One thing that hasn't been mentioned that I've found really helpful (since I'm trying to plan ours too!) has been to google "wedding budget" lists and to comb through 5-6 of them and essentially copy every unique thing that someone has stuck on one of those lists onto your own list, regardless of whether or not you think you'll need it. (Example: We aren't having a flower girl or anything like that so stuff like "Flower Girl's attire" and "Flower Girl's bouquet" are on the list initially)
From there I ended up with a really enormous list of what I'm hoping is anything and everything that could possibly come up as a thing requiring planning or money. Then I started crossing out stuff that I knew we weren't going to need (like the flower girl thing), marking stuff that we weren't paying for but might need to plan (example: guest rooms in the hotel). After that, I dragged my fiance into it and we went through everything else and everything I wasn't sure about and said, "Well, how much do we really care about this? What would we ideally want for it/how high a priority is it to us?" This made it really easy to start planning the budget, if it was one of our top priorities, it got way easier to drop a lower priority item.
Well, I don't have alot of advice yet, as I too am just starting my wedding plans. We don't have really any money, so we are trying to keep the cost at $4K. Seems to be working so far, as we found a high end venue/caterer that will do it for $2K (this incudes the wedding part, I hate making people drive around from Wedding to Reception so we mushed em together).
Yeah, we're trying to do the same thing, and it should help keep costs down, which is good, because we can probably only squeeze $5K-$6K out for this thing, after looking at our current savings and expected savings over the next six months.
The biggest worry right now is the venue; they won't just list prices upfront. I'd better plan a trip out there anyway within the next couple weekends to see about electricity, garbage, etc.
Well, I don't have alot of advice yet, as I too am just starting my wedding plans. We don't have really any money, so we are trying to keep the cost at $4K. Seems to be working so far, as we found a high end venue/caterer that will do it for $2K (this incudes the wedding part, I hate making people drive around from Wedding to Reception so we mushed em together).
Yeah, we're trying to do the same thing, and it should help keep costs down, which is good, because we can probably only squeeze $5K-$6K out for this thing, after looking at our current savings and expected savings over the next six months.
The biggest worry right now is the venue; they won't just list prices upfront. I'd better plan a trip out there anyway within the next couple weekends to see about electricity, garbage, etc.
You should be able to call their event coordinator and have these figures mailed to you.
Sounds like you've got bigger issues for the time being, but eventually you'll want to consider: Wedding Photography
If you're going to hire a photographer (which I can't imagine not doing, but some people have better memories than I):
Don't hire a friend. Don't hire a student/hack that will work for "experience". Don't hire anyone who touts themselves as a "budget photographer". Don't demand you get the rights to the image or the negatives/files - few good photographers will release copyrights for less than $holyshit/image.
If you're uncertain of whether or not you want a wedding photographer, check out what some of my favourite wedding photographers can do: Sam Hassas Tony Hoffer Jeremy Clay
These are all fairly mid-budget shooters - their packages start around $3.5k - and you'll obviously want to hire a photographer local to where your wedding is so you can save on travel expenses, but they should give you an idea of what a good photographer can do for you in regards to high quality images of your wedding day.
If you're not hiring a photographer (crazy!), don't give the guests disposable/cheap digital cameras and expect more than 1 printable image from the results.
Assateauge won't allow caterers which pretty much rules out a reception there which means I need to find another venue. I need
1) something on the mid-East Coast; Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, maaaybe New Jersey
2) where we can have the wedding on the beach and
3) have the reception on the beach
4) that doesn't cost $TEXAS.
So I'm back in the "frantically searching" phase again. Wonderful.
Having the reception on the beach could be harder, not a lot of towns allow it. That being said, I know in Stone Harbor, NJ (grew up in Cape May so this is all I know) you can get married on the beach at 96th St and there is a civic center with a large parking lot where people have events by the dunes. Stone Harbor is costly but if you do it off season you can get a good deal, that goes for a lot of shore towns. I'm sure there's something similar in MD.
These are all fairly mid-budget shooters - their packages start around $3.5k - and you'll obviously want to hire a photographer local to where your wedding is so you can save on travel expenses, but they should give you an idea of what a good photographer can do for you in regards to high quality images of your wedding day.
If you're not hiring a photographer (crazy!), don't give the guests disposable/cheap digital cameras and expect more than 1 printable image from the results.
Hahahahahaha, that's like half my budget. And I've got a "thing" about owning the copyrights to my own wedding pictures. I'm not sure if I can afford a professional photographer, but I've got some fairly talented hobbyist photographers in the family; we'll see how that goes.
And VOC, thanks for the tip, I'm looking into a beach in Delaware and I'll look into that too.
These are all fairly mid-budget shooters - their packages start around $3.5k - and you'll obviously want to hire a photographer local to where your wedding is so you can save on travel expenses, but they should give you an idea of what a good photographer can do for you in regards to high quality images of your wedding day.
If you're not hiring a photographer (crazy!), don't give the guests disposable/cheap digital cameras and expect more than 1 printable image from the results.
Hahahahahaha, that's like half my budget. And I've got a "thing" about owning the copyrights to my own wedding pictures. I'm not sure if I can afford a professional photographer, but I've got some fairly talented hobbyist photographers in the family; we'll see how that goes.
And VOC, thanks for the tip, I'm looking into a beach in Delaware and I'll look into that too.
You can check out students and amateurs as well. You can ask to see their portfolio to see how their work looks and they'll be cheaper. Also, if you go with NJ I can give you the contact info for the DJ and the photographer my sister is using.
VisionOfClarity on
0
Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
Assateauge won't allow caterers which pretty much rules out a reception there which means I need to find another venue. I need
1) something on the mid-East Coast; Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, maaaybe New Jersey
2) where we can have the wedding on the beach and
3) have the reception on the beach
4) that doesn't cost $TEXAS.
So I'm back in the "frantically searching" phase again. Wonderful.
Call the catering halls / hotels in Ocean City.
If your heart is set on a beach wedding your best bet is to go out of country. It'll be a lot better value than getting a reception close enough to the beach to do a ceremony in the states.
Deebaser on
0
Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
These are all fairly mid-budget shooters - their packages start around $3.5k - and you'll obviously want to hire a photographer local to where your wedding is so you can save on travel expenses, but they should give you an idea of what a good photographer can do for you in regards to high quality images of your wedding day.
If you're not hiring a photographer (crazy!), don't give the guests disposable/cheap digital cameras and expect more than 1 printable image from the results.
Hahahahahaha, that's like half my budget. And I've got a "thing" about owning the copyrights to my own wedding pictures. I'm not sure if I can afford a professional photographer, but I've got some fairly talented hobbyist photographers in the family; we'll see how that goes.
And VOC, thanks for the tip, I'm looking into a beach in Delaware and I'll look into that too.
A friend of mine hired a friend for his wedding and paid him with professional lighting equipment/lenses. Cost about $1000 if i remember, but the shots came out amazing and it was good for the internal economy of our crew.
These are all fairly mid-budget shooters - their packages start around $3.5k - and you'll obviously want to hire a photographer local to where your wedding is so you can save on travel expenses, but they should give you an idea of what a good photographer can do for you in regards to high quality images of your wedding day.
If you're not hiring a photographer (crazy!), don't give the guests disposable/cheap digital cameras and expect more than 1 printable image from the results.
Hahahahahaha, that's like half my budget. And I've got a "thing" about owning the copyrights to my own wedding pictures. I'm not sure if I can afford a professional photographer, but I've got some fairly talented hobbyist photographers in the family; we'll see how that goes.
And VOC, thanks for the tip, I'm looking into a beach in Delaware and I'll look into that too.
A friend of mine hired a friend for his wedding and paid him with professional lighting equipment/lenses. Cost about $1000 if i remember, but the shots came out amazing and it was good for the internal economy of our crew.
I wasn't suggesting that $3500 was a minimum or anything - all those guys I linked are the top of the industry in their areas and charge appropriately. I worded it poorly: I meant that for high end guys, they were pretty mid-range in terms of price. They were more to show "what a kickass photographer can do vs some bum off the street". Chances are you can snag a very competent photographer for $1500 who will know his stuff. Everything will be much smoother with a pro, no shots will be missed, gear will not fail (and if it does, there will be backups available) and final images will look far better and be properly processed and printed than if not-a-pro did it.
The thing about shooting friends' weddings is that if you muck up their wedding photography, you've ruined the friendship. Even if the now-married friend forgives them, what are the chances their SO will also? I'd never do it.
Nevermind that, while an outdoor wedding is a bit easier gear-wise, if you end up moving indoors your photographer will need some pretty serious gear to shoot in such low light and still get printable images. Besides the huge skill required to shoot a long event like that, a portion of why wedding photography is so expensive is because most wedding shooters will be bringing ~$20k worth of gear, a second photographer and sometimes a helper (to hold lights and stuff).
Having a good low-key professional wedding photographer also has fringe benefits. Robert Norman did my wedding a couple years ago. He was super calm and made everyone more relaxed. Not only did he take amazing photos, but when someone needed bobby pins, he pulled some out of his camera bag. He seemed to be everywhere at once and did so much more than just take pictures.
A good wedding photographer does a couple weddings every weekend and knows where to look for the shot before it happens. Robert took so many amazing candids just because he knows how to see something developing. If you really care about having amazing wedding photos, a good pro is the way to go.
Not all wedding photographers are going to nickel-and-dime you, either. For no extra cost, Robert gave us a DVD with every photo he took burned onto it, around 400 or so he had separated out as the "good" ones, and that he proofed. The proofs had no watermark and were basically 4x6 prints on photo paper. He also posted the photos online and made a slideshow set to music. So don't think that every wedding photographer is going to hold back copies of the photos or not let you do what you want with them.
edit: forgot to mention, but my friend's camera battery died and Robert gave him a spare! Well, lent him a spare, but how cool was that?
This reminds me - signing over copyrights and giving you full printing rights are entirely different things.
Selling the copyright: The photographer is no longer the owner of the images. They relinquish all rights to the images. You become sole owner of the images and can use them however you want (including selling prints of the images, selling them to a stock photo agency, using them in an ad, etc.). This is a Big Deal and the guys I know of who will do this start somewhere between $1k and $30k an image because they lose so much control over their work.
Selling the printing rights: The photographer owns the images, but you can make as many prints of the images as you like. These can't be sold by yourself or used in a commercial sense - they are purely for you to own and give away. If this is what you want, most guys these days will sell you a DVD of the images and printing rights for a couple hundred or in lieu of any prints (though you'll probably have to pay more for the photography itself, since they're losing out on print sales).
I've seen more than a few deals go south when customers don't understand the difference between these two things.
The National Seashore is pretty lenient as long as you're a ways off the guarded beach and stay the fuck away from the dunes and animals (not counting fish, everybody shows up with rods to catch those).
Everyone I've ever talked to has said it's usually not a good idea to use a friend to do the photography. Nine times out of ten, they aren't going to do a great job. Of course, if you have a friend who also happens to be a professional photographer who will be gracious enough to give you a buddy discount, that's good news, or you might just luck out and have a friend who realizes that this is your wedding day and you want good pictures of it to remind you of the (presumably) happiest day of your life.
Friends are great for a lot of things, but if you make them your photographer, you do them and yourself a disservice. By that I mean your friend is also a guest, and will want to do guest things (eat, drink, hang out with the cousins, etc), and a bunch of these things will not have anything to do with taking your pictures. Also, you probably won't pay your friend much of anything, and this might be good for your wallet, but it also means you will probably get what you pay for, which is to say, crap. It also gives you no control over your friend (You: "Hey, I need you to take a group shot" Him: "Hold on man, I'm trying to score with your cousin's hot friend"). Laaaame.
People bitch about how much photography costs while they are planning the wedding, but afterwards they are glad they did it, because now they have those memories forever. You can skimp and cut and budget just about everything else, but try not to do it for your pictures.
On friend for photography, firstly he's a hobbyist and lives and breathes the stuff in every moment of his spare time. Secondly, I was told by his wife and mother in law to ask him, they both think he'd be honored, and I might as well at least extend that option to him. Finally, I don't really care how the pictures look. If I didn't know Dave (the hobbyist) I wouldn't even get a photographer. My mom made me pose for pictures throughout childhood, and now cameras just make me uncomfortable-Especially if they're being used by people I don't even know. I was in a wedding recently, it happened, I hated it.
