Putting the price in priceless
Whether I’m perusing Pinterest for pretty pictures, or living vicariously through big-time wedding blogs like Style Me Pretty, I find myself inundated with bridal bliss and “real life” weddings that look nothing like the real life I live. And, I won’t kid myself— I’m no Jen Aniston. On Facebook, I see cookie-cutter weddings in a Marriott ballroom with brides in big ballooning ball-gown dresses, red roses, a tiered cake, a flower toss, and matchy-matchy bridesmaids coupled with groomsmen awkwardly stuffed into suits.
And now there’s another exploding niche of bridal photography—engagement photos—which are clogging up my newsfeed and capturing love for a pretty penny. Couples dressed in complementary clothes, embracing one another awkwardly yet lovingly. Hipster couples on train tracks posing by graffiti-painted brick walls and hanging off a caboose; free-spirited couples frolicking barefoot in a mountainside meadow. I cruise my Instagram feed and see bachelorette and bridesmaids in matching “bridesmaid” and “bride” tees at destination bachelorette getaways in Vegas and Charleston, trolling clubs for their last scandalous shimmy with a feather boa and plastic tiara all in the name of Jose Cuervo, Jim Beam, or The Captain.
This places me firmly in the online generation of brides who don’t want to feel gagged by tradition, bad taste, and a lack of personality. My wedding dreams (yes, I have them) are about celebrating love (and, let’s be honest, myself) with the party of a lifetime that’s tasteful, personal, and totally me (and, I guess, the guy who is standing next to me at the altar).
When I see Charlottesville’s beautifully photographed rustic chic weddings in old barns with mason jars of wildflowers, farm tables overflowing with pan-fried local trout, mismatched china, and hipster bluegrass bands, I get really excited. And then it starts to dawn on me that those personalized, bucolic, and bohemian Blue Ridge weddings cost more than ballroom tradition. And, I need to remind myself that these weddings have all been done before, documented and published online for public consumption.
I feel lucky to be part of a generation of social media-savvy brides who know what kind of wedding they want and deserve, but I’m also scared shitless because I know the stakes are high. There’s no excuse if my wedding’s lame and there will be a thousand photos to prove it. I’m also a working girl in a material world and I know how expensive priceless can be.
The average cost of a Charlottesville wedding is 16 percent higher than the average cost of a wedding nationally; price point is definitely skewed in the local market. Last year, the national average for the cost of a wedding was $25,656, and for Charlottesville the average cost of a wedding was $30,654, according to The Wedding Report. After interviewing a handful of local wedding experts, I found out that the average vineyard wedding in Charlottesville is much higher, hovering at around $50,000, according to Easton, of Pippin Hill, and Christin Healey, of Borrowed & Blue (both women who are well-established in many wedding markets across the country).
There are a whole slew of local websites (realweddings.com, cvilleweddings.com, etc.) but the newest and most aggressive imprint in the industry is borrowedandblue.com, founded in 2012 by Charlottesville couple Adam and Christin Healey and now found in markets all over the country, including such tony locales as The Hamptons, Napa Valley, and Aspen. The website lists 379 vendors in the area. Of those Charlottesville vendors, 96 photographers, 32 caters, 27 hair and makeup artists, 26 planners, 24 florists. The list goes on—and on. The site also lists 59 venues in the Charlottesville area, ranging from vineyards and cideries to historic mansions to farms and estates, and price points from “thrifty” to “priceless.” (“Priceless” meaning venues that are around $10,000 for the venue.)
Local couple Margot Elton and her fiancé Jeff Ratliff have been very organized and meticulous about their wedding planning in hopes to stay within their budget. Their ceremony and reception is planned for the first weekend in September at Panorama Farms in Earlysville (a “sensible” to “splurge” venue with a minimum value of $4,000, according to Borrowed & Blue). Their ceremony will incorporate both Quaker and Jewish traditions. Since Elton and Ratliff had less than a year to plan their wedding, they have been on it since the get-go of their engagement, researching caterers and venues.
“I like how they have a pricing range,” Elton said of Borrowed & Blue. “But, they don’t tell you what they consider is ‘sensible.’ Looking at the venues, I didn’t know if our budget was ‘thrifty’ or ‘sensible.’”
“We made a spreadsheet of 40 venues we were interested in, put them in order of preference and started contacting them,” Elton said with a laugh. “We both are a little Type A.” (Elton just received her masters in urban and environmental planning at the University of Virginia and Ratliff is a neurology resident at UVA Medical Center.) The couple also did the same thing with caterers, coming up with a spreadsheet list of 20, and then juggling menus from nearly 10, trying to decide which to go with. They finally chose Michael Wood with Have Food Will Travel Catering.
