At Joseph's By The Sea in Old Orchard Beach
So from engagement day on, my mind raced with wedding ideas. Our budget, we determined, was a small one. I soon found out that what we thought would be a simple little wedding would cost more than we expected, and we looked for ways to cut back. Not that we didn’t consider the day important enough to invest in, neither one of us felt that we needed to go into debt to have a nice wedding. I began researching venues, flowers, dresses, caterers, and music. Soon overwhelmed, I realized that things have certainly changed since my first wedding, when we could put it together in a few months.
In reality, though email exchanges and online menu selections certainly helped in making decisions quickly, coordinating a wedding still requires that you be there. Not only at the wedding itself, but you do have to go try on a dress and walk through the ceremony site and taste test the food that you might be serving your guests. I guess that’s the fun part of wedding planning.
Southern Maine Community College's event facility
At first we were unsure about whether to get married in southern Maine, where my family lives, or where we live, in the Bangor area. We researched both parts of the state for budget venues and menus, and decided to get married in the Ornamental Garden at the University of Maine in Orono, with our reception held afterwards at the Wells Conference Center on campus. The garden was stunning on that rainy day in June and the folks at Wells really did up the southern style barbeque just right.
All of that research left me with a wealth of information for anyone planning a wedding in Maine. First, check out Maine Wedding Association’s website for one of their upcoming bridal shows. You can find them at http://www.maineweddingassociation.com/. Go to a bridal show if you can. If you can’t go to a show then get your name on the mailing list. Enter your name for the door prize. You might not win, but you will be inundated with email, mail, and phone calls about your wedding. Next pick up a copy of Real Maine Weddings or read their publication online. http://realmaineweddings.com/. Those two sources will give you a sense of the trends in the state as well as provide links to more vendors that cater to wedding service than you ever knew existed. Another site, geared more toward downeast and the Camden area is Downeast weddings at http://www.weddingsdowneast.com/maine. As soon as you put “engaged” on your Facebook status, more information will be presented to you in the form of Facebook ads, whether you like them or not.
If you’re planning a wedding on a budget in Maine, here are a few venues to consider:
• Southern Maine Community College: SMCC’s South Portland campus is adjacent to the Spring Point Light house, Fort Preble, and Willard Beach. The setting is gorgeous. Culinary Arts is part of the curriculum. The McKernan Hospitality House has a dining room with wonderful Casco Bay views. Here’s a link to their site: http://smccme.edu/business-community/conferences-special-events/. They offer wedding packages for on site ceremonies and receptions. They have a cute little chapel on the campus, too.
• The Lucerne Inn: Beautiful setting, especially in the fall. Offers options like discounts on Friday and Sunday weddings. You can also arrange to have a small reception in conjuntion with the fabulous Sunday Buffet. You have a private room, but the guests serve themselves from the buffet.
http://www.lucerneinn.com/
• Joseph’s By the Sea: in Old Orchard Beach, the restaurant is on the ocean and offers a wonderful space for your wedding ceremony with a backdrop of the beach. You can have your reception on the lawn, under a canopy, or inside in their upstairs banquet room. http://www.josephsbythesea.com//
• Vesper Hill Children’s Chapel in Rockport: beautiful little chapel in a lush garden. Consider making reservations far in advance. Very popular mid coast spot. Many area restaurants are available for your reception. http://www.steppinoutmaine.com/archives/2004/aug_11/offpath.html
• Lyle Littlefield Ornamental Gardens, University of Maine, Orono: http://www.umaine.edu/lhc/ornamental.htm. Stunning gardens with pavilion. Reserve for the day
The Lucerne Inn, Dedham
I’ll list a few others that you can find if you search
• Cascade Park – Bangor – lots of weddings in summer. Gazebo, fountain, bridge.
• Mt Battie tower – views of Camden Harbor, stone tower
• Mt Agamenticus – views of mountains, ocean, has a function building available to rent.
