Wedding Blog

I wasn’t planning for my first entry back into the hive after a mini-hiatus to be such a heavy sort of one, but, in the hopes of helping someone out there… here’s the Plumeria budget. I’ve also tried to link to most of the vendors I used throughout this breakdown — but if you’re interested in more information on anything, feel free to email me!

City: Berkeley, CA
Budget: $35,000
# of Guests: 400+

Ceremony Site Fees: $1,475. Yes, the church was an expensive one to get married at, but it was beautiful, and once we saw the lighting and colors inside it there was no going anywhere else. (Email me for name and contact info.)

Reception Site Fees: $0

Caterer/Food/Drink (per person if available): $20K — about $50 a head for ~400 people at the DoubleTree Hotel, Berkeley Marina. We had the entire Islands ballroom for our reception.

Service Charge/Gratuities: (included in the above cost)

Bridal Gown & Alterations: $700 + $100 custom cutting fee + $100 extra alterations = $900 total. The custom cut was worth it — the dress was made specifically to my measurements (one of which was “apex to apex”… hahaha). I only needed it taken in a teensy bit at the top, a two-point overbustle put in, and the gown pressed.

Bridal Accessories (Veil, Undergarments, Shoes, Jewelry): $150 Veil(s) (One Erica Koesler, one AA Bridals) + $32 Natori Memory Foam Strapless Bra, $70 shoes + $40 Necklace + $20 Earrings + $10 DIY Bracelet = $322 total

Groom’s Attire: $150 Tux Purchase from After Hours. Since he had to wear it twice (for the wedding and for portraits), his on-sale purchased tuxedo ended up being cheaper than renting x2.

Stationery/Postage: $2,200 for all - this includes 4-panel custom paper stock invitations w/ inner wrap and vellum envelope and custom labels, multi-page booklet programs (vellum and text weight custom paper stock), placecards, cookie labels… for over 400 people. Printed professionally at Solstice Press.

Photography: $4500 for the wedding day (10 hours of coverage with two photographers at 4+ locations), $750 for the engagement session (4 hour session with two photographers), and $1000 for the bridal portrait session (4 hour session with two photographers, 2 locations) Total for photographer came to $6,250 — an awesome deal, really, for what we got. We feel blessed to have paid this much, because we know the rates have definitely risen for GB Photographers since we booked them in early 2006. Their expertise, work ethics, easy-going personalities, and — above all — gorgeous, priceless photos of our happiness are worth every penny. We received 2 very nice 10×13″ albums with proof prints of every single image in all three of our sessions, a keepsake DVD with our slideshow on it, and will later receive a DVD with all of the digital files.

Videography: $0. We had a few friends videotaping the whole event, plus the church, which has such great acoustics that it’s often used for concerts, gave us a professional recording of the whole ceremony. Between those two and our photos, we have many ways to relive the day without having hired a pro videographer. This is our personal choice, based on our priorities and budget: I think, had we had any $ to spare, I would have spent it on this.

Ceremony Music: $0. We had one of our talented friends play piano during our wedding ceremony, as well as a men’s quartet from our church, whom Mr. Plumeria and I both play for during their concerts, provide the vocals. It was so fun, and deeply meaningful to us as well. (Post on this to come.)

Reception Music: $400. We have a friend who has done a lot of wedding music in the past — basically, the fee covers use of equipment and the time it takes him to set up and take down everything. He didn’t serve as a DJ, per se, but he managed the sound booth for toasts, introductions, announcements, and of course, music, which we played via an iPod with labeled playlists so he knew what to play and when.

Flowers: $2,500. This might seem like a lot, but it’s really very cheap for what we got (remember, we had a lot of people there! This = many many tables). The price included: bride’s bouquet and toss bouquet, 6 bridesmaids’ bouquets, groom’s boutonniere, 6 groomsmens’ boutonnieres, ring bearer’s boutonniere, flowergirl’s pomander, boutonnieres for relatives and closely-involved helpers (18 total), wrist corsages for relatives and closely-involved helpers (15 total), 2 arm bouquets to present to the mothers during the ceremony, 2 large flower-filled urns for the altar, 1 small arrangement for the unity candle table, 4 small arrangements for the cake, and 40 centerpieces. Phew!