For Dave, he's snagged pics of me before, so it's really not that much of a problem.
On friend for photography, firstly he's a hobbyist and lives and breathes the stuff in every moment of his spare time. Secondly, I was told by his wife and mother in law to ask him, they both think he'd be honored, and I might as well at least extend that option to him. Finally, I don't really care how the pictures look. If I didn't know Dave (the hobbyist) I wouldn't even get a photographer. My mom made me pose for pictures throughout childhood, and now cameras just make me uncomfortable-Especially if they're being used by people I don't even know. I was in a wedding recently, it happened, I hated it.
For Dave, he's snagged pics of me before, so it's really not that much of a problem.
Sounds like he's perfect for you then. Sorry your mom made you hate getting your pic taken
On friend for photography, firstly he's a hobbyist and lives and breathes the stuff in every moment of his spare time. Secondly, I was told by his wife and mother in law to ask him, they both think he'd be honored, and I might as well at least extend that option to him. Finally, I don't really care how the pictures look. If I didn't know Dave (the hobbyist) I wouldn't even get a photographer. My mom made me pose for pictures throughout childhood, and now cameras just make me uncomfortable-Especially if they're being used by people I don't even know. I was in a wedding recently, it happened, I hated it.
For Dave, he's snagged pics of me before, so it's really not that much of a problem.
i too hate my picture being taken, but heres the rub. The album is not for you. now before you go all whu?!? sure you will look at it, but honestly your parents probably want photos more than you.
not all photographers are all in your face and you won't notice a good wedding photographer unless you are doing a posed shot. we told our guy we wanted more candid shots then posed, and although he went a bit too extreme i hardley noticed him. and more of a general tip is make sure the guy isn't hyperfocused on teh bride. i think roughly 95% of the pictures we have are of my wife, which is fine since she looked great. but i was slightly peeved that i had like 10 pictures of me and my family and it was me doing a stupid handshake thing with my bro and dad.
Assateauge won't allow caterers which pretty much rules out a reception there which means I need to find another venue. I need
1) something on the mid-East Coast; Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, maaaybe New Jersey
2) where we can have the wedding on the beach and
3) have the reception on the beach
4) that doesn't cost $TEXAS.
So I'm back in the "frantically searching" phase again. Wonderful.
my fiancée and I were/ are looking to get married on the Peninsula.... small world.
Aqua on what is essentially the southern tip Va's Eastern shore may fit your needs. It didn't ours because their beach site was too small, but it MAY(strongly tentative) fit your needs. It's probably worth a call and a poke around their website. The real downside is that it's part of a resort so your guests have a great view of the waves but you're looking at some buildings. (not that this would be different in ocean city - MD anyway, no idea about the NJ city of the same name.)
They did have a couple of packages that they quoted us for around $30 a head though.
I was told that directly on the beach in OC could be a significant and expensive obstacle, especially for more than 30 people, but your mileage may vary.
If you find any awesome places that just don't work for you please feel free to drop me a pm. We're looking at this summer and don't quite have everything nailed down yet and so are also in the frantically searching phase.
So I did some research, and the Cape Cod National Seashore seems to be willing to let you do whatever you want as long as your glass containers are kept away from the guarded portions of the beach.
There are other national seashores if you don't want to travel as far as that, and I assume they have similar rules.
Posts
One thing that hasn't been mentioned that I've found really helpful (since I'm trying to plan ours too!) has been to google "wedding budget" lists and to comb through 5-6 of them and essentially copy every unique thing that someone has stuck on one of those lists onto your own list, regardless of whether or not you think you'll need it. (Example: We aren't having a flower girl or anything like that so stuff like "Flower Girl's attire" and "Flower Girl's bouquet" are on the list initially)
From there I ended up with a really enormous list of what I'm hoping is anything and everything that could possibly come up as a thing requiring planning or money. Then I started crossing out stuff that I knew we weren't going to need (like the flower girl thing), marking stuff that we weren't paying for but might need to plan (example: guest rooms in the hotel). After that, I dragged my fiance into it and we went through everything else and everything I wasn't sure about and said, "Well, how much do we really care about this? What would we ideally want for it/how high a priority is it to us?" This made it really easy to start planning the budget, if it was one of our top priorities, it got way easier to drop a lower priority item.