This photo by Amanda Prouty
The final tally in our “low budget” Maine wedding:
Wedding dress for me: $99.00 David’s Bridal special
Bridesmaids dress for Nola: $79.00 ditto
Alterations on both: $60.00 my mom’s friend, a seamstress, Sofia
Joe’s suit: $120.00 JCPenney
Shoes: $40.00 white flip flops for the girls, discount shoes for the groom
Flowers: $60.00 2 bouquets, 1 boutinerre local, home based florist
Garden rental: $250.00
Reception/food/drinks: $1200.00 40 guests, $16/plate BBQ Buffet, bartender, room staff
Transportation: free – drove our own car
Decorations: $100.00 lots of AC Moore vases, ribbon, fake flowers. Check their online coupons 40% off
Favors: $50.00 candy buffet in jars, vases, plant pots we owned
Misc: $200.00 I’m sure I’m forgetting something
I don’t know what Joe paid for my engagement ring and matching wedding ring. I paid $450.00 for his. That’s not included in that price. Nola and I got our hair done by a friend who gave it to us as a wedding gift. We didn’t go on a honeymoon.
So, by my calculations: $$2418.00
Not too bad. We were shooting for $2000.00 but given that on the national average, a wedding in America costs over $25,000.00, we did pretty well.
Some other things we did to save money that can be done anywhere, not just Maine.
• I made signs that said “Thank” and “you” and we held them up while we were taking photographs and used the shots to create cards online at Shutterfly.
• I got some dollar store plant pots and planted grass and fast growing flower seeds in them. I wrote the names of our guests on colored paper, glued them to seed packets, glued that to popcycle sticks and stuck them into the pots which were labeled with table numbers.
• Consider alternatives to the traditional buffet. You might be able to save money and throw a fun twist into things. We both love barbeque so when we saw the menu for a southern BBQ at the conference center – and at under $13.00 per plate – we thought it would be great. The ribs, corn on the cob, baked beans and cornbread was awesome!
• Cash bar – we don’t drink and didn’t want to pay for others drinks, but thought it only fair to have a bar available for folks who did want a beer or wine.
• Being a photographer it was killing me to not be able to take my own photos. My husband’s niece is also a photographer and took our photos as a gift. They turned out so good! I was really pleased with the results. Given that I can edit and have them printed and all that, she didn’t have to charge us for putting together an album. I just put it all up on my website.
• Cut back on the wedding party. It saves everyone money. You don’t have to go as bare as we did, but rather than having a maid of honor and five bridesmaids, how about just the maid of honor? Best man and two ushers? Think about how much you’d save in gifts and dinners and all that’s expected of you when you ask someone to be part of your wedding. Nola was our everything – flower girl, maid of honor, etc.
• Consider low cost venues for the ceremony. Sometimes the simplest places have a beauty all their own. A big open field, the beach, a fishing pier, a park gazebo, or a place that has its own meaning for you like your grandfather’s barn.
• Same goes for the reception site. Check with colleges and universities as they often have event facilities. Art galleries and public spaces like state parks are another good idea.
• Think creatively. Get ideas from the bridal magazines, but keep an open mind. Ideas for favors and decorations can come from many sources. Look around your house. Our wedding was in a garden so I went with a garden theme to decorate the reception. I brought in plant pots, used (new) trowels to scoop candy at the candy buffet, seed packets to assign seats, and picnic baskets to hold dinner rolls.
• Keep the crowd low. Do you really need to invite every relative or long lost friend? For us, we used these criteria: we didn’t send invitations to anyone who we thought would say “oh god, another wedding I have to go to.” We didn’t invite anyone we didn’t think would be genuinely happy to be there.
• Made my own invitations online at http://www.weddingdivas.com/. Skipped the RSVP’s and listed an email address and website for guests to get directions and confirm their appearance.
• Rather than a band or DJ, I put together an iTunes playlist of all kinds of music. Alternative music, Island music, some pop, some rock, some Sinatra, etc. and put it on our laptop which they connected to the sound system at the reception. You could do the same with your iPod. See what your reception site has to offer. If they’re also a conference center, they’re most likely quite wired and have someone on staff who knows how to pull it all together.
• I had created a slide show of photographs that ran on our laptop at the same time as the music and got projected on the screens in the room. I put in pictures I scanned in of us as children, anything good that included our guests, photos of places we’ve been and some of our families and relatives who couldn’t come.
• Don’t stress about perfection. Just relax a little and have fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment