Category: Wedding Planning

10 WAYS TO SAVE MONEY AT YOUR WEDDING

There are many ways to cut corners at your wedding so that you don’t have to break the budget to meet your vision of your very special day. However, sometimes people cut in the wrong places and, in the end, the guests can tell.

Here is a list I created using tips from clients who were married around the area and found ways to make some real good savings without sacrificing from the desired vision of the special day. This is a totally doable top 10 list of ways to save money on your wedding; a list that actually works:

With it spelled out on paper, you both know what is important. This allows for everyone to be on the same page.

2. LIMIT THE GUEST LIST, BOTTOM LINE – Forget about corner-cutting on the DJ, the decorations, or the dinner, those are only savings that amount to pennies on the dollar…  The best way to really save is to be ruthless with your head count. Keeping the guest list down as best as possible will drastically reduce your wedding cost, overall.

The Sefik’s, a fun couple from Clifton Park, NY got married at Mallozzi’s Wedding Hall in Schenectady. They pointed out that, “most caterers, venues, restaurants and banquet halls charge per-person.”  They noted that if you have a 150 guests and can cut it down to 125, there alone you will save about $1,300.

So how do you do this?  One tip if you see your guest list is getting out of hand, omit children and coworkers.  Making category cuts across the board is the best way to make people not feel that they were being singled out.

3. FOOD & DRINK – Research all of your options and do not be afraid to ask questions.  The Bovairs of West Sand Lake, NY who got married at Lakeview on Crystal Lake in Averill park, NY, recommended that you, “consider a buffet instead of a sit-down meal, or break tradition all the way. Why not go with a dessert reception, or a brunch or luncheon instead of a multicourse meal?”

Some people actually go with an all appetizer / finger food reception now.

Alcohol – Eliminating or limiting a traditional full bar to one or two hours will really cut costs.  The Bevans got married at Herbert’s at Birch Hill in Kinderhook. Alternatives include serving beer and wine only, but not serving alcoholic mixed drinks.  at all or only pouring a champagne toast.

Depending on the local laws and the rules at your reception hall, if you are able to buy the liquor yourself and then hire someone to pour it — the savings potential is enormous. If you can, in fact, bring your own booze, you can even return any full bottles that your guests don’t drink in the end.

4. Location, location, location.   There are boat-loads of options for low-cost or no-cost locations, including local and national parks, forest preserves, your own back yard or that of a friend or relative.

Paul Diamond who got married at a nice little restaurant called, Cella Bistro in Schenectady, NY  said, “Unthought-of restaurants are usually a under-rated option.  Many establishments would love to have your business and, at the same time have gorgeous tables and chairs, and décor. You could save a bundle, all around.”

Also, by choosing a location that allows outside catering or you to bring your own booze, you are also opening up the potential for great savings! Saratoga’s Museum of Dance and Pryne Hall of Latham both allow for these potential savings, for example.

5. Wedding Attire – Here’s where you have many options for stretching your bridal dollars. You don’t have to buy at a traditional bridal salon. You could purchase a gown at an outlet or from a department store in the special occasion’s off-the-rack area.

Sarah Ward who got married at The Franklin Terrace in Troy, NY by Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC) said, “You can score a pre-owned gown at sites like preownedweddingdresses.com and oncewed.com.

6. FLOWERS –   If you choose to wed in a location that is already naturally decorated,  you will see big savings. To set a stylish mood without much work, plan the wedding to take place in a garden, art museum or even at a beautifully-gardened home.

Saving on flowers – Choosing flowers that have bigger buds means you’ll need fewer stems, thereby helping your bottom line.

Self-proclaimed “hippies,” The Losaws of Hudson Falls, NY got married at The Glen Sanders Mansion in Scotia, New York. They planted 200 bulbs months before their wedding, and then married right in the middle of the fully-blooming cheerful yellow tulips.

7. INVITATIONS  – You don’t need to print invitations up on thick paper and chalk up another $500 bill. Invitations are definitely an area where do-it-yourselfers can show off their skills and can create great savings by pocketing the difference in costs.

Orvin Bennitt and his wife-to-be will be getting married at The Edison Club in Rexford, NY this summer. They showed me their announcements. They printed their wedding invitations on their computer, and I would have never have guessed!

8. GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM YOUR FRIENDS  – Think of it as cost-free outsourcing. Posse up your friends and play to their strengths.  Some people may have a creative inner-circle of peers who will want to donate services to you! This could be in the area of music for the ceremony, or even for photography!

Also, befriend teachers! Try calling a few schools if you want a decent student ensemble to play your wedding ceremony music! Or call your votec (like Capital Region Career & Technical School of Albany, NY) and get the floral class behind your wedding as a school project!

Initiate an Officiant  –  Are you looking for an intimate ceremony that has meaning AND affordability at the same time? Consider having your vows administered by a relative or friend, like the Carbones did at The Inn in Saratoga. Web sites like Universal Life Church (ulchq.com) and Esoteric Interfaith Church are two organizations that “ordain” laypeople so they can officiate weddings, legally.

9. Embrace The Off-Season  –  Wedding receptions that don’t fall during peak months will help you save big bucks.  The Bucklands got married at a popular location called Gideon Putnam in Saratoga Springs, NY early in April. By doing so, they estimate that they were able to negotiate a savings of nearly $3,000!

10. Lose The Limo –  “Transportation can be a huge cost,” says Mike Brooks, who got married at Crystal Cove in Averill Park, NY. “Since my bride wasn’t obsessed with having a vintage car drive us one mile to the reception, we just borrowed my friends’ SUVs to shuttle the bridal party and family. Nobody noticed the difference.”

I have also seen this work at a wedding reception taking place at The Lighthouse in Schenectady, NY. Ask around and save!

Top 10 Wedding Planning Advice Tip List for Weddings in Albany, NY, or around the world.

If you are planning a wedding around Albany, NY, or anywhere else in the world, this “Top 10 Wedding Planning Advice Tip List” is one that can help. There are a number of tricks you can do when planning a wedding that cost absolutely nothing, in order to bring great success to your special day.

Along with the tips, our DJ Kenny Casanova has provided commentary for each point, explaining some failures he has witnessed in the Albany, NY Capital Region area that could have been avoided with some simple planning.

1) Avoid placing your wedding date on a holiday – this creates a built in competition quandary for your guests and you may find that your wedding is not everyone’s #1 priority.

“I was the disc jockey for a wedding at Malozzi’s in Schenectady, NY once on an actual Halloween night, October 31st. It was really great fun with the Halloween theme and a lot of the people got into the spirit in costumes, but there was a big problem with the selection of the actual date. Two of the grooms good friends could not make it to the reception, because they had children that they wanted to go out for trick-or-treating. The other issue was that the wedding reception was NO CHILDREN, so that it put some adults into a position where they had to pick friends over family. In some cases, family won and they didn’t attend the wedding.”

2) Give plenty of time for the invitation – Some people see that up to 6 months before the event is a good heads up time to RSVP. Others say even more time is essential to the success of your guest list attendance.

“For my own wedding at Birch Hill in the Kinderhook / Schodack area, we had a great turn out. However, about a few weeks before the wedding reception, a cancelation came in after we finalized our numbers and we couldn’t find anyone within that time frame to fill the seats. It’s tough these days to expect people to be able to make it to an event with very little notice.”

3) Don’t force your lifestyle on your guests – If you are vegetarian or vegan, it may not be a good idea to only offer these dishes at your wedding. A good host tries to accomodate their guests desires in order to make them happy, not force something on them. This goes for food as well as music selection.

“If you have ever been to a wedding where the DJ is playing weird music you hate off the bride’s playlist, you know exactly what I mean. I was the DJ at The Edison Club in Rexford, NY once, off Grooms Road passed Clifton Park, and the guests were about ready to kill the bride for wanting death metal as her music of choice for the evening. As much as you may not like it, think mainstream appeal and you as a host will typically keep everyone happy. ”

4) Try and always plan for Saturday Night Weddings – Fridays people sometimes have to work and Sundays people have no day to recover/travel.

“I recently had a Sunday night wedding at the Glens Sanders Mansion in Scotia, NY that ended at 11:00 pm. Many people left early so that they could get home at a reasonable hour because they had to work the next day. This meant people drank less, danced less and missed the cake cutting and some fun activities later on.”

5) Keep the invite list numbers as low as possible – Don’t invite just anyone. Your biggest expense is usually your venue/catering. Keeping your numbers down can save hundreds of dollars with only a handful of guests.

“A huge wedding at Crystal Cove in Averill Park, NY that I was the DJ for had a bride in tears because of the turn out. It seemed that something happened where a bunch of people from work that she only invited out of courtesy no-showed. She learned that they decided to go to CountryFest at Spac in Saratoga Springs, in stead, subsequently costingher about $1,200.”

6) Seat older people away from the DJ – Even if Grandma has a hearing aid and can’t hear well, she sure will hear the DJ if she is placed right by the speakers. She will also want the music turned down to practically nothing.

“I was the DJ for a wedding at The State Room in Albany, NY. For whatever reason, a table was very close to the DJ booth, probably due to overbooking the hall’s capacity. All night, an old woman would give me dirty looks and complain to me that the music was too loud; even during dinner. However, the bride kept coming by and asking me to turn it up.”

7) Have Back Up Plan for outside weddings – whether it is the ceremony or the reception, have a back up plan in case it rains.

“We did a wedding reception once right near The Century House in Latham, NY where I bet they wished they had booked The Century House. Trying to save money, they decided against a tent and a huge rain storm hit. Despite making the best of it, moving the party inside was difficult and cramped.”

8 ) Be careful of allowing your photographer to overshoot – While you may like many photos as possible, shooting too many is pointless and will only make you miss your reception. Signs of Overshooting could include running longer than 45 minutes during cocktail hour, or being pulled out during the dance time of your reception.

“One time at a wedding at The Franklin Terrace in Troy, NY, the photographer hept pulling the bride and groom out of their reception after dinner to take some more shots. As a result, the bride and groom missed a whole lot of the dance time and they were not happy, when the hall was ready to close up on their contracted time.”

9) Create a “Do Not Playlist” for your DJ – This will ensure there are no surprises.

“At a wedding I went to as a guest recently at The Elks Club in Clifton Park, NY, the DJ played the dreaded Chicken Dance, and a bunch of cheesy non-relevent 80’s love song music that the younger couple did not recognize. If they had specified what they didn’t like, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. (BTW – here is a list of 100 modern first dance & slow wedding songs from our site to help with keeping your wedding from sounding like the Delilah Show.)”

10) Do “The Cake Cutting” as late as possible – While the hall may push for the cake cutting immediately after dinner, remember, many people leave right after the cake. The cake cutting also can slow down the flow, when you are trying to get people to dance.

“One time at Michaels Banquet House in Latham, NY, they decided to do the cake right after dinner to try and speed things up. However, after doing so, they lost a huge population of their guest attendance with two hours left. Know this; The cake is a good time for people to sneak out. ”

I hope this list helps you to avoid possible wedding disasters. To see a simplified checklist of this Top 10 List, click here.

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One fun addition to your wedding celebration in recent years is including a Slideshow for all your guests. These can really be a great success when done properly and can add a great bit of mood to the atmosphere you may want to set. However, if done incorrectly, they can fall short.

TOP 10 IDEA LIST ON – HOW TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL WEDDING SLIDESHOW FOR YOUR RECEPTION

The Wedding Slideshow is one of our popular DJ packages. It has become something many couples want to add, but don’t really know how. Having been the disc jockey in countless weddings in the Albany & Saratoga Springs NY region, I have seen quite a bit of good ones and also, some really bad ones. Here is a list I have put together to help clients understand what they should think about when considering a wedding slideshow.

TOP 10 THINGS TO THINK ABOUT WHEN CREATING YOUR WEDDING SLIDESHOW

1) PRESENTATION – Do we want the slideshow to be a featured activity as an event with a start and finish, or rather a backdrop decoration on a continuous loop?

2) PICTURE COUNT –  Usually around 75-100 pictures is great for an event slideshow where your guests are instructed to watch a music video-like powerpoint presentation of pictures.

If you have a lot of pictures, it is best to make your wedding slideshow a continuous loop as a decoration in the background. Having your guests watch a 10-15 minute presentation as an event is too long and they will lose interest before the end of the slideshow.

3) MUSIC SELECTION OR NOT – Featured activity should be announced as an event and works best when set to music packaging it like a music video, with maybe one or two songs. (More than three songs begins to feel too long and your audience may lose interest.)

4) WHEN TO PLAY SLIDESHOW – “What time of the night should we show it?” Wedding Slideshows played as an event tend to work better during dinner while people are still eating, as to not take away from dancing time. If you are running a continuous looping slideshow as a decorative backdrop, usually cocktail hour is a good time to run it – and maybe into dinner – shutting it off during the dancing segment of the celebration.

5) ADDING SOUNDS – It is best to “keep it simple.” Adding crazy sounds or many little pieces of tracks to your slideshow is distracting to your audience and takes away from the visual on the screen.

6) EFFECTS – Avoid distractions. Powerpoint is loaded with them and it is easy to fall into using different ones everywhere. However, multiple effects like odd slide transitions become annoying to your audience quickly.

7) PICTURE SELECTION – It is best to try and have roughly the same number of slides for both the bride and groom. Using a sequential order is also a good idea, using the oldest pictures first, building up to the most recent. Then finally, having a number of pictures of the bride and groom together at the end, is best.

A slideshow can also be effective for couples who have had a destination wedding, or an elopement and want to now share the pictures of the actually ceremony to those at the reception that were unable to attend the vow exchange.

8) PICTURE TIMING – Usually around 4 seconds (give or take) is the best period of time to use between slide transitions. If you have a really large amount of pictures, you can cut off a half a second or so to help make it move a little faster.

9) SPEAKERS – Many people I have seen have opted to go with using their little computer speakers for the event-type slideshow. This is usually, as far as I can gather, usually because they want to exactly sync up pictures with the a particular line or something in music. However, I still believe it is best to keep it simple and just select a song or two and have your DJ play the song selections – and let the pictures do their thing.

