Adrea, Registered Nurse & Marcelle, Design Studio Assistant
Sum-up of the wedding vibe: A low-key, but swanky, Philadelphia Pride Weekend wedding!
Planned budget: $20,000
Actual budget: $25,000
Number of guests: 100
LOCATION: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Where we allocated the most funds:
A Philadelphia food truck who specializes in locally sourced farm to table cuisine. The Farm Truck Philly did an amazing job! They were super flexible and accommodating. A few months before the wedding I had the idea to have fruit and cheese boards on all the tables, so as guests walked into the reception space they could snack and mingle as they found their seats. The Farm Truck crew jumped on board without hesitation! Chris took my idea and ran with it, and it came out great! All the food was super yummy and beautiful!
Where we allocated the least funds:
Favors! We treated out guests to Philadelphia-style pretzels at the end of the night.
What was totally worth it:
The chairs—we splurged on bronzed metal chairs as opposed to using the typical folding chairs provided by the venue. They totally transformed the space and gave it elegant feel we were going for.
What was totally not worth it:
Stressing about the little stuff isn’t worth it. Weddings are stressful enough to plan and organize, so try not to get bogged down by little stressors. All those little things will just fall into place!
A few things that helped us along the way:
Our friends! We have some of the most amazing people in our lives and they truly showed their love and support for us with everything they did to make our wedding day beautiful. We had a close friend do calligraphy on our wedding invitations. Hair stylist and makeup artist friends styled us and our family the day of the wedding, free of charge. Our videographer is a friend, who shot our wedding at a lower cost. A friend designed our engagement rings and gifted us our wedding bands. We had the help of friends and family to do everything from arrange flowers to mixing up huge batches of our signature cocktails.
My best practical advice for my planning self:
Make a list of everything you want your wedding to be and get started checking off one thing at a time. We started with the big items first! Venue, food, and photography were high on our list. We allocated most of our funds to these areas as well.
Favorite thing about the wedding:
Our favorite thing about the wedding was bringing all our favorite people together in one place. As a gay couple we have our gay family and our family family. It was so heartwarming to see everyone come together in support of us!
