The recent string of weddings (with one to go still this year, and one early next year) has been pushing me to finally take first steps toward planning my own wedding. And it’s proving to be quite a surprising experience in many ways. Mostly in stressful ways.
When we first started discussing wedding things, we were thinking $15,000 should be plenty to budget. How much could it possibly cost to throw a party anyway? Turns out it costs quite a lot, and that $15,000 will likely not be enough to cover even just food, booze, and the venue.
I found this post today (never mind that it’s 3 years old) that mostly agrees with my $10,000 on food and $3000 on venue estimates. It also itemizes out some things I hadn’t really had a good handle on, like decorations, linens and silverware, and gifts.
There’s also this average cost breakdown which suggests the food I’ve been looking at is on the expensive side. But I don’t have much of a choice based on the venues I’ve been looking at, since they all have required caterers.
So we’ve started looking at venues. Our first visit this past weekends was to the University Club at the University of Pittsburgh. You don’t have to be affiliated with the university to get married there, and it has the benefit of being an all-in-one package location where you don’t have to worry about coordinating things. Madelyn had her graduation party there last year, and it’s a nice venue.
(Photos from her party last year)
This upcoming weekend we are visiting the Children’s Museum to look at the options available there. I’m mostly interested in options that include exhibits, because I think half the fun of the museum will be the actual museum itself. But the full museum rental is $6500, which seems not worthwhile for a 4-hour event. We shall see what other options exist, I guess.
So yeah. Boo wedding planning. It will be awesome when it all comes together, but until then, argh stress.