Planning a fully hotel based wedding

[mitch84]

Hello all, so I got engaged on Friday evening, and i’m very excited.
I’m not religious at all, and so i’m hoping to have my whole wedding in a hotel, a hotel ceremony, followed by a day do for 50, and and a slightly bigger evening do.
We’re paying for the whole thing ourselves, and so will be on a budget so will be able to cut out cars and the like.
Has anyone who has done this got any hints and tips?
Especially interested in what you added to your ceremony to bulk it out a bit in a non religious way, music, readings etc etc, what did you walk up the aisle to?
Also really interested in your day timings, how did it all work?
Hoping to visit our favourite hotel this week, and would like to get some inspiration as i’m terribly ungirly.
Any other hints and tips to have a nice wedding without spending the earth.
Thanks in advance xx

[Scaramouche]

Originally Posted by mitch84

Hello all, so I got engaged on Friday evening, and i’m very excited.
I’m not religious at all, and so i’m hoping to have my whole wedding in a hotel, a hotel ceremony, followed by a day do for 50, and and a slightly bigger evening do.
We’re paying for the whole thing ourselves, and so will be on a budget so will be able to cut out cars and the like.
Has anyone who has done this got any hints and tips?
Especially interested in what you added to your ceremony to bulk it out a bit in a non religious way, music, readings etc etc, what did you walk up the aisle to?
Also really interested in your day timings, how did it all work?
Hoping to visit our favourite hotel this week, and would like to get some inspiration as i’m terribly ungirly.
Any other hints and tips to have a nice wedding without spending the earth.
Thanks in advance xx

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Congratulations! We are getting married in May 2020. So far we’ve not paid full price for anything! We’ve booked far in advance so have had discounts, people at wedding fairs give out discounts sometimes .

I’m not a girly girl either, my friend is doing our make up and I am splashing out on a hairdresser because I am most concerned about my hair on the day haha.

A week day will save you money - we saved £5k by not getting married on a Saturday! We aren’t getting married in a hotel, but we are getting married in a all in one venue so me and the bridesmaids are staying the night before then loads of guests staying the night of the wedding.

We do need Cars for the groom and groomsmen

[mitch84]

Originally Posted by Scaramouche

Congratulations! We are getting married in May 2020. So far we’ve not paid full price for anything! We’ve booked far in advance so have had discounts, people at wedding fairs give out discounts sometimes .

I’m not a girly girl either, my friend is doing our make up and I am splashing out on a hairdresser because I am most concerned about my hair on the day haha.

A week day will save you money - we saved £5k by not getting married on a Saturday! We aren’t getting married in a hotel, but we are getting married in a all in one venue so me and the bridesmaids are staying the night before then loads of guests staying the night of the wedding.

We do need Cars for the groom and groomsmen

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I’ll make my groom and best man drive themselves 😂 I like the idea of staying over the night before with my bridesmaid though. That’s a lovely idea.

We’re defo going to have it next year, and so I won’t have lots of advance booking anything, in actual fact we’ll be having what’s available I think 😂

All a bit scary

[hideinpockets]

Congratulations! I’m getting married in June 2020.

A lot of hotels will do discounts / packages. Have a look around some local hotels but also chains. And I echo visiting wedding fairs (or even looking for Black Friday deals for example) avoiding the “wedding season” I.e summer and weekends will save you money.

We’re having our wedding on a farm so a bit different but we’re having a celebrant so not religious but also not legal (yet!) so can personalise the ceremony exactly to what we want. You have to be careful if you have a legal ceremony to have no religious words in any readings or songs. This goes as far as to (for example) not being able to have Angels by Robbie Williams as Angels is a religious word. So be aware of that.

Otherwise i’d really recommend joining some wedding Facebook groups. I’m on The Emboldened Bride on Facebook, it’s run by a wedding planner and everyone is so friendly and shares really helpful tips!

Good luck! I am loving planning!

[Scaramouche]

Originally Posted by hideinpockets

Congratulations! I’m getting married in June 2020.

A lot of hotels will do discounts / packages. Have a look around some local hotels but also chains. And I echo visiting wedding fairs (or even looking for Black Friday deals for example) avoiding the “wedding season” I.e summer and weekends will save you money.

We’re having our wedding on a farm so a bit different but we’re having a celebrant so not religious but also not legal (yet!) so can personalise the ceremony exactly to what we want. You have to be careful if you have a legal ceremony to have no religious words in any readings or songs. This goes as far as to (for example) not being able to have Angels by Robbie Williams as Angels is a religious word. So be aware of that.

Otherwise i’d really recommend joining some wedding Facebook groups. I’m on The Emboldened Bride on Facebook, it’s run by a wedding planner and everyone is so friendly and shares really helpful tips!

Good luck! I am loving planning!

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Yeah I second that about the non religious stuff at a civil ceremony - We're not having a religious ceremony either so we have to make sure we listen to absolutely everything properly otherwise they won't allow it. Which seems a bit ridiculous but I understand why!

If there is a particular supplier you want and they have your date available - book them ASAP. We booked our wedding in April 2018 for May 2020 and we got the last Thursday between May - September in the whole of 2020. We also got turned down by a Videographer in June because they were already booked up and it's a Thursday!

We also got 20 extra people for the evening because I didn't like the look of the number she wrote down She knew we were going to go for it, but then when I saw the total cost to the venue my face must have shown how I was feeling about it! We asked her to check other Thursdays July - September (we had just asked about May/June first) and when she came back down she offered us 20 evening guests for free, a discount on the sweet cart (we have to use their catering suppliers for everything) and the option to add on/remove accommodation from our booking at it's current price as much as we liked - so we took it
The 20 free guests and the sweet cart discount saved us £500

I've also said no to suppliers because they were a couple of hundred over our budget - and I don't want to go over anymore than we already are! (Our budget has nearly doubled!) All of them changed the price to within budget for us

[wanye]

Originally Posted by Scaramouche

I've also said no to suppliers because they were a couple of hundred over our budget - and I don't want to go over anymore than we already are! (Our budget has nearly doubled!) All of them changed the price to within budget for us

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Hi, professional wedding DJ here.

whilst it's always worth trying to haggle a bit, also bear in mind that a lot of us *professional* wedding suppliers don't actually do discounts on their services unless you're getting married on a tuesday in february. (basically i don't discount for thurs-sun april-november - if you aren't prepared to pay my price, i only have a limited number of dates available each year, i will find someone who WILL pay easily enough. especially as 80% of my bookings are done at *least* 6 months in advance, and around 30% or booked at least a year in advance)

i may offer a bit of a discount for ordering multiple services (eg on top of the evening disco, having an early setup with background music during the meal, as well as uplighting and evening photography - order all three and get £50 off) but i would never lower my base price that i quote for clients. I find this is insulting to everyone involved.

those companies who come straight back and say "i'll knock £100 off as you asked so nicely" are no better than double glazing or car salesmen, and i would personally be a bit wary of them in the first place with their artificially inflated pricing structures.

personally though, i think the DJ and photographer are the biggest factors to a memorable day. one captures it, the other creates it. nobody remembers nice chair covers or an overly elaborate cake. the best wedding cakes i've seen are usually not even cake. the giant pork pie/wheels of cheese combo was great, as was the tower of brownies.

but get a bad photographer or DJ, and things could be ruined, or a lot more stressful than they should be. if you even remotely care about music, have a meeting with any prospective DJs, find out whether its them you are booking, or a multi-op where they will send along someone else. some venues only allow their resident to play. be wary of these venues, and if the DJ isnt up to scratch, be prepared to walk away form the whole venue (check this clause before signing/paying anything!) - some resident DJs can be great, but an amount of them are lazy hacks who just play the same playlist for all gigs and has no intention of playing that half hour grunge section you asked for in the client meeting... ask them about the sort of stuff you like, see if they are even remotely enthusiastic or engaging when they talk about your love of early 2000's pop-punk. if they gloss over it, and say they will see how things go on the night, and only play it if it keeps the dancefloor packed when they are playing abba and the cha-cha slide, be prepared to walk away!

if all you want is ed sheeran, recent chart stuff and the "classics" then go get that cheap/resident option. but if you want anything even remotely specialist, be prepared to pay a bit more, and make sure you are on the same wavelength at a meeting


if you have any questions about the evening side of things, just holler (a pm would be good if i don't reply within a day or two)

