Establishing a Budget

If you flip through any wedding magazine, you’ll see templates for setting your budget.  I say throw them out (or at least be a little skeptical) because, although they have good intentions, they are oversimplified to the point of giving you a false sense of security.  These templates always seem to involve 10 categories (like photography, attire, flowers) and they have cryptic percentages of how much to spend on each one.   These templates tend to assume your venue is all-inclusive, so they lump food, alcohol, rentals, and cake into one vague “reception” category and tell you to spend 50% on it.

This isn’t the worst starting point, but if you really want to get anywhere close to an accurate budget, you need to root your numbers in reality.  This means going through everything that you want your event to have from start to finish, and getting actual quotes.  You’ll be surprised at how quickly it all adds up.  This is important to do because magazine templates often leave things out, like a rehearsal dinner and brunch, welcome bags for out-of-town guests, hair & makeup, or an officiant.  If you’re not at an all-inclusive venue, you also have to think of things like sound equipment, lighting, table linens, and so on.

If you don’t have an event planner (which I of course recommend that you do), you have to persistently call vendors for quotes.  And it’s a good idea to add 20% to each quote to account for the fact that things are always more expensive than they first seem, and then an extra 10% onto the entire budget to get a more accurate sense of what things will actually cost.  This little bit of padding will help ease the pain when you find out that the florist forgot to add 9.75% sales tax to the first proposal, or that your dress will need $600 worth of alterations, or that your increase of 10 guests not only means you need 10 more meals & drink packages, but you also need to add an extra server to your catering quote (and another table, table linen, 10 placesettings and chairs, another table centerpiece, etc).  You get my point.  The best thing you can do is try to educate yourself about the real costs of things, and then you will be in a much better position to pick & choose your budget battles.

Beware the budget worksheet template!  My favorite part is the “What you actually spent” column — that one is sure to be a nice surprise.

www.amykaneko.com

Homegrown, Heartfelt Birthday Party

Event planners take their parties pretty seriously.  From letterpress invitations to carefully calibrated playlists, there are so many details that come together to “make” an event.  I definitely appreciate all these little touches, but they don’t mean anything if you lose track of the real purpose of an event:  the gathering of friends & family in celebration.

I went to a birthday party this past weekend that was spontaneous, low-key, and perfect.  My friend Katy (who I met in architecture school) was turning 30, so she held a party at her childhood home in LA with her closest friends & family.  Once the guest count reached 40, they were thinking about hiring a caterer.  But they decided that it would be more special if they cooked all the food themselves.  Her family toiled away to whip up a feast.  Her dad roasted lamb tenderloin with rosemary (he loved the excuse to buy a new grill), while Katy & her mom chopped veggies, baked 3 cakes, and created amazing appetizers like handmade blinis with gravlax.  It was truly a labor of love.  While there were some flowers on the table (and bottles of wine that flowed freely), the lovely ambiance was really created by the guests’ incredible outpouring of love for the birthday girl.  Their raised glasses and the genuine emotion on their faces were what “made” the party.  In the best of all possible worlds, that is how it should be.

www.amykaneko.com