Reader Question: I can't figure out how you paid for the venue, was it paid for by the guests/not part of the $200? ie they paid for their own rooms and therefore you got to use the common spaces? Did you pay for the whole place at the time of the reservation, and then the guests paid you for their rooms? Thanks for your candor.
Great question! Our venue situation was at the heart of how we were able to pull off a $2,000 wedding, so I would love to talk about it more.
Basically, in the early stages of planning, I figured that if we rented out an entire place, we might be able to use their facilities (e.g., gathering rooms, kitchen, etc.) for free. This was true at some places and not others.
We decided to go with a Bed & Breakfast that would let us do this.
When Matt and I sent out a Save-the-Date e-mail, we included a link to an online survey that asked guests the likelihood that they would be able to attend, as well as their preferences for sleeping accommodations. We learned that Matt's family wanted to stay at a fancier place, my family was fine staying anywhere, and most of our friends wanted to stay with us on site.
The cost to rent the entire B&B was $750/night (keep in mind it's a family-run place with simple accommodations--nothing fancy). The place holds 40 people total. We decided to charge $35 for a bed in one of the cabins and $25 for a bunk bed in one of the group rooms.
We decided on those numbers because they seemed very inexpensive for a night of lodging. But at the same time, it gave us extra money in case a) we didn't fill up all 40 slots and b) someone didn't pay.
We paid the deposit and then the full cost for the two nights. We asked one of my good friends, Amy, to be the Paymaster. We gave her a binder with a complete list of who owed what. Then, on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, she collected money from everyone. She said she loved the job because it gave her an excuse to meet everyone.
Because we did end up filling every bed, we used the extra money to pay the innkeepers to help out at the reception. We made the food in advance, but we hired them to heat it up, set it out, refill it, and clean up. We also used the extra money to pay for people's rooms if they had really arduous jobs (like picking up and returning the kegs).
In the end, every single person paid (even though two people mailed checks after the wedding), and we had $160 left that went into our general wedding budget.
The system took a lot of work on the front end (e.g., assigning groups of friends to share cabins, communicating with people about where they were staying, etc.), but it was very smooth in the execution.
Definitely let me know if you have more questions!
6 comments:
We'll be doing the same thing renting a summer camp (also up to 40 people), but it's a good idea to appoint a paymaster! We'll have to do that. We are a little worried about having to hound people for money, but it sounds like it worked out well. Maybe we should give ourselves a little cushion, too.
Sarah, I absolutely loved this idea. I was actually really bogged down in wedding planning and we really didn't like our initial venue. Then I came across your blog, and it gave us the idea of renting out a huge summer rental home near the beach in city city where we got engaged. It is a meaningful place to us and we are thrilled to be able to stay with our guests nd to just enjoy the time together. We are trying to infuse our personalities and what we like to do as much as possible so we're having a 5k fun run/walk the next day, which would have been difficult to do if we were more scattered in different hotels. Thank you again!
Thanks for this awesome post, sarah!
Like SH, we're renting a summer camp. It's 2k a night for 65 people, $30 pp for every person more (it breaks down to about 30pp anyways).
I've been feeling kind of sheepish to ask people to pay us directly for the accomodations. I'd thought of making a paymaster, but since we live abroad right now, I thought my mom could be best. I don't really know, though, because she's not that great with money! Did amy the paymaster jump at the opportunity to ask for money from everyone, or did you have to do a little convincing?
@ Miss Rye Bread: Amy did jump at the chance to do this role. She really wanted to help out in some way, and this job was a good fit for her because she's organized and outgoing. My advice would be to pick this person carefully (and make sure you tell them you'll understand if they say they don't want to do it). It's a big responsibility!
That's so awesome! Man, you really put your heads together on that one. Saved you AND your guests lots of money!
I'm wondering how you found your B&B. Ours will be a destination wedding for about half of the 75 guests, so I thought I would be neat to do something similar to what you did, but I just can't find anything remotely similar. Then again I'm looking near Portland, OR, and it's possible that everything is just more expensive. I do know about the summer camp option, which one of my friends did for her wedding.
Any tips would be helpful--thanks!
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