HTH

[Scaramouche]

Originally Posted by wanye

Hi, professional wedding DJ here.

whilst it's always worth trying to haggle a bit, also bear in mind that a lot of us *professional* wedding suppliers don't actually do discounts on their services unless you're getting married on a tuesday in february. (basically i don't discount for thurs-sun april-november - if you aren't prepared to pay my price, i only have a limited number of dates available each year, i will find someone who WILL pay easily enough. especially as 80% of my bookings are done at *least* 6 months in advance, and around 30% or booked at least a year in advance)

i may offer a bit of a discount for ordering multiple services (eg on top of the evening disco, having an early setup with background music during the meal, as well as uplighting and evening photography - order all three and get £50 off) but i would never lower my base price that i quote for clients. I find this is insulting to everyone involved.

those companies who come straight back and say "i'll knock £100 off as you asked so nicely" are no better than double glazing or car salesmen, and i would personally be a bit wary of them in the first place with their artificially inflated pricing structures.

personally though, i think the DJ and photographer are the biggest factors to a memorable day. one captures it, the other creates it. nobody remembers nice chair covers or an overly elaborate cake. the best wedding cakes i've seen are usually not even cake. the giant pork pie/wheels of cheese combo was great, as was the tower of brownies.

but get a bad photographer or DJ, and things could be ruined, or a lot more stressful than they should be. if you even remotely care about music, have a meeting with any prospective DJs, find out whether its them you are booking, or a multi-op where they will send along someone else. some venues only allow their resident to play. be wary of these venues, and if the DJ isnt up to scratch, be prepared to walk away form the whole venue (check this clause before signing/paying anything!) - some resident DJs can be great, but an amount of them are lazy hacks who just play the same playlist for all gigs and has no intention of playing that half hour grunge section you asked for in the client meeting... ask them about the sort of stuff you like, see if they are even remotely enthusiastic or engaging when they talk about your love of early 2000's pop-punk. if they gloss over it, and say they will see how things go on the night, and only play it if it keeps the dancefloor packed when they are playing abba and the cha-cha slide, be prepared to walk away!

if all you want is ed sheeran, recent chart stuff and the "classics" then go get that cheap/resident option. but if you want anything even remotely specialist, be prepared to pay a bit more, and make sure you are on the same wavelength at a meeting


if you have any questions about the evening side of things, just holler (a pm would be good if i don't reply within a day or two)

HTH

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No I appreciate that (my fiancé is a wedding coordinator and deals with this on a daily basis) but also I can’t stand it when people don’t put their prices online. It hasn’t been a cadence of “haggling” intentionally. I have had to go to people for quotes, and they’ve come back too expensive. Which I’ve said and then not expected anything back. But each time they have come back with a better deal. It’s not a case of “not being prepared to pay your price”. It’s those who don’t advertise their prices. If I can’t afford something, I don’t even ask for a quote.

I’m lucky in that we very much know that those who has discounted things for us ARE worth the money. It’s definitely not cheap! We haven’t got it for nothing, we’re still looking at shelling out an insane amount of money.

We had a videographer who kept trying to chuck stuff in, and wouldn’t accept no for an answer. Now he wasn’t expensive, we have actually gone for someone double his price. But he was pushy and annoying.

I’m not saying “refuse to pay full price”, but when it comes to those who don’t publish their quotes online, if you genuinely can’t afford to have something at that price, usually they can do a slightly better deal. These companies absolutely do put their prices up when they hear the word wedding.

I’ve got full confidence in my photographer and DJ .

[wanye]

Originally Posted by Scaramouche

No I appreciate that (my fiancé is a wedding coordinator and deals with this on a daily basis) but also I can’t stand it when people don’t put their prices online. It hasn’t been a cadence of “haggling” intentionally. I have had to go to people for quotes, and they’ve come back too expensive. Which I’ve said and then not expected anything back. But each time they have come back with a better deal. It’s not a case of “not being prepared to pay your price”. It’s those who don’t advertise their prices. If I can’t afford something, I don’t even ask for a quote.

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thats a good point, and i know some DJs/providers who will only quote a price after they have met you in person. that way they can talk you round to their price.

