Wedding Blog
Yeah, that title doesn’t make much sense does it? But my overall feeling towards the tents/rentals right now is just a primal “BLAAAAAHHHHH” that defies actual coherent thought.
I posted the other day about our new plan of moving the reception down to the field by the barn, a short walk away from the house where our ceremony & cocktail hour will be. So that was all good, right?
But then our caterer (who’s liasing with our tent people for us for the most part) got… The Quote. The tent people put together a tentative list of all the items they thought we might need based on the visit, and it came out to… over six thousand dollars. For a TENT!!!
[a perfectly innocent bystander tent, from www.golfstonebridgecc.com]
Okay, not just for a tent, that includes rentals of: the main tent, the cook tent (since the kitchen isn’t big enough for them to cook in), tables for everyone to eat at, tables to set up the buffet and do prep work in the cook tent, chairs for everyone, lighting for both tents, all the dishes, glasses, silverware, linens, a dance floor…maybe some other stuff too? We haven’t seen the official list yet because our caterer is providing linens as part of our fee for him, and we’re trying to figure out a few other ideas for ways to cut back since that is wayyyy more than we had budgeted for the tents and rentals (which I estimated based on prices on their site for what I THOUGHT we’d be needing.)
The toughest part for us is just that we thought we’d figured out about how much everything was going to be costing by now, so having to cough up a few thousand more (although we are expecting to be able to cut at least one to two thousand off that quote) at this point is very very painful. Sigh.
So my lesson is: if there’s any chance you’d be happy in a venue that owns its own tents/tables/chairs/kitchen/plates/glasses/silverware - don’t forget how much it costs to bring them to your own house if you want to do that to “save money”!
I’m sure I’m not the first person to be faced with a surprisingly high quote relatively late in the game. What have you been shocked by?
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Share this post: Tenty Tenty Makes Me Sad
Hahahaha, funny post Miss Bluebell! Okay, not so much the issue, but the tent! Yeah, six grand for a freakin’ tent is out of this world, but hey- it’s a WEDDING tent, whatever the heck that means. Just keep thinking: wedding goodness, photographer you love (stalk), pretty flowers… Wedding dress… Mr. Bluebell daning a jig. No jig? Come on…
wow! that seems really way too high, and shouldn’t they have figured that out earlier! i’m so sorry! i’m actually figuring out right now if we want to have a wedding at my house in vermont or use a venue, so this will help in the decision! i never thought it could be 6k for a tent though!
well be happy it’s not the $12,000 tent quote I got! yes that’s not a typo… $12,000 frickin dollars (and for that price i’m hoping that includes elephants to come and set it up)
tenting is the most ridculous over priced aspect of wedding planning. if you asked for a simple “party” tent i’m sure it would be 1/2 the cost…
that seems really high; you should check with other places. maybe even say it’s not for a wedding and see what you can get away with. i was thinking about renting a tent a while back, and my friend who used to arrange tent parties back in college said that it cost the dorm about $500 to get a tent and dance floor. Granted, they probably had a special deal, but still i would not imagine more than $1500-2000 for the works.
I thought I was saving money by having it at a historical estate but when everyone said, “Tent! you have to get a tent” I started getting quotes, yikes, I realized I wasn’t going to be saving money.
Wow, honestly I think $6K is quite reasonable. That’s less than half what we were quoted from each of FIVE different reception sites; the cheapest was $12,500. (This is in the NJ/New Hope/Philly area.)
My quote for all the rentals including a tent was $12,000. The flooring alone was $6000!
Getting that quote made us choose to throw in the towel and not do a big garden wedding and have a small destination wedding instead.
our venue will be in a party tent and it’s about half the cost they quoted you…the great thing about our venue, they provide the caterer, they’ve been working as partners for a while now…my FI and I put down the deposit the first day we went (and this was our first venue we visited!) our venue is in the bloomfield, nj area
that quote sounds reasonable to me - considering everything that’s included in addition to The Tent!
haha i like ur text on ur pix 
I don’t think the price is bad at all. We decided to do a tent for our wedding and with all the rentals we are over $10k.
Connecticut is expensive though, not sure where you are.
Aw, Miss Bluebell — I’m sorry this has all been such heartache for you! I hope you’re soul feels better soon.
Miss Bluebell- I feel your pain!! I’m getting married in CT. and I can’t get rentals (that are decent..and I’m not that picky) for $6,000. Everything costs SOOOO much with a tent. Mine is going to be about 10K all said and done I think –and I’m only have about 130 people at the wedding!!!:(
thats actually super cheap - when I was going to rent a tent for my wedding, they quoted me $14000 starting without A/C. That’s just for the tent and the decking underneath.
Miss Bluebell-
Unfortunately, that price is rather reasonable. My tent alone was approximately $5k. Having a wedding outside of a reception site does tend to tug on the purse strings a bit. When planning my wedding, I was forever getting frustrated when people would find out I was having an outdoor wedding and would saying something “oh- that’s so cute! and it’ll really save money”. Ummm— I’m not having a bbq here with paper plates and a keg!!! Haha!
I promise you- although it’s a little painful- it will be SO worth it!!!
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Mrs. Bluebell, New York
Age and Occupation in 07: 26, Finance Manager
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Playing with the cat and/or Consulting
Engagement Date: December 25, 2005
Wedding Date: June 2007
Venue: Bride's family summer home in the Adirondacks
About Me: Trying to find the perfect balance between family tradition (marrying at the house everyone else in my family gets married at), making our's modern, interesting and different from everyone else in my family's, and incorporating some Chinese tradition for my Chinese fiance. I really have no idea what it's going to end up looking like!
Also, I picked Miss Bluebell for my name because I have blue eyes and I'm a loser like that.
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