Favors: $350 or so, I think… includes both the cookie favor, as well as the magnets. Not bad for less than $1/head.

Cake: $200. This was honestly not that important of an area to us, as we chose to have the hotel serve one of their cake selections as dessert instead of having our own wedding cake, to avoid high costs to feed hundreds of mouths, plus a $2.50 per head cake-cutting fee. We had a friend make the cake that we cut into — and the price was pretty much just her supplies, as the making of it was her generous gift to us.

Officiant: $0, except for a monetary gift that we gave voluntarily. We had the pastor that I’ve known since I was a little girl do our ceremony for us, and it was beautiful and personal. Since we are both members of the church where our pastor ministers, the pre-marital counseling sessions and ceremony were all free except for the cost of books.

Coordinator: $0. Coordinator = me. Yes, it is totally doable! I had a few friends help run the rehearsal the night before and the ceremony on the day of, but other than that, the coordination of vendors etc. was all handled personally beforehand.

Hair/Makeup: $65 for hair by Kat Vercelli at The Spa at Stacy Monroe’s, $0 for makeup done by me. Though I suppose I did spend a significant enough amount testing and trying out makeup to use — but I got to keep it all! I’m not a professional makeup artist but I felt pretty beautiful that day nevertheless. Hehe.

Wedding Party Gifts: For my 6 bridesmaids: About $140 each for their custom 1154 Lill bags, which I filled with some other goodies as well (notepad, neutral brown eyeliner, mini sunflower garden kit, etc.). I also paid about $50 each for all fabric, patterns, and notions for their dresses — I gave each of them a customized package of what they needed for their chosen outfit; they each had a seamstress make them (most paid about the same amount they might have paid to alter a ready-made gown, $50-$90). For my MOH, I also bought a necklace from Na Hoku that was about $120, and a few gifts for the flowergirl as well. Mr. Plumeria spent an average of $55 per guy and ringbearer to get them each different things that they would enjoy. We also paid for all of their tux rentals. All this totals to about $2360.

Transportation: $0. We rode in our best man’s car, and it was great! (Don’t ask me what it was… I just remember that it was black… and nice.)

Hotels: $250. The guys stayed in a couple of rooms at a hotel nearby the night before the wedding, while the girls got ready at my parents’ home.

Misc: I’ll add another $250 for miscellaneous helper gifts, as well as guestbook supplies, the aisle runner, silk petals, and other decor.

GRAND TOTAL: $38,522

Wedding Bands: $350 for Mr. Plumeria’s and $600 for mine, both from Derco Diamonds, where my engagement ring as also bought.

Rehearsal Dinner/Day After Brunch: We had a casual meal at my parents’ home, where all the girls were to stay that night, with Hawaiian BBQ. My parents footed the bill for this but I think it was about $100, if even, for over 40 people.

Honeymoon: $1200 for the Romance Package at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite; about $1200 for airfare to Orlando roundtrip for two, and $700 for 2 DisneyWorld Park Hoppers and 3-night hotel stay.

So, all in all, not tooooo far from the original budget. We did have to drop any extra luxuries such as chair covers or chiavari chairs — when you have that many butts to provide for, even a couple of dollars per item can figure in the thousands. The breakdown of costs between parents and us: you can probably guess that our parents were definitely involved, as we’re fairly young and the guest list (as you can also probably guess!) included many of their friends. My parents paid for their guests’ meals and then some, Mr. Plumeria’s parents also chipped in for some of the guests’ meals, and we did the rest, including rings and honeymoon — all in all, we paid over half of the total cost on our own, and I was proud that we were able to save up and do so. It took time and a lot of willpower to save up money to pay for things over the year-and-a-half that we were engaged, and we had to be pretty selective with where we decided to splurge (I think it’s pretty obvious where we did in the breakdown above).

Had we had to pay for the whole wedding ourselves, we would have had a very different guest list (in terms of people and size) and type of wedding. In the end, we were so thankful that our parents were able to help so it was possible for them to invite everyone that they wanted to… our day was one that was truly full of love, not only from each other, but from all of the people surrounding us.