Guest Post: Sasha Souza, on the NittyGritty of Wedding Costs.
Sasha Souza is a celebrity wedding expert, Modern Bride wedding consultant, and all around bad-ass of the wedding world. She’s also my friend, and I’m honored to have her grace this blog with her view from the inside of weddings. Please welcome Sasha warmly! -D.
Thanks to Dana for having me on Broke-Ass Bride while she’s off being fabulous. My name is Sasha Souza and my company is Sasha Souza Events and I also have the blog Sparkliatti. I’m super excited to share with you some of our top tips for understanding your budget wedding costs and keeping them manageable.
As an event planner, I see couples make many mistakes when planning their weddings that cost them money in the long run and are not figured into the overall wedding plan at the start. Here are a few of the mistakes to avoid. By making early, clear decisions BEFORE you make your individual choices it will be easier for you to fall in love with something in your price range. Below are five of my top tips for figuring the cost of your party before you go to the poor house.
1) Simple Math: Let’s say you have a $10,000 budget for your wedding and you find a location that is $3,500 but you need to bring in everything including tables and chairs, glassware and flatware. By spending more than 10% on your wedding budget on a location, even if you HELLA HEART IT….you are going to need to add to the budget and therefore, sabotage yourself at the beginning. Prioritizing is important and you SHOULD prioritize the most important aspects of your wedding but not at the overall cost of everything else. Essentially you are spending your photography budget on plateware and chairs.
2)The Dress, The Rings, The Honeymoon: When discussing your wedding budget with your planner, your caterer, etc…most of us do not include those items in the overall budget. Consider your budget to be only the things that perform a service at the wedding. Plus the dress can really skew the overall costs.
3) Gratuity / Service Charge/ Production Fees: All the same thing in this business. It’s an upcharge on the retail price of an item which is mandated by the contract you have signed either with the caterer/event planner or site. Basically it’s a flat percentage tacked on before the tip on the subtotal of the staffing & food costs. This is what gives you what is called the PLUS/PLUS (+/+ for short). That is your total out the door cost. In many states, the gratuity/service charge/production fee is TAXABLE by law and the vendor must pay a sales tax on it. What makes this different than a TIP is that it is a flat required amount where a tip is at your discretion based on service.
4) Catering Costs: Keeping an eye on your surcharges will help you stay in budget. If you are visiting a caterer that is offering you a buffet dinner for $30 per person is that inclusive? Of what? Does it say plus tip & applicable tax on the proposal? This is where that 4th grade multiplication class comes in handy. Your $30 dinner then adds $5.40 for the service charge of 18% (aka tip or gratuity) and $3.01 8.5% for tax. Making it now $38.41 per person. That is before you pay for your $125 bartender, $100 coat check attendant, $125 buffet carving chef, For a 100 person wedding your $30 dinner is now $42.89 plus liquor including your +/+.
5) Control the Peeps: Probably the most difficult lesson to learn is that you HAVE to control your guest list to control your budget. If you figure out your budget as a round number of $10,000 and you have 100 people, you are spending $100 on each person. Do you like that person enough to spend $100 on them because if you wouldn’t buy them a $100 birthday gift why are they on your list? You are giving a gift to your guests of food, fun and merriment which should be a privilege and you don’t have to invite everybody with a guest, with their kids or their Uncle Pat – by narrowing your list – the hardest part of the planning — you are doing yourself a tremendous favor because you can then take the extra, unspent cash and use it for something you really want. Like that $3500 site!<
Very nice… well done
Nice blog
I like it, great way to look at the guest list and makes me feel better that I cut people.
You are right. If you do not plan your wedding well you can blow your budget qucik.
I really appreciate your comments, especially number 4. Gives me something more to think about when trimming the guest list.
However, I would disagree with you on number 2. We felt it was important to include those in our budget. We have X amount of dollars to spend, and want to make sure that includes a honeymoon and rings. Perhaps it isn't necessary to discuss those items with your vendors, but I would argue that they are important to the wedding bottom line and can help control spending. In some cases, a dress, rings and honeymoon could be an extra $7,000 to $10,000! That's quite a bit of money!
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