I dont publish a pricelist on my website for events, as they all are different. but i do say "prices from £xxx" on the website, and then give the general price range in the email quote once they've given me all the information i need - for example, some venues require a much larger PA system. chatsworth house needs twice the PA equipment that swancar farm needs, so that is taken into account in the quote, as well as setup times (i generally do all day, or evening-only prices, but then there is extra on top is if goes on after midnight, or extra travel costs if its further than an hour away... that sort of thing, so my "ball park" figure is (for example) between £400 and £750 depending on exact requirements. I try to break various parts down as optional extras, that way theres a pretty clear price structure - base setup at £xxx, plus extras at £xx and £xxx.


but yeah, as a general rule, if someone doesn't give me a price after filling in an enquiry form and will only do it after a meeting, i'd be wary too. especially if youre the sort of person who is easily convinced to sign up for that timeshare/new windows/etc

[mitch84]

Originally Posted by wanye

Hi, professional wedding DJ here.

whilst it's always worth trying to haggle a bit, also bear in mind that a lot of us *professional* wedding suppliers don't actually do discounts on their services unless you're getting married on a tuesday in february. (basically i don't discount for thurs-sun april-november - if you aren't prepared to pay my price, i only have a limited number of dates available each year, i will find someone who WILL pay easily enough. especially as 80% of my bookings are done at *least* 6 months in advance, and around 30% or booked at least a year in advance)

i may offer a bit of a discount for ordering multiple services (eg on top of the evening disco, having an early setup with background music during the meal, as well as uplighting and evening photography - order all three and get £50 off) but i would never lower my base price that i quote for clients. I find this is insulting to everyone involved.

those companies who come straight back and say "i'll knock £100 off as you asked so nicely" are no better than double glazing or car salesmen, and i would personally be a bit wary of them in the first place with their artificially inflated pricing structures.

personally though, i think the DJ and photographer are the biggest factors to a memorable day. one captures it, the other creates it. nobody remembers nice chair covers or an overly elaborate cake. the best wedding cakes i've seen are usually not even cake. the giant pork pie/wheels of cheese combo was great, as was the tower of brownies.

but get a bad photographer or DJ, and things could be ruined, or a lot more stressful than they should be. if you even remotely care about music, have a meeting with any prospective DJs, find out whether its them you are booking, or a multi-op where they will send along someone else. some venues only allow their resident to play. be wary of these venues, and if the DJ isnt up to scratch, be prepared to walk away form the whole venue (check this clause before signing/paying anything!) - some resident DJs can be great, but an amount of them are lazy hacks who just play the same playlist for all gigs and has no intention of playing that half hour grunge section you asked for in the client meeting... ask them about the sort of stuff you like, see if they are even remotely enthusiastic or engaging when they talk about your love of early 2000's pop-punk. if they gloss over it, and say they will see how things go on the night, and only play it if it keeps the dancefloor packed when they are playing abba and the cha-cha slide, be prepared to walk away!

if all you want is ed sheeran, recent chart stuff and the "classics" then go get that cheap/resident option. but if you want anything even remotely specialist, be prepared to pay a bit more, and make sure you are on the same wavelength at a meeting


if you have any questions about the evening side of things, just holler (a pm would be good if i don't reply within a day or two)

HTH

See more...

Thanks ever so much for your message. We have a friend who is in a covers band who does weddings often, and we are hoping that if we can line the dates up to use them, they are offering us a very very good deal. He's said 2 x 1 hour sets, and then we can pick our playlist for the breaks.

Controversially I know we won't be having a photographer. Just getting a couple of our friends good with photos to snap a few.

Going to the venue on Thursday hopefully to see if we can make it all work

[Scaramouche]

Originally Posted by mitch84

Thanks ever so much for your message. We have a friend who is in a covers band who does weddings often, and we are hoping that if we can line the dates up to use them, they are offering us a very very good deal. He's said 2 x 1 hour sets, and then we can pick our playlist for the breaks.

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This is exactly what we've got - I can't wait! We choose the material used in the sets as well. We weren't going to have one, until we came across them at a wedding fair and then it turned out my OH knows the lead. Then my mum and dad fell in love with them and the rest was history