10) PREPARATION – Many people try and get by with Microsoft running a slideshow automatically, however this is not a good idea. Using a program like Powerpoint PPT or even Google presentation is better. Using software that is designed to create a slideshow better lets you select the order in which you want the pictures to appear, as well as the time the picture remains on the screen.

According to The Knot, the average cost of a wedding in the US is $31,213. While I’d say that may be a little high for the Capital District’s average, I do weddings all the time that top $20,000 right here in Albany, Saratoga, and Troy.

I don’t know about you, but everything I own worth $20,000, I have insured!

WHY YOU MAY WANT TO CONSIDER WEDDING INSURANCE

Insurance from a reputable insurance plan like the Travelers Wedding Protector Plan covers things like postponement or cancellation of the event, lost deposits, additional expenses to prevent postponement or cancellation, retaking photos if they are lost or damaged, the gifts, the jewelry, and the special attire.

Therefore if the venue is flooded or the couple (or their parents or children) get suddenly ill, they will pay to reschedule the wedding.  They pay for lost deposits and even cost of reconvening your wedding party to take new photos if your photographer drops his camera in the pond!

Also, you can add on liability and liquor liability coverage to your policy.  A lot of venues now require liability coverage for the event, and this is one way to do it, especially if you don’t have a homeowners policy that might extend it.  If you are planning a wedding at your house or a friends house BUY THE LIABILITY.

I understand that with so many expenses stacking up while planning a wedding, often people disregard the thought of wedding insurance as just an expense they can skip, but it is precisely because of those stacking up expenses that a couple needs wedding insurance.

Wedding insurance is not expensive, and if you are spending a good chunk of money on your wedding, get some peace of mind, and insure it.  If you want to talk to someone about what you need, I recommend calling Kerri at 518-785-3700.  She can help you determine if you should buy wedding insurance and what coverage is right for you.

HOW TO CREATE AN EFFECTIVE SONG LIST

For everything from movies to circus acts, music really sets the mood. However, mixing up the moods you want to help create can do wonders for the overall feel of your event, in the end.

One of the first questions I ask brides and grooms before planning a play list is, “what kind of atmosphere are you trying to set during this time in the reception?”

It is really important to set lots of different atmospheres and manipulate many different emotions at a wedding, if you really want it to stand out and feel special. You don’t really want to stay in one “mood” for any extended periods of time. Therefore, no segment of a wedding should be all fast, all slow, or even all serious for a long time.  To make your wedding feel like one of the best ever, it’s all about mixing it up.

“If you really want to keep your wedding guests fully  engaged and make a long-lasting impression, you have to appeal to all their senses, and all of their emotions.”

Before we talk about planing the best wedding playlist, let’s look at another form of entertainment that focuses on mixing up emotions; the film world.

When you go to Regal Cinema in The Crossgates Mall in Guilderland , NY and sit down with your over-priced soda & your garbage can full of butter and popcorn, isn’t the whole point of making a trip to the movie theater to be emotionally manipulated? The whole point of going to the movies is to have someone tell you a story that makes you laugh or cry, and perhaps, an experience that you will remember for years to come?

Walt Disney once said, ” … for every laugh, there should be a tear.” Mickey Mouse’s always wanted fans on an emotional roller coaster ride whenever they went to the movies.

Walt Disney always made sure that his films had scenes that deliberately went out their way to make the audience cry; The death of Bambi’s mother… Snow White’s funeral scene… Pinocchio appearing to have died… Cinderella having her dress destroyed and losing all hope of going to the Ball….

Even the old time southern Baptist tent meeting ministers realized that chopping up the emotions was the way to go. By offering quick “mood jumps” from fast hymns into slower tear-jerking testimonials, it was always clear that people felt they were really attending something special, after looking at the offering plates at the end of the night.

In today’s high impact, fast moving, MTV-style-edited, attention-deficit disordered world, you have to constantly change things up to keep your audience. This is even more so when your audience is a vastly-varied demographic like wedding guests tend to be.

For my weddings in the Albany, Troy, Schenectady, NY area, I try and follow this same psychology to create the same results.  I want the people attending the wedding to feel like they are experiencing something special. Therefore, coming out of a coctail hour with an acoustic blend including lounge, jazz, soft rock, country and reggae, I like to bump into a high-energy introduction, then drop it right back down into a touching classy ballad first dance. Immediately after that, I recommend playing something lighter or nostalgic before the toast, then transition over to a fun party mix for dinner with one-hit wonders, throwbacks, sing-alongs and good tunes that are tougher to dance to while people eat. After dinner, I introduce the dance segment with a mix of todays hits and all your favorite classics.

When putting together your wedding music playlist, or any party for that matter, keep mood-mixing in mind. Chopping up the desired atmospheres with an emotional roller coaster playlist is a great way to really touch all of the bases. Mixing up everything in the end will really make your night feel special and memorable.