Budget

May 2013

Every time I’m in charge of the food for a family event, the following scenario occurs.

1. I pick some kind of uniting theme, think about how much food we’ll realistically need for the amount of people we’re expecting, take the budget into account, consider what kinds of foods and food groups I love to see at parties, and plan the menu accordingly.

2. I make a grocery list.

3. My mom looks over said grocery list.

4. The questions begin.

5. I answer the questions (somewhat) patiently, and we go to the store. To my mind, there are no more questions. But somehow, when we’re standing in the bakery section of the grocery store, the questions begin again.

“Are you going to make those bacon-wrapped dates again this year?”

“Well did you think about having those spinach and cheese puffs?”

“Are you going to make that popcorn mixture with the white chocolate that you made last year? That was so yummy.”

No, no, and no. Because while those bacon-wrapped dates are amazing, they aren’t on the menu. We are going to have plenty of food, and I kinda had a thing going with what I’m planning to serve. I don’t want to just add to it for the hell of it. So we go back and forth; I insist that we don’t need that extra food and she insists that we do. And eventually, she gives me her go-to defense for all the stuff she’s throwing in my cart: “People want options.” “But we don’t need shrimp cocktail. I have all these other appetizers,” I say, removing the shrimp from my cart.

The day of the event, she’ll run out to pick up an ingredient we need and come home with three more appetizers that weren’t on the menu. When I get annoyed, she does it again. “Well, people like to have spinach dip,” she says. ”WHAT PEOPLE?” I finally demand, elbow deep in the buttercream I’m making for the new recipe I’ve decided to try and sweating bullets. “These aren’t strangers showing up to our house in an hour. Stop saying ‘people’ when we literally have five people coming over and we can just name all of them.” Continue reading The People Want Options

Posted in: Budget, Friends & Relations, Planning, The Day Itself | 176 Comments »

Jan 2013

Sample Wedding Budgets

This year we wanted to have more frank talk on APW about wedding budgets. To start the discussion, we enlisted the excellent Elizabeth of Lowe House Events in the San Francisco Bay Area, a longtime APW sponsor. It’s a tricky thing to discuss because budgets are profoundly subjective and vary hugely geographically. In the APW book, I include budget breakdowns: a $15,000 budget in San Francisco bought a very non-traditional city hall/food truck/nightclub wedding, while $13,000 in Columbus, Ohio bought a formal sit down dinner wedding for twice the number of people. And that’s not even bringing in the questions of personal resources, values, and tastes into the equation. But I fear that by not discussing budgets, we’ve done each other a great disservice, because when you’re starting planning, you flat out have no idea what anything costs. At APW we fundamentally believe that you can have an amazing wedding on any budget. This year, we want to discuss how. (And an editorial note: most of these budgets include wedding planning as a line item, not because it’s necessary, but because these are all weddings that Elizabeth, a wedding planner, worked on.)

Budgets! Budgets are almost always one of the hardest, and scariest, parts of planning a wedding. Unfortunately, they’re generally the part you have to figure out first. There’s a lot of discussion around that weddings are expensive because they’re weddings… and as someone who does them professionally, I don’t actually think this is true. Throwing a “traditional” wedding is expensive because throwing a big, fancy, sit-down dinner party with entertainment is expensive. Really—ask someone who works in corporate events how much they cost, and minus the fancy dress, they’re generally on par.

I also want to note at the start that this is framed in the context of the Northern California event market—which is one of the more expensive markets in the country (for, let’s be honest, everything, not just events).

I thought it would be helpful to look at the budgets of four actual weddings from 2012. (Disclaimer: none of these have been published on APW.) While these aren’t exhaustive options, I’ve included a wedding that was under the $5,000 mark, two within the $20,000-$30,000 range, and one that was $50,000, since these tend to be popular budget benchmarks in my area. I also chose to include only thirteen key budget lines, instead of… all of them, to make comparison easier. I excluded personal clothing (i.e. wedding dresses), as well as other miscellaneous costs, tried to group things in a way that made sense and made them comparable, and generally rounded to the nearest hundred dollars.

The $3,500 wedding

What it looked like: City hall ceremony and dinner for 10, followed by a casual, afternoon reception at home, featuring drinks, cupcakes, and a light buffet for 60 the next day.

Venue: $0
Reception food, combo of homemade and purchased: $1000
Disposable plates, forks, glasses: $110
Cupcakes, made by a friend: $0
Alcohol & beverages: $600
Photographer, semi-pro friend: $400
Music, DJed by a friend: $0
Wedding planner: $0
DIY invitations: $175
DIY flowers: $50
Other decor: $300
Makeup, self; hair by a non-pro friend: $0
Extra hired staff: $375

The $20,000 Wedding

What it looked like: Family property, with full ceremony, stand-up buffet dinner provided by food-only caterers, and pro-DJ provided music for 100 guests. Continue reading Sample Wedding Budgets

Posted in: Budget, Planning, Planning | 305 Comments »

Feb 2012

Ask Team Practical: Accomodating Guests

with Alyssa

How do I stop stressing out about where all of my out-of-town friends are going to stay for my wedding? I live in a studio apartment with my fiancé, and while we are very comfortable, we can fit about one guest, and I really don’t want to have anyone on the floor the week of our wedding. All of my bridesmaids and most of my friends (we are in our early twenties so all of our friends are dealing with student loan debt and not-awesome jobs) are flying in. I wish, oh how I wish, I could afford to rent a house for them to all crash in, or have them stay at my place, but I can’t. I know it will be expensive for them to get hotel rooms and I keep stressing about it. How do I stop feeling like this is my burden?