Yeah, we're trying to do the same thing, and it should help keep costs down, which is good, because we can probably only squeeze $5K-$6K out for this thing, after looking at our current savings and expected savings over the next six months.
The biggest worry right now is the venue; they won't just list prices upfront. I'd better plan a trip out there anyway within the next couple weekends to see about electricity, garbage, etc.
You should be able to call their event coordinator and have these figures mailed to you.
Assateauge won't allow caterers which pretty much rules out a reception there which means I need to find another venue. I need
1) something on the mid-East Coast; Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, maaaybe New Jersey
2) where we can have the wedding on the beach and
3) have the reception on the beach
4) that doesn't cost $TEXAS.
So I'm back in the "frantically searching" phase again. Wonderful.
If you're going to hire a photographer (which I can't imagine not doing, but some people have better memories than I):
Don't hire a friend. Don't hire a student/hack that will work for "experience". Don't hire anyone who touts themselves as a "budget photographer". Don't demand you get the rights to the image or the negatives/files - few good photographers will release copyrights for less than $holyshit/image.
If you're uncertain of whether or not you want a wedding photographer, check out what some of my favourite wedding photographers can do:
Sam Hassas
Tony Hoffer
Jeremy Clay
These are all fairly mid-budget shooters - their packages start around $3.5k - and you'll obviously want to hire a photographer local to where your wedding is so you can save on travel expenses, but they should give you an idea of what a good photographer can do for you in regards to high quality images of your wedding day.
If you're not hiring a photographer (crazy!), don't give the guests disposable/cheap digital cameras and expect more than 1 printable image from the results.
Having the reception on the beach could be harder, not a lot of towns allow it. That being said, I know in Stone Harbor, NJ (grew up in Cape May so this is all I know) you can get married on the beach at 96th St and there is a civic center with a large parking lot where people have events by the dunes. Stone Harbor is costly but if you do it off season you can get a good deal, that goes for a lot of shore towns. I'm sure there's something similar in MD.
Hahahahahaha, that's like half my budget. And I've got a "thing" about owning the copyrights to my own wedding pictures. I'm not sure if I can afford a professional photographer, but I've got some fairly talented hobbyist photographers in the family; we'll see how that goes.
And VOC, thanks for the tip, I'm looking into a beach in Delaware and I'll look into that too.
You can check out students and amateurs as well. You can ask to see their portfolio to see how their work looks and they'll be cheaper. Also, if you go with NJ I can give you the contact info for the DJ and the photographer my sister is using.
Call the catering halls / hotels in Ocean City.
If your heart is set on a beach wedding your best bet is to go out of country. It'll be a lot better value than getting a reception close enough to the beach to do a ceremony in the states.
A friend of mine hired a friend for his wedding and paid him with professional lighting equipment/lenses. Cost about $1000 if i remember, but the shots came out amazing and it was good for the internal economy of our crew.
I wasn't suggesting that $3500 was a minimum or anything - all those guys I linked are the top of the industry in their areas and charge appropriately. I worded it poorly: I meant that for high end guys, they were pretty mid-range in terms of price. They were more to show "what a kickass photographer can do vs some bum off the street". Chances are you can snag a very competent photographer for $1500 who will know his stuff. Everything will be much smoother with a pro, no shots will be missed, gear will not fail (and if it does, there will be backups available) and final images will look far better and be properly processed and printed than if not-a-pro did it.
The thing about shooting friends' weddings is that if you muck up their wedding photography, you've ruined the friendship. Even if the now-married friend forgives them, what are the chances their SO will also? I'd never do it.
Nevermind that, while an outdoor wedding is a bit easier gear-wise, if you end up moving indoors your photographer will need some pretty serious gear to shoot in such low light and still get printable images. Besides the huge skill required to shoot a long event like that, a portion of why wedding photography is so expensive is because most wedding shooters will be bringing ~$20k worth of gear, a second photographer and sometimes a helper (to hold lights and stuff).
