.

While we were putting the tent up, our neighbor yelled from his yard that he had another smaller tent that we could borrow to cover the dance floor if we wanted (this one went the entire length of our lawn until the dance floor, and we hadn't come up with a solution for that yet). We of course said YES and ran over. While there he also gave us a large fan, and offered up a bunch of tools if we needed them. We didn't know him very well and I thought it was so sweet of him to do all of this for us.

The whole experience really made me appreciate my block. The week before we had gone around to each house and hung a lollipop with a note on it on their doorknobs, explaining that we would be having the reception in our yard and there would be music until about 10pm, and I put my email address so they could contact me if they had any questions or concerns. From then on, anytime we left the house, random neighbors were shouting congratulations or offering help or advice. It was the first time I really felt this connection to my street, and it made me want to get to know them all better.

Our neighbors tent was perfect - it picked up right where ours left off and covered the dance floor, all except for about two feet on the side. And that night, it didn't rain until the very last song, and everyone started cheering. It was a relief actually - it made the night cool down, and people were even standing on the uncovered section of the yard to dance in it. As you can tell, the people I surround myself with embrace the saying on our napkins, and always have a glass that's half full.

beg, borrow, and buy cheap stuff

The best advice I can give you is that if you are having your reception at your own home and you need stuff - tables, chairs, decorations, anything - ask around and more likely than not, someone you know has it and will lend it to you. We borrowed a bunch of lanterns and ribbon from a woman I work with named Alyssa who got married recently. Newlyweds can be your biggest resource. I know I have two boxes full of stuff I would gladly give or lend to a friend in need. All of our tables and some chairs came from our parents and friends, and my job let me borrow another 30 chairs, speakers, and a microphone. I'd like to think it was that moment from It's a Wonderful Life where George gets all that money from his friends for being such a good guy to everyone, just instead of money it was folding chairs.

Another friend got all of our music for us through what I'm sure were completely legal means. We sent him our song list and he got us all 4 hours of music, and it cost us nothing.

There were a few things we had to buy, and we headed right to Oriental Trading. Terrible name, amazing online store. You should use this site for any party planning, and it's also great around the holidays. You get stuff in large quantities for super cheap prices. We got our plastic table cloths and clips to hold them on, paper lanterns, directional signage, shot glasses, beer buckets that said "eat, drink, and be married" which were our "centerpieces," the cardboard frames people used in the photo booth, and some hilarious novelty toilet paper, all for under a hundred bucks. Party City supplied us with all the plates, cups, and napkins we needed. I loved our napkins - blue and white, with the message "may your drink always be half full."

We found the lights we wanted at Target, and some other miscellaneous items at an Odd Lot Outlet - sparklers, citronella candles, and some other random things. And after searching through what seemed like 189 stores for carafes for the wine, we found exactly what we wanted at IKEA for two bucks each.

I would say for all of our set up in the yard and house, the tables and chairs, the plates and cups, all of the decorations, we probably spent under $300. Considering what most people spend of flowers, centerpieces, linens, and all that, we did pretty darn good. And I must say, it all looked perfect and adorable, and so very us.

everybody dance now

What's the most important thing at a wedding reception (besides alcohol)? Dancing!

We shopped around at different companies, the same ones that rented out tables and chairs had dance floors as well, and we asked for quotes. This is when we discovered that dance floors are the most expensive thing to rent on the planet. Mostly because the companies that rent them out require them to be tented, and you have to rent the tent from them as well, which basically doubles the cost. The average price for a tent and dance floor the size we wanted was about $500. Since we had budgeted less than half that (based on doing absolutely no research on the subject), we wanted to check out some other options.

I started looking for dance floors for sale on craigslist, and David was trying to find out how to build one on a budget. He found a blog (I heard that's where all the greatest thinkers share their ideas and experiences now) with detailed instructions on building a floor using plywood, and after pricing everything out we decided that was the way to go.

