(NECN: Peter Howe, Cambridge, Mass.) - Just because you're madly in love and aching to join the ranks of the married doesn't mean there's any shame in wanting to be frugal or at least economical on your wedding day. And by deciding what is most important to make memorable for friends, family, guests, and the couple, and being choosy about what wedding amenities you say "I do" to, it's possible to wind up with a more affordable wedding and one where the dollars you do spend feel well spent.
Technology entrepreneur Chris Cicchitelli, CEO and founder of a home-automation software company called CastleOS, is getting married at the end of this month in Jamestown, R.I., to Amanda Feagle, and said in an interview Friday, "We were completely blown away by the variations in quality and cost that are out there, so we really had to be careful with what we narrowed our selection down to" for food, liquors, and everything else.
As they've shopped among caterers and tent suppliers and musicians, the biggest spending decision they've made was agreeing on what matters most to them -- and that's creating documentary memories of the day. "We didn't just hire videographers and photographers, we hired artists,'' Cicchitelli said, agreeing they'd allocate up to $15,000 for that aspect of the event. "The party, the ceremony, it all goes by in a flash, and the memories, as the night goes on, you forget some things,'' Cicchitelli said. "They're going to make a Hollywood-style movie of our wedding. It's going to be something that we can look back on our whole life.''
The average New England wedding costs about $30,000 in 2012, according to studies by The Wedding Institute, ranging from a little over $26,000 in Vermont to just under $32,000 in Massachusetts to, top spenders in the region, $33,800 in Connecticut.
Hannah Brielle, a wedding planner with Blue Ivy, specializes in weddings that cost $50,000 to $200,000 -- but she is also full of ideas for how to save money and make the dollars you spend go as far as they can. "There are so many other smaller things that you just eliminate if you really need to,'' Brielle said in an interview we conducted at one of Blue Ivy's favorite wedding-party spots, The Kendall Hotel in Cambridge.
Some of her ideas? Shift your wedding from Saturday to Friday or Sunday. "They require a lower food and beverage minimum, which is good, and sometimes they'll have a lower rental rate as well.'' If your faith tradition is to have Saturday weddings and you're committed to that, Brielle said, with "a 10 o'clock ceremony or an early ceremony, you could have a brunch reception, and that way the food costs are much lower.'' Later in the day, "You can have a cocktail reception instead of a three-course dinner. That way you can just have some heavy hors d'oeuvres and drinks and some specialty bars.''
For music, instead of a band hire a DJ or even just do music from an iPod.
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"For cakes, they generally charge by the slice, so one thing you could do is maybe have a smaller wedding cake and then have sheet cake brought out from out back,'' Brielle said. "You still cut the cake and have the cake-cutting ceremonies, and your guests won't most likely won't have any idea that that's what you did, and that would help cut down the cost.''
Instead of limousines for the bridesmaids and groomsmen, "What some of our clients are starting to do is use Uber," the upscale smartphone-based car service, Brielle said. "You get two SUVs and transport them wherever they need to go. Uber has, so far, been very reliable" and wedding planners can track the Uber cars on a phone as they make their way to and from the wedding venues. "You can save hundreds of dollars that way, depending on the different limo or transportation you were planning to use.''
With video editor Lauren Kleciak and videographer Abbas T. Sadek
