This is a great day,
but it is one day. You don't want to be homeless
after a fantastic wedding. We decided on the
reception venue because that's what the
resort told us to do. We had our reception
at a restaurant, which kept things very easy for me. The reception was
another section of the actual same
building, which was great. So it doesn't even
make sense to start looking for your reception
venue until you know two pieces of
information– how many people are you going to invite
and what is your budget.
So I said, OK. You are the mastermind
behind the decorations and all that stuff. I don't know all the different
flowers and all that. But I'm going to be mastermind
of the budget, right? The reception is actually
going to eat up the lion's share of your overall budget. So we're talking 40%, maybe 50%. And that is largely
going towards your food and your drinks. For one day, one
venue in New York City would buy us an
entire week that slept the entire wedding party in
this massive villa on the beach. Choose a venue that also
provides the catering. It can be really expensive
to bring in an outside party. And if the venue
isn't set up for it, it could lead to a disaster. A lot of time, when we
found churches that we liked, they didn't have
a reception hall. And then we looked
for reception halls and they were really expensive.
We're like, man,
we're like paying for two different venues. One of the best ways to stay
under budget on your wedding is to keep your ceremony
and your reception at the same venue. You will save on
decor, transportation. Your flowers can be
brought over to the tables. You can reuse candles. It's a great way to save
a little bit of money. Guests went straight
from our ceremony to the cocktail hour in a
different part of the venue, and then onto our reception. Yep. [inaudible]. All-in-one. Initially, I
thought, oh, maybe it would be fun to not
have a seating chart and just have everyone
sit wherever they want. But everyone I mentioned
that fun idea to was like, you can't do that. People need to know
where they're sitting. Seating for the wedding I
actually was worried about.
Because a lot of people told
me that was really stressful. And I loved it because I
felt like I was playing god and I could just
choose what person to sit next to what person. When you are setting up
your seating chart, 1, wait until you have at
least 90% of your RSVPs so you're not
constantly redoing it. And then 2, consider
who knows each other.
Nobody wants to go to a wedding
and have to sit next to someone they don't know
and chat for hours with your random Uncle Steve. There are always going to be
things that work out and don't. And you just decide what
you're going to let go and what you're going
to have a laugh at. I would recommend
letting go of everything.
