All Inclusive or Bare Bones

Can you do an in between? My venue includes the tables and chairs and linens, etc, as well as the food. I has to provide my own DJ, florist, and photographer. But the venue has an events coordinator who has been a dream and will be on site to coordinate day-of.

I did an all inclusive venue because I didn’t want to have to deal with the stress of all the intricacies and dealing with tons of different vendors.

In hindsight, I wish I had done bare bones. Our venue ended up being horrible, and basically ruined everything they were in charge of (our day was beautiful and amazing in spite of them, but they made the process a living nightmare). If I could have a do-over, I wouldn’t have put all my eggs in one basket and would have selected a series of different vendors myself... that way at least if one vendor ends up not being great, at least it’s just the ONE thing that gets messed up.

A lot of people have really great all-inclusive venues though and it can reduce a lot of stress if you have a good one. I am not trying to talk you out of it but, just to share my experience as something to think about!

View Quoted Comment The all inclusive venue of my choice includes Food, alcohol, chairs/tables/linens, reception centerpieces, ceremony floral, coordinator, setup & breakdown

View Quoted Comment That sounds like mine minus the reception and ceremony decor. Honestly, it would've saved me a headache if I didn't have to figure that out on my own lol. He can still use his connections to get the DJ and photographer. Decor can be expensive. Either you DIY it and that takes a bunch of time, you buy it and are then stuck with stuff you'll never need or spend lots of money on flowers that will die, or you rent it for a large overhead as well. You still need photographer, DJ, florist for bouquets, videographer if you want one. There are other things that your fiance can look for deals on. Maybe if you present it that way?

So if i dont have a wedding planner or a coordinator, who helps w decorations other than family and friends? A florist only provides the flowers right? They aren’t involved with setup right?

View Quoted Comment The inclusive venue actually provides the bouquets and boutonnières for the whole bridal party and 2-3 arrangements for the ceremony and the centerpieces for reception 😩😩. I dont want to so this myself loll

View Quoted Comment Yeah, florist typically just drops off. You may be able to get them to set up for extra money but they definitely won't come back for tear down.

View Quoted Comment Lol thank you for responding. We are touring the inclusive venue this Thursday. Im hoping i like it as much in person as i do on paper & that i like the quote enough to make an executive decision on the venue

Good luck!

My venue is all inclusive and I love it!

I don't think this process would have been as easy as it has been if I didn't go with an all inclusive venue. Catering is in house; the food is delicious and our menu was totally customizable to our preferences. The only vendors we sought out were the DJ, photobooth, bakery, and florist (only for the bouts, bouquets, and corsages). My mom is making our centerpieces with faux flowers.

Our ceremony and reception are on the same property and it's pretty much all inclusive, this has made wedding planning and financial planning much easier. The only things we have to bring in are photographer, DJ/Musicians, Officiant. The