“He came up with this amazing menu. He was more expensive than other caterers, but we decided he was worth it,” says Elton. The couple wanted a Southern spread and Wood delivered and impressed with a menu that included Southern staples like fried green tomatoes and shrimp and grits.
Elton and Ratliff sat down and talked about budget and money prioritization and decided that food and venue were both really important to them. While they feel like they are splurging and putting importance on these things, they are cutting cost corners in other parts of their wedding through DIY projects. For instance, they will use market flowers, burlap, and collected jars for arranging floral centerpieces, and make table escort cards that are also seed packet favors guests can take home. Elton is also hand-making signage. “I’m hoping these will end up ways we’ll be saving money,” she said.
Bride-to-be Becca Yeamans got her masters in Environmental Science from UVA and now manages clinical research trials focused on multiple sclerosis in the Department of Neurology. Yeamans simultaneously runs a widely popular wine blog, The Academic Wino (academicwino.com), which is “dedicated to dissecting current research in enology, viticulture, and all other corners of academia, and provides fascinating insights and thoughts on the current state of research related to wine.”
After hearing all about Yeamans’ scientific and personal passion for wine, I figured she’d have a typical Charlottesville vineyard wedding, but that was way out of reach pricewise for Yeamans and her fiancé, Jacob Irwin, who is at UVA getting his Ph.D. in chemical engineering and who writes a finance blog, My Personal Finance Journey (mypersonalfinancejourney.com).
“I was looking at non-traditional wedding venues because I just knew I couldn’t justify the price,” she said. “Being a wine person, I’d love to get married at a vineyard, but it’s just too expensive.”
In my hunt to find “real life” brides in Charlottesville, I was put in touch with Yeamans. Her initial e-mail to me said, “I think everyone has a different idea of a necessary expense, as everyone has that one thing that they really want. However, I think there should be some limits and great effort should be taken to try and find the best deal possible on that one thing, and not just spend ‘whatever it takes’ to get it. A wedding is mostly just a big party, so it seems very silly, and very wasteful, to spend a ridiculous amount of money on something that’ll last a few hours.”
Amen, sister.
She continued, “There are certainly some things that we really want to have in our wedding (i.e., photographer, nice-looking dress, lots of wine, etc.), but we make it a point to try and be as financially savvy as possible and to be proactive in scoring the best deals on things. By doing a little research and looking a little outside city limits, you can find great deals.”
My interest was piqued by Yeamans’ frankness and rationale, so I gave her a call.
Yeamans and Irwin have been together for nearly three years, got engaged in March, and have their wedding date set for late September 2014. The couple chose their venue almost immediately, settling on Camp Holiday Trails, a summer camp for kids with special health needs within city limits. The camp isn’t marketed as a wedding venue, but it was rustic and outdoorsy and the couple knew their money was going to a good cause. The couple has a guest list of 75 people and after their outdoor ceremony, the couple will get their photographs taken by Celestial Sights Photography while their guests enjoy a cocktail hour. The reception will be in the camp’s dining hall.
The couple is buying all their wine at Trader Joe’s for its affordability and using Foods of All Nations for catering. Yeamans is a master at making music playlists, so will be compiling an “epic” iPod playlist for dancing at the reception. “We are just trying to get our best bang for our buck,” she says. “My goal is to make it look nice, but to be cheap. I don’t want it to look like I threw it together.”
As for her wedding dress, Yeamans is looking for a couture gown at a low price, and is heading down to the YWCA’s Church Street Bridal in Lynchburg. The shop carries designer wedding dresses donated from big bridal boutiques like Kleinfeld Bridal in New York (the store featured in the most bridezilla-y show on TV, TLC’s “Say Yes To The Dress”). Church Street’s dresses are $200 to $700 and proceeds support survivors of domestic violence.
“When I was younger, getting married was this magical, fairy-tale-like thing, and when you are younger you get focused on it,” she says. “After you are around the block, you need to be smart about things. Who cares who thinks what about your wedding? If that means wearing jeans and having a backyard barbecue with friends, do that. Don’t try and live up to what the T.V. and websites tell you what a bride is supposed to be.”
When I was a little girl I had a bride Barbie. Bride Barbie had a reversible skirt depending on if Barbie was at the wedding ceremony or dancing at a ball. One side was white, made of a silky, gossamer-like fabric; the other side was a funky blue party skirt. I preferred Barbie wearing the blue skirt. These days, 20-some years later, I like to think of myself as party Barbie, and I know that party Barbie, not bride Barbie, is going to show up to my wedding. Party Barbie is going to drink a lot of champagne and boogie ’til dawn. Not super formal, far from traditional, quirky like me, and a big ol’ party—that will be my wedding day.