Originally we were going to buy a bunch of 2x4s and build the base of the dance floor, but then I had the brilliant idea of just getting a bunch of wooden pallets and attaching the plywood to the top, essentially cutting the work in half. David found free pallets on craigslist pretty easily, and one day he rented a UHaul and picked them up, and the plywood as well. And then my basement looked like this:

For like, a while.

Finally we got everything we needed, and were ready to start putting it all together. First we laid out the plywood and painted it white. It took about a million coats, since the wood is so porous. I had the great idea of painting the LOVE image on it, which was a big job, since there were six pieces of plywood that needed to be broken up into the four letters, and we were drawing out the entire thing with just a pencil and a tape measure. We had to call in reinforcements. And thanks to Gretchen and Dan, it came out beautiful.

Then we stacked the plywood pieces against the house, and David arranged the pallet base.

Now, the idea was to space out the pallets so that the plywood overlapped them, making it sturdier once everything was nailed down. Unfortunately, someone (I will give you a hint: it wasn't me) didn't plan this out well, and the plywood ended up covering the exact same space as the pallets covered. It's hard to explain, but the end result was an uneven dance floor. We had to take pieces of other pallets and random pieces of wood and kind of Frankenstein up the underneath so that it was stable.

Finally we swept all the dirt and ants off of it, put on a top coat of polyurethane, and we were ready to go. I was kind of shocked by how beautiful it came out. So unique and special. Everyone commented on it - it was a hit! And it made our reception so much more special than some generic rented dance floor. Even better, I would say the total cost ended up being about $150, including the UHaul rental. Of course, now we have a pile of plywood and pallets in our backyard. But I guess it just serves as a nice reminder of the amazing time we had dancing the night away.

the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry

David and I love Atlantic City. We both have fun gambling, and I love the lights and the beach and the buffets and the late nights. I had never been there until I went with David, and we have gone several times since, and it has kind of a special place in our hearts, no matter how sad and trashy others might think it is.

We wanted to get married there, but had already decided we should have the reception at our house to save money. The solution we came up with was to just ask our immediate family and a few close friends to come with us to AC on a Thursday night and have our ceremony then, with the reception the Saturday after that in Philadelphia.

We wanted to have the ceremony on a stage on the boardwalk across from the Convention Center, called Kennedy Plaza. It's a beautiful spot - wooden with columns behind it and the beach in the background, elevated slightly above to boardwalk. Our entire group would fit on the stage and we planned to just have everyone stand, since our ceremony was going to be very short. We did some research and found that to get a permit for the space, you had to fill out a form and buy one day liability insurance, and submit that to the Special Events Office. The permit was free, and the insurance was just under $100. After we mailed that in, we received our permit shortly, and were all set to have our romantic and intimate ceremony on the stage.

David wanted to decorate the stage in some way, while I thought the great thing about it was that it needed no decoration. I also didn't want to have people go over early to set stuff up and then have to stay afterwards to clean up. I wanted to get there, get married, and be on our way. Our compromise was real rose petals, which we would scatter all over the stage, and could leave there to be blown away afterwards. I ordered them online from a website called Fresh Petal - 6,000 petals for about $140. I did this to make David happy, when really the idea of $140 literally blowing away was a little nauseating to me.

About two weeks before the wedding, I received an email from Bunches West, the shop that Fresh Petal must have ordered the petals from (I imagine they find local shops to deliver the petals to you), and it was a "refund confirmation." Sure enough I looked in my bank account and there was the $140 I had paid months earlier. I had never been notified that the order was cancelled, so I was a bit confused. After three emails asking about it with no response, I sent them a final one that stated I still wished to be filled in on what happened, but to please not replace the order as we did not want to give them our business anymore. I have to admit I was not devastated by it, since I was not a huge fan of the petals in the first place, but I was super annoyed that they had not communicated what was going on with me. To this day, I've heard nothing from them.

We were fortunate the petals didn't come, because we wouldn't have been able to use them anyway. When David and his group walked out to the stage we had reserved to wait for me and my group to come down to meet them, they were surprised to find a jazz band setting up on the stage and people waiting in the audience for the concert that was apparently happening at the same exact time as our ceremony! He was informed that these concerts happen every Thursday and that this was the first one of the summer. Everyone started frantically looking for other spots that would work for our ceremony, and suddenly everyone in my group had their cell phones start ringing. It was hectic and stressful and I had an attitude of "just tell me where to go and I will go there," since I was in my wedding dress and steps away from the boardwalk.

