So given that hopefully we’ve gotten across that the “typical” wedding budget is very top heavy in certain categories and then there are many much smaller categories of spending we are going to organize our approach and examine them as follows:

How To Save On Your Wedding Reception

Why Is The Reception Important?
The reception is the largest part of your wedding budget for good reason, because it is the most important. Yes. You heard it here first. The reception is: THE. MOST. IMPORTANT. If you need convincing, we’ll be happy to tell you why:

• It takes the longest
• It’s where people eat, drink and dance (make a mental note that food, liquor and music will come up later to be very important too, it clearly descends from this logic)
• It’s the “fun” part of the wedding (with the exception of your parents and you guys, no one cares about the actual ceremony. Come on, you know it too.)
• It’s where most of your pictures and video will come from (that aren’t staged)
• And it takes the longest! (Yes we are redundant to make our point).
  In all sincerity, please don’t underestimate how many hours people will spend at your reception venue, consuming the surroundings, the food, the drinks and the music you’ve chosen for them

How To Save (But Not Skimp)
So now that we have you properly scared that the reception should get the most of your attention, how dare we imply you should cut corners? Well we’re not. We’re in fact just saying this is so important, you shouldn’t skimp in this category but you should save. We consider “saving” to mean getting the best value for your dollar.
Following our “save but not skimp” philosophy here are the guidelines we recommend:

• Research
  Spend the most time researching your reception venue. First browse our recommended LA wedding reception sites, then browse their websites, then call them and finally go visit. Make sure that the location, ambiance and décor are to your liking first, before you even start thinking about costs.
  
  Have Two To Three Options
  In the process, we warn you, do not “fall in love” with a single venue. Have multiple options (2 to 3 minimum) that you like so you can then compare the pricing for those finalists. With the thorough research we’ve already done, you really can’t go wrong with any of our hand-picked LA wedding venues. We only selected venues that provided great value and a great experience, so you shouldn’t have a problem picking at least 2 you would consider.
• Have Your Ceremony And Reception In The Same Location (a Must!)
  We assume this is obvious by now, since so many magazines mention it, but time and time again we see brides make this mistake so we want to cover this in a lot of detail. Let us first say, if you or your family are very religious and the ceremony simply must be at your place of religious gathering we completely understand and please skip this section.

  However, if you’re at all flexible and can have your reverend, minister or rabbi come to the reception venue than lots of good side effects will occur:

  • There will be no need for limos and vans to take you to the second location. Note this cuts the 2% Transportation budget completely. You can’t beat paying zero!
  • Additionally, your day will flow much, much smoother if everyone just gathers once, in a single place, for a whole day of activities. Otherwise you literally have a small battalion on the move from one bunker to another and even the military needs three levels of management to pull that off! So don’t lug people around, if at all possible. Who wants to drive and park twice in one day? Not even your parents make the cut on this one.
• Pick A Stunning “As Is” Venue
  By picking a venue that stands on its own you can save on adding expensive decor. An ornate ballroom, stunning skyline, lush golf course or gorgeous yacht can each stand on its own without additional ornamentation. Again, we know it sounds self-promoting, but this site was founded for this very reason, to give you a better option for pre-screened LA wedding reception sites that provide such wonderful backdrops you have to do very little else to add to them. So please browse our wedding venues right now so you have a better idea of what we’re talking about when we say “you can eliminate decorations” later on (in Post 3). You’ll see that with just one picture these venues are a decoration on their very own.

  Spend the money on a stunning venue and you will save it tenfold in other ways!

• Trim Your Guest List
  I’m sure you’re thinking “this is easier said than done” but we feel your pain. That said, you simply have to pick a number and stick to it. After checking out the venues you can ballpark how much it will cost you per head. Do just a rough calculation at this point. Let’s say you estimate that the reception is about $100/per person (all in, rounded up of course) and you don’t want to spend more than $8,000 on your reception. Then you just make your guest list a firm 80. Period.

  Be tough with people. No +1s. No frienemies. No 2nd cousins you don’t really like but their mother is really good friends with blah blah blah. At this point in time, people understand that weddings cost a lot of money so just make it a non-emotional decision, purely financial, and understanding that will save everyone’s feelings.

• Scheduling
  Any Month But June (Pick An Off Season)
  This falls into “it is said a lot because it is true” category. Pick an off season for your wedding, not June and not the summer. We don’t know why summers became the traditional “it time” to have a wedding but they are, and you pay for that. Unless there are specific dates that have sentimental meaning to your wedding (the day you met, for example) there is really no reason to not be flexible with your scheduling. It will save you money.

  Any Day But Saturday, We Beg You! (Pick An Off Day)
  Again, timing comes with a cost and this one is obvious. Most people have weddings on Saturday so that guests have enough time to come in for the wedding (Friday night, Saturday morning) and can party all night Saturday then recover from the festivities on Sunday (and stumble home if they had to come in from out of town). So this scheduling perk of a Saturday does in fact make sense.

  But if you trimmed your guest list, as we advised, and you only have people coming that are truly close to you and wouldn’t mind taking a day (or two!) off work then have your wedding on a Thursday. Again serious savings for you and then people can have the entire weekend for recovery. Make it a “long weekend”.

• Book a package deal

  Finally, get as much packaged into your reception as possible. You want to avoid any additional rentals at all cost! Rental fees and decorations will kill your budget.

  If you rent items off site, a hidden fee that surprises all brides is the “transport fee” the rental company will charge you to actually get your rental items from their warehouse to your venue. You will pay for their truck, their gas and their driver. It is much better to negotiate the rental fee with the venue, which already has all the appropriate items on site. Even better news, if you do a package wedding deal, a lot of venues don’t even charge you a rental fee! It will be included with the catering and all the other goodies you managed to negotiate with them.

  So a quick list of things to try and get from your reception venue:

  • Ceremony
  • Pre-Reception Cocktails
  • Private Bride and Groom area (you”need it)
  • Rentals (tables, chairs, place settings, linens, etc)
  • Decorations (just ask, every venue will tell you what they offer)
  • Bar Options (Be cheap, BYOB or do a cash bar. We’ll discuss in Step 3 post)
  • Catering* (see note below)
  • Courtesy Upgrades (always ask your site manager for possible upgrades)

  
  Note On Catering
  Catering may be the exception to the “package as much as you can” rule. This is a hot debate which we will follow on this blog. But you usually won”t have much choice with catering as most reception venues require you use theirs. So catering is a tricky one. If they don’t require it, then look at our LA wedding catering suggestions. You’ll get more selection and pricing options if you go a la carte with an independent caterer.

Total Reception Savings: 10% of Your Budget

If you follow the rules above, you should easily trim your reception from 35% of the original budget to about 25%, saving 10%. On the average $35,000 budget we just saved $3,500.

And this doesn’t even include the smaller spending categories we will have completely eliminated (see that list in post Step 3: How to save on (or eliminate!) small budget categories)

Not bad for just a little know how right?
Please continue on to the next post: Step 2b: How to save on big budget categories (Wedding Attire)