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So mine was when we were going around and meeting with florists. One florist wanted to charge us $5,000 for our arrangements and use nothing but SILK flowers. At the end of the meeting I couldn't do anything but ask if they were serious - if I was shelling out that kind of cash it would be for real flowers. Needless to say we went with another florist that costs much less for the same thing except that we will be able to have real flowers lol
OMG I would have to say the venues! These places are nuts with what the charge! We seem to be having a "small wedding" at 100-120 guests-Which I don't think is small but okay...The venues around here charge a minium fee(which is fine) But some places have out and out told me I don't have enough people to use the venue! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
HAHA...one of the venues we looked at wanted $104,000.00 NOT INCLUDING FOOD AND BEVERAGE!
In their defense, it was a large B&B and we'd have had to rent the entire thing out for 3 days (rooms started at $550 per night) plus pay a restaurant and spa minimum for those 3 days since they would have lost business from the outside. We had a lot of guests, so we'd also have had to have a tent in the yard...also not included in that price. So yeah...that was a no-go
I think the most outrageously over priced thing we've encountered was photography. We met with a guy that wanted to charge us like a million dollars, but we couldn't figure out what was in the package! The guy was really eccentric and he kept saying everything is a la carte. That doesn't tell me anything. Why would I spend $6,000 + for something if I have no idea what I'm getting in the end?
@jennifer - haha yes photography was one thing that we ran into as well. I must have looked at a million websites and was just like... holy crap - WHY is this SO expensive?? I think a lot of times brides just end up going with these places because they think 'oh well, that must be the average price'. I refused though and just kept researching and ended up finding a photographer I loved the pictures of for half the price that other places in the area were charging (metro Detroit area does not come cheap!)
Over priced florist!! she freaked me out 10k for flowers! aaaand she expected me to provode the arch vases aaand accessories that crazy lady! if im paying that much YOU need to provide all of that and some!..
I was quoted 14K for a dinner for 100 people. It wasn't even all that extraordinary. I found excellent food for less than half that price for 150 people, all free range and organic and DELICIOUS.
Photography! I totally agree with that. Ridiculous. Thank god we managed to find a good photog willing to give us an amazing deal.
Also, invites. Who the hell knew PAPER was so expensive?
As one that hasn't already been mentioned, veils.
I made mine for ~$5.00. Some places want to charge $150+ for the same thing!
1) Food: I got a proposal from a caterer with a $25/person menu, but with labor and renting dishes, etc, it cost $150/person. That made me laugh - 6x the actual price of the food? No thank you.
2) Invites: I made my website on Project Wedding, and they were advertising stationery that would match the website design. I clicked through, and it cost over $1000. This is one American wedding thing I will NEVER understand. Who cares about pieces of paper enough to spend so much $$ on them???
Videography, most packages were in the thousands, $4-5K! Some were really cool looking cinematic type of films, but it was outrageous to us. We were finally able to find something under a thousand luckily.
I saw invitations at a Bridal Show for $27.50 EACH. (For that price they better be individually hand delivered by a footman!) I actually laughed at the lady and she said, "Oh, we have much more reasonably priced ones." So,I pointed to the one in front of me and said," How about this one?" She said,"that one is around $15." I said, "No thank you -- not in my price range."I want to have lovely invitations, but that is way too much.
Veils for sure. The one I tried on in the store where I bought my dress cost $950!!! Insane. For a piece of tulle!
Our price per person cost at our venue. I see other posters and what they're spending and I want to cry. And our venue doesn't even include a cake!
I was interested in doing a more rustic feel, so I found this beautiful old barn right by the ocean...gorgeous.
Rental fees started at $10,000 for just reception, not ceremony outside. Another $4000 for that. The place had no chairs, no tables, nothing. Just the barn and land.