Nice shot of me on the phone with Sean trying to figure out where the ceremony should be - a perfect time for a photo!

David and the photographer found a really lovely spot right next to the stage, surrounded by pink flowers and with the beach still in the background. I walked over to him with my dad, and I couldn't have cared less in that moment that we weren't on the stage. Looking back on it, our pictures are beautiful and everything was perfect - save for the fact that nobody could hear our vows over the loud band that was right next to us. But the band did announce us after we kissed, and dedicated a song to us - You Make Me Feel So Young. You just had to laugh.

Our spot allowed for some authentic Atlantic City characters to wander into our shots, like the classy lady on the right here...

And in this beautiful photo, you can see the audience who had gathered for the jazz band concert!

Something that added to the intimacy (and affordability) of our ceremony was that we were married by our friend Mike, one of Dave's oldest friends who was actually with him the night we met. When we were looking for an officiant, I was having a hard time finding someone I liked, and I thought it would be so much more special if it was someone who was important to us. I didn't want a stranger in our pictures, especially when there were only 14 of us there, it just didn't seem to make sense. And Mike has a big personality, and I thought he would be perfect for the job. Mike was thrilled to do it, and he was ordained online at American Marriage Ministries for a small fee.

Mike did a great job, and put together a really special ceremony for us. It was perfection. David and I also spent a long time trying to find the perfect vows. We didn't want to write them ourselves, and we didn't want anything religious or too long. I also have a huge aversion to the traditional "til death do us part" or "as long as we both shall live." Not that I don't hope for that, it just seems so somber and unnecessary, and like kind of a lot of pressure. Finally we found these (and I will copy them here so our families can actually know what we said to one another):

(Name), do you take this (man/woman) as your (husband/wife), your friend, and your companion? Do you promise to share your life with his/hers; build your dreams together, support him/her through times of trouble, and celebrate with him/her in times of happiness; and treat him/her with respect and love through all the trials and triumphs of your lives together?

I, (name), take you, (name), to be my (husband/wife), loving what I know of you, and trusting what I do not yet know. I look forward to the chance to grow together, getting to know the (man/woman) you will become, and falling in love a little more every day. I promise to love you through whatever life may bring us.

I give this ring as my gift to you. Wear it and think of me and know that I love you.

After the ceremony we took our "portraits" on the miniature golf course and on the boardwalk, and then we treated our group to dinner. Originally we wanted to go to Cuba Libre, but when I called to make a reservation they informed me that groups over 10 would have to rent a space and have a pre-selected menu, the cost starting at $80 per person. We called a couple other places and were starting to think that we would be having our first dinner and husband and wife at Hooters, when we lucked out and called Carmine's. This Italian family style restaurant was perfect, and we had just the right amount of people to still be able to order off the regular menu. We got two appetizers, four entrees, two sides, two desserts, and about two drinks per person, and the total including tax and tip was about $500. The food was excellent and there was more than the 14 of us could possibly eat, and the atmosphere was fun and festive.

Getting married on a Thursday lended itself to a lot of money saving opportunities. At the Tropicana (our absolute favorite AC hotel and casino), our room was cheap to begin with, and when we told them we were getting married that night they upgraded us to a suite with a jacuzzi at no extra cost! Gambling that night was a blast with low minimums, and we also went to this club called Boogie Nights which normally place songs from the 70s and 80s, but on Thursday night has 90s night - perfect for us! There was no cover if you were staying at the Tropicana, and the drink specials were totally reasonable. We were up until 5am dancing, playing craps, and relaxing in the jacuzzi.

I'm still trying to get answers (and money) from the Special Events Office because of the the stage debacle. As of right now, I have sent them 12 emails and gotten back 2 vague responses. It's been over a month. Even still, I think our ceremony was perfect, and now Atlantic City is even more special to us.