A good wedding photographer does a couple weddings every weekend and knows where to look for the shot before it happens. Robert took so many amazing candids just because he knows how to see something developing. If you really care about having amazing wedding photos, a good pro is the way to go.
Not all wedding photographers are going to nickel-and-dime you, either. For no extra cost, Robert gave us a DVD with every photo he took burned onto it, around 400 or so he had separated out as the "good" ones, and that he proofed. The proofs had no watermark and were basically 4x6 prints on photo paper. He also posted the photos online and made a slideshow set to music. So don't think that every wedding photographer is going to hold back copies of the photos or not let you do what you want with them.
edit: forgot to mention, but my friend's camera battery died and Robert gave him a spare! Well, lent him a spare, but how cool was that?
Selling the copyright: The photographer is no longer the owner of the images. They relinquish all rights to the images. You become sole owner of the images and can use them however you want (including selling prints of the images, selling them to a stock photo agency, using them in an ad, etc.). This is a Big Deal and the guys I know of who will do this start somewhere between $1k and $30k an image because they lose so much control over their work.
Selling the printing rights: The photographer owns the images, but you can make as many prints of the images as you like. These can't be sold by yourself or used in a commercial sense - they are purely for you to own and give away. If this is what you want, most guys these days will sell you a DVD of the images and printing rights for a couple hundred or in lieu of any prints (though you'll probably have to pay more for the photography itself, since they're losing out on print sales).
I've seen more than a few deals go south when customers don't understand the difference between these two things.
Everyone I've ever talked to has said it's usually not a good idea to use a friend to do the photography. Nine times out of ten, they aren't going to do a great job. Of course, if you have a friend who also happens to be a professional photographer who will be gracious enough to give you a buddy discount, that's good news, or you might just luck out and have a friend who realizes that this is your wedding day and you want good pictures of it to remind you of the (presumably) happiest day of your life.
Friends are great for a lot of things, but if you make them your photographer, you do them and yourself a disservice. By that I mean your friend is also a guest, and will want to do guest things (eat, drink, hang out with the cousins, etc), and a bunch of these things will not have anything to do with taking your pictures. Also, you probably won't pay your friend much of anything, and this might be good for your wallet, but it also means you will probably get what you pay for, which is to say, crap. It also gives you no control over your friend (You: "Hey, I need you to take a group shot" Him: "Hold on man, I'm trying to score with your cousin's hot friend"). Laaaame.
People bitch about how much photography costs while they are planning the wedding, but afterwards they are glad they did it, because now they have those memories forever. You can skimp and cut and budget just about everything else, but try not to do it for your pictures.
For Dave, he's snagged pics of me before, so it's really not that much of a problem.
Sounds like he's perfect for you then. Sorry your mom made you hate getting your pic taken
not all photographers are all in your face and you won't notice a good wedding photographer unless you are doing a posed shot. we told our guy we wanted more candid shots then posed, and although he went a bit too extreme i hardley noticed him. and more of a general tip is make sure the guy isn't hyperfocused on teh bride. i think roughly 95% of the pictures we have are of my wife, which is fine since she looked great. but i was slightly peeved that i had like 10 pictures of me and my family and it was me doing a stupid handshake thing with my bro and dad.
my fiancée and I were/ are looking to get married on the Peninsula.... small world.
Aqua on what is essentially the southern tip Va's Eastern shore may fit your needs. It didn't ours because their beach site was too small, but it MAY(strongly tentative) fit your needs. It's probably worth a call and a poke around their website. The real downside is that it's part of a resort so your guests have a great view of the waves but you're looking at some buildings. (not that this would be different in ocean city - MD anyway, no idea about the NJ city of the same name.)
They did have a couple of packages that they quoted us for around $30 a head though.
http://www.virginia.org/Site/description.asp?AttrID=43259
and http://www.baycreek.net/Cape_Charles_restaurants.php
I was told that directly on the beach in OC could be a significant and expensive obstacle, especially for more than 30 people, but your mileage may vary.
If you find any awesome places that just don't work for you please feel free to drop me a pm. We're looking at this summer and don't quite have everything nailed down yet and so are also in the frantically searching phase.
There are other national seashores if you don't want to travel as far as that, and I assume they have similar rules.