I did also call the Monteray Bay Aquarium just to see how much that cost. Packages for weddings started at $14,000 minimum (with rentals included) and the minimum food package started at like $115. That was a lot, but you could get married overlooking the ocean and the sea otters (EEEE!!!) and have the reception by the giant tanks! And you had private use of the aquarium, and could do private tours inbetween ceremony and reception. If I had more like $50,000, I would do that in a heart beat. Better than the barn!
$900 for a photo guest book (similar photographer produced guest books from other photographers were $200-$300).
I tried on a $1,400 veil (clearly I did not know the veil was that expensive when the sales lady put it on my head). It was georgous, but I can't spent that kind of money on a veil I'll be wearing for my ceremony and formal pictures.
I had a few WOW moments during planning.
-One venue wanted a $50,000 min. for 80 people!!
-I was quoted $300 per table for table linens
-The $2000 invitations for about 70 was a bit ridiculous too.
well, since i am working on invitations now, I'd have to say ... invitations! I am SO not into the stationary thing, but I of course don't want crappy invites! $1000 to me is just an insane amount for pieces of paper.... last weekend I decided to design my own on Illustrator and I am so glad I did. With all the paper, printing, and envelopes it'll come to $250 for 125 invites.
I just paid $156 for custom made table numbers on etsy. yea, I know. Honestly at this point though I'm like what is $156? who cares! lol.
Food/bev has been my biggest "wow." A lot of places wanted to charge us per drink and the prices for non-alcoholic stuff was INSANE. $4 for each soda? SERIOUSLY????? And when we were looking at doing a heavy appetizers instead of dinner thing... holy cow. $4-6/ PER PIECE? For stuff that costs maybe $0.20 each to make? The one that really got me was when I saw the price of ramaki. For those of you who don't know.... it is water chestnuts rolled in brown sugar, wrapped with bacon, and broiled. It is kind of a traditional food for my family and we make it every christmas so I thought my family would really love it at the wedding.
well?
$4 EACH! We make about 200 every christmas for about $10.... no joke. And no thank you.
$1000 for stringing lights from the rafters at our reception venue (an old barn)...except we're probably going to cough it up, since the thought of my father and uncle climbing up and down a 15' ladder on the morning of our wedding literally keeps me awake a night, lol. Still though, I was stunned at the price, especially since we could do it ourselves for free. Oh well.
my venue comes with all the tables/chairs/linens/etc, but i started to day dream about pretty chiavari chairs and how awesome they would look...until i realized that they cost like $8-11/each to rent! no thank you, i'll save my $1400-2000ish for rent! hotel chairs are just fine thank you, even if they don't match my colors!
Since I wasn't too aware of how much things cost for a wedding until I started planning I was pretty shocked at the prices too. The photography shocked me, the $3.50 / chair for chair covers shocked me and some cake places charging minimum $6 per person. Again, I just had no clue about anything.
My SIL had mentioned when they were looking at places to have their wedding, one place wanted $30,000 just to rent the venue out. That didn't include anything else. Yikes!
rentals. They are insanely expensive.
@corgitales I sort of disagree with you a bit, though I do think $4/piece sounds like a lot, the question is the cost of labor. Of course it's cheaper to make at home--but do you really expect the caterer to make a fairly labor-intensive hors d'oeuvre the day of your wedding for the cost of the materials? The cost of all jobs is in the labor, not in the base materials.
I guess that's why I feel particularly frustrated with rentals, there's no labor involved (well set up and take down, but they factor that in as a separate line charge), just a lot of money!
@olive- ok labor..... but that mark-up is insane. I mean the actual cost of food is almost nothing for those, and one person could easily roll 200 in an hour. So 200 x $4 each = $800 for 1 hrs work? I call bs.
@finnaroo: our venue charges $8/chiavari chairs too. When I found that I out I was like "well cancel that vision" ha ha ha - they're so pretty, but as you say, not for the price!
While not the most expensive, I think the craziest thing was a photographer who only had one package which was $8,000 and when I asked if it was possible to remove certain things from the original package we didn't want, he said no, that was the only option he offered. I said thank you, but it was (a lot!) more than we wanted to spend, and I would not be able to hire him. He responded that he understood and it was possible to find a photographer for a lot less -- like $3,000 -- but then I would have terrible wedding photos, and that was a choice that I would have to make. (Yes, he actually said they would be terrible.) What an ego!
