10 Things You Don't Know About Your Wedding
There’s a lot about a wedding that you may not know. Thankfully, Liz Coopersmith, wedding planner extraordinaire is giving us a sample FAQ to refer to for wedding planning.
The unknown unknowns are the scary ones. Every couple faces the same unknowables, so I decided to hold a a teleclass series called “What you Don’t Know About Your Wedding.” I’m going to cover a different subject each week – catering, wedding venues and photography. As a preview, here are the top ten questions that all my couples ask me, and the short answers:
1. What’s the average cost of a wedding? Depends on where you are. Nationally, between 18 – $20,000. In California, where I live, it’s $32,000. I know, crazy right
2. What will be the three most expensive parts of my wedding? Your venue, your catering, and your photographer. Also the most essential, in my opinion. Start looking in that order. The first two will take up 50% of your budget
3. Can I afford a full-service wedding planner? Your budget should be in the $20 – 25,000 range for you to be able to cover it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t recommend it. But getting a Day-Of Coordinator should fit into a much smaller budget.
4. What’s a service charge? Think of it as an automatically added tip of somewhere around 18%. What I tell my couples is to round up to 30% on your catering bill to cover that and tax. Ah, yes, taxes. All your vendors are going to charge you tax, because the government charges us tax. Sorry about that.
5. I’m providing the alcohol. How many glasses can I get out of a bottle of wine? 4 glasses, and think 3-4 glasses per legally aged guests.
6. Can I return any unused bottles? Usually, but check with the store. Some won’t let you return bottles that have already been chilled. But if you do want to take back the leftovers, tell your bartender to only open what is going to be poured right away – the store definitely won’t take back open merchandise.
7. How much will the cake cost? These days it averages about $5 per slice, at least here in Los Angeles, so probably $2-3 less in other parts of the country.
8. How many extra invitations should I get? 10% more than you’re inviting. If you’re printing them yourself, get an extra cartridge of black and color each. And take a weekend to finish them.
9. How many guests end up declining? Statistically somewhere between 10 – 15%
10. How long will take to set up decorations, etc. for my wedding? I’m always happy with at least three hours, which isn’t always possible. For every hour less than three hours that you have for set-up or break down, may sure you have two more people there to help you out.
What else is it that you don’t know about your wedding? Go ahead and ask me in the comments below. And, On Wednesday, October 20th, my teleclass is going to kick off with the ins and outs of wedding catering, followed by wedding venues the week after that, and rounding off the series on November 3rd with a Q&A on photography. The class is free, so sign up here and get the answers you need to have the wedding you want.
See you at the end of the aisle,
Liz Coopersmith