~ Sara Judy

Oh, Sara Judy, I know you, and you are the best kind of friend. You always have our favorite snacks available when we visit, you let us have the window seat on the bus and you always know when we’re having a bad day, don’t you? You are a lovely lovely person. And I say this because I’m about to yell at you for forgetting a basic APW core belief—”Your wedding is not an imposition.”

Your friends are lovely people also, which is why you invited them. They are also grown folks (even if they are young grown folks) and can handle their accommodations themselves. They are coming because they want to come to your wedding, not because the trip is free. You will have enough to do without entertaining guests you are not prepared for, so invite them and then move on to other things. You can be helpful by reserving a block of rooms at a cheaper rate at a nearby hotel (you may be required to give a credit card to hold them, but you should NEVER be charged for this) or suggesting mutual friends’ couches they can surf on, but in the end, it is your friends’ duty to figure our their own accommodations. Think about it! They go places all the time without a block of rooms to help them out. They use Trip Advisor! They use Airbnb. Block of rooms or not, they are going to be just fine (and if they won’t be fine, they don’t have to come).

Of course, I’m assuming your stress is self-inflicted. Now if the stress is coming from the friends in the form of “Oh, I don’t know if I can AFFORD it, WHERE will I stay?!?” comments, well that’s terrible and they should be ashamed. But my advice is still the same. If they can’t come because they have nowhere to stay, that’s very sad, but tell them you understand. Sometimes such comments are sneaky sneakerson ways of getting a free ride; when faced with empathy but little else, you may be surprised how fast they’ll find a place to stay.

P.S. Under no circumstances should someone sleep on your floor during your wedding. Not to be obvious, but for god’s sake, weddings are for getting laid. Continue reading Ask Team Practical: Accomodating Guests

Posted in: Ask Team Practical, Budget, Friends & Relations, Registries | 105 Comments »

Nov 2011

APW Sanity Pledge & Reverse Sanity Pledge

Tomorrow we’re going to talk a bit about the APW Vendor Directory, which has been growing like a (super awesome) weed. In getting that ready, I realized that I’d never taken time out to talk to you guys about the APW Sanity Pledge that all APW advertisers have to take, and why we created it. The APW Sanity pledge is about vendors promising to treat clients like people and not walking dollar signs, and it’s about vendors respecting your wedding for exactly what it is, not what anyone else thinks it should be. But today we decided to kick it up a notch, and I asked Elizabeth of Lowe House Events (along with all of the APW Sponsors) to help us create a Reverse Sanity Pledge, detailing how you guys can continue to change the wedding industry by being awesome clients. And let me be clear, APW-ers are famous for being The Most Awesome Clients, and we want that to continue to flourish.

This week, we’ve talked a fair amount about the way the Wedding Industry is problematic. We’ve talked about the pressure to Buy All The Things, and a call from a well known person in the wedding industry for wedding blogs to stop focusing so damn much on The Stuff and instead focus on the reason you have a wedding in the first place: two amazing people joining their lives.

APW was built on the idea that a wedding is two people committing their lives to each other, and it doesn’t have to cost a cent (or, a cent over the cost of a marriage license, if that’s in the cards for you). But APW was also built on the idea that most of us are spending some money on our wedding, and we should use that money to be conscious consumers. That how we spend our money is more important than how much. That we should use our dollars to be LGBTQ allies. That one of the simplest and most powerful ways we can change the world is by voting with our money.

So. In an effort to help you be the change, we made an APW sanity pledge that every single person who advertises with us has to sign. That means when you use your dollars to book an APW vendor, you’re voting for a non-manipulative, affirming, LGTBQ friendly version of the industry. And not only do our advertisers have to sign it, but it’s legally binding. So if you flag them as being in violation of the pledge, we can pull their advertising. We’re hoping it changes this corner of the wedding industry bit by bit.

All APW-approved vendors, agree that:

… A wedding is an awesome party, but it’s the marriage that really matters.

… It takes two people to get married. It’s not all about the bride (and sometimes there isn’t a bride to begin with).

… We support LGBTQ couples\’ right to marry, and we are delighted to work with them.

… We don’t charge a premium just because we heard the word “wedding.”

… We will be upfront and fair about our pricing. We won’t surprise you with a secret fee because you want frosting on the cake, not just the cake.

… You don’t have to have cake at your wedding.

… However you decided to tie the knot, we’re on your team.

… Weddings come in all different shapes/sizes/colors/budgets/etc., but as long as you two end up married to each other, it will have been a successful wedding.

****

But I’ve been thinking about it, and I decided that if APW sponsors are committing to being awesome vendors, it’s equally important that APW readers re-commit to continue being the worlds most awesome clients. (Seriously, you guys are absolutely famous for being the best clients in the world of weddings.) So I did some talking with sponsors about the problems they have with (non-APW) clients, as small independent business owners. I was slightly shocked by some of the stories I heard. Because here is the thing: we all know there is a universe of people in the wedding industry that use the word “wedding” as an excuse to behave like total jackasses (that’s a technical term, there). But I was scandalized to learn that there are clients who use the word wedding to behave badly. I heard stories from photographers of people cold calling them and saying, “I know you’re over-priced because it’s a wedding, so I want 75% off.” And the photographers thinking, “Lady, I’ve got to feed my kid this month but thank you.” So, I decided it was time for us to come up with a reader pledge, and with help from Lowe House Events, did just that. Continue reading APW Sanity Pledge & Reverse Sanity Pledge

Posted in: Budget, Planning, Planning | 68 Comments »

Oct 2011

You Don’t Have To Buy All The Things

I got this excellent email from the now happily married Jessica two weeks ago. I couldn’t let such a good thank you note to all of you, about what we crack on about every day, lie unpublished. So, All The Things, consider yourself on notice:

My wedding is a week from today. I was running around today feeling consumed by WIC-promoted Consumerism… thinking, Oh My God, I need to buy a new dress for my rehearsal dinner and new shoes and we should buy everyone in the wedding party more stuff to thank them and what about a cute hanger, don’t I need a cute hanger for my dress?! And, and, and….

Anyway, all of a sudden I had a moment of clarity. I turned to my fiancé, who was looking (rightfully) frightened, god bless him, and said, “We don’t need All The Things.” We already have All The Things that matter.

We hugged and went home. We’re about to enjoy a nice bottle of wine.

All in all, my fiancé, our bank account, and I thank you, Team Practical.

P.S. When I emailed Jessica to ask if her wedding survived no cute hanger, she said, “It sure did. As did the filthy dress (thanks to amazing second line through NOLA’s French quarter). It’s funny how the joy is the only detail that matters…” Wedding Graduate post coming soon.

Photo from the APW Flickr stream by Emily Takes Photos

Posted in: Budget, Meg's Thoughts, Sass, Weddings | 74 Comments »

Oct 2011

Price Is Not The Same As Value

Last month, we announced Up Up Creative’s crazy, inspiring name-your-price experiment on paper goods for the month of September. If you didn’t watch the video Julie put together about the project, you should go do that now. It’s inspiring and thought provoking. In the many comments on that post, you asked her to report back on what happened during the project, and what she learned. The result is today’s post. It’s more philosophical than factual, and it contains a ton of business lessons and career lessons. It spoke to me about how sometimes flying in the face of what’s expected can really piss people off, but how it’s usually worth it. Plus, it’s accompanied by pictures from Julie’s business sketchbook (I know, rad).

There’s sort of a business adage (adage? rule of thumb? bit of advice? moral? truism?) that says you should price for the customer you want. If you want a high-end customer, you need a high-end price. If you want a bargain shopper, you need a bargain price.

I actually just gave this advice to two separate individuals in the last 48 hours.

At some point early on in this experiment, it occurred to me that at least in part, my goal for this experiment was to do this the other way around: find the customer I wanted and then let that customer set the price. And who was that customer? She was the kind of person who believes in the power of her voice and her dollar; the sort of person who would think carefully before naming a price. She was thoughtful, maybe a little bit rebellious.

I agonized over my so-called pitch. I worked so hard on the video, on the FAQs. I was selective in which blogs I contacted. I wanted to make this an experiment about ideas more than it was an experiment about how many customers I could bring through the door. I wanted to focus on finding the right name-your-price customers.

After all, it’s just me here. Me and an ex-intern (back to school in September) and a very pregnant sister and a husband neck-deep in prosecuting bad guys. And two young kids in just-part-time daycare. So it’s not like I wanted an onslaught. But I did want participation. I told Meg that my biggest fear was that no one would participate.

And thankfully, people did. In the end there were 33 orders.

The money stuff you can read about here. It was better than I feared, about as I expected, and as awesome as I’d hoped. In the end it even put some money in the coffers, but at the expense of a lot of my time. Put another way, it covered my raw materials but I was paid only part of my hourly rate for all the work.

And ohdeargod was it emotional. I cried. I did Meg Ryan-inspired full-body high-fives. I soared, I despaired. One night I considered taking the whole thing down after a customer admitted she was feeling tortured by having to name a price for my value. I suddenly felt so mean.

So yeah, it’s not sustainable in its current state. It requires too many hours for too few dollars. It made people happy, but it also made them uncomfortable, and not always in that good-you’re-growing way. Plus it’s fair to say, I think, that it pissed off its fair share of people in the stationery industry (although I have to say that appeals to the Mary Mary (Quite Contrary) in me just a bit).

But I’m glad to have done it, and I’d do it all over again. Continue reading Price Is Not The Same As Value

Posted in: Budget | 52 Comments »