I received a quote from a photographer which starting at $11,000 plus accomodation costs. And that was the "basic" package (I think it's around 4-6 hours ish).
I have to speak in his behalf that we were quoting for a destination wedding and I was ready for some extra travelling cost but WOW!
Mostly venues. We were seriously shocked by the prices that some places were charging, especially with all of the restrictions they put on who you can bring in. Also, dresses. I can't believe how expensive some of the dresses have ended up being.
I received a quote for a photographer that was nuts. She had one bare bones package at about 5,000 then she had three other packages that ranged in price from 9,000-14,000! I was stunned!
Veils and Headpieces. Etsy saved the day on these.
Mother-of th-Bride Dresses at Bridal Salons. Ridicuous. My mom got her dress for my Sister's wedding at Boscov's a PA based Dept store and for my wedding she did end buying a dress at David's which was cheaper than the Salon, although her dress was marketed as more of a Holiday formal than a MOB or MOG dress. MOG got her dress at Syms.
The other day I nearly laughed in my caterer's face. We enquired about tea sandwiches for the cocktail hour. It would be $10 for a plate if the crusts were left on, but the priced jumped to $25 if the crusts were cut OFF! I'll cut the crusts off myself and save the money, thanks, considering our wedding has only 60 guests.
Our venue charges a $20 corckage fee per bottle! The alcohol prices are also ridiculous! And we are being charged close to $700 for an extra hour of reception time!
On top of cost of materials and labor, there's also the cost of doing business... just to throw that out there.
Chair rentals are what got me. It's $14 for a chiavari chair here.
If i wasn't a wedding photographer I would probably have been shocked at the price as well, but now that I AM one, I'm not shocked at all... but there's already a ton of threads about why it's so expensive ;-)
i think chair rentals, veils, and cake cutting fees are ridiculous add-on fees for things that dont much matter in a wedding... and are WAY overpriced.
i FOUND A DEAL with a lady near my house who's going to rent ivory chair covers plus buttercup yellow sash @ $1.50/chair!
veils - the one that "matched" my dress at the bridal shop was $350!!!! i bought one on ebay for $17 that I LOVE just as much! :)
cake cutting fees were $3.00 per guest at the venue (we didn't book)... ours was included in our food/bev cost :)
One more thing, I agree about the chivari chair rental prices are ridiculous we saw prices ranging from $8-12 each, and with over 200 guests that was out of the question.
Flowers. I can udnerstand the expense, and expected some inflation because of where we live, but... Yikes.
One quote I got was roughly equivalent to what we're paying for the venue.
So now we have floral-free decor.
Veils - Seriously? I was not going to pay $100-200 for a piece of tulle that costs next to nothing in the fabric store. I bought mine from someone on Etsy for $35.
Bridal gown alterations - All I need done to my dress is to have a bustle put in. I talked to 3 different people. One person told me that depending on how many points it has (I think that is the right term?) it would be around $25. Another person told me that after I bustled it, it would most likely need a hem, so together it would be around $175. I asked how much just a bustle would be, and she said $100. So then I said, so the hem would only cost $50-75? That doesn't seem right, and she said, well it starts at $175 for both. The third person said it would it would be around $45, again depending on the dress and how I wanted it bustled. I feel like Goldilocks and the 3 seamstresses. 
Officiant - This was probably my biggest surprise. I am paying $400 for mine, and I am writing every word of the ceremony.
I was shocked by the price of liquor per bottle. If we wanted Grey Goose vodka as a beverage, it was $95 a bottle. HUH?!? Needless to say, we are going with the House Vodka which is still $55!!
accessories! I saw one tiara that looks exactly like the bracelets I make going for like $200! I could make the exact same thing, sell it for $50 and still make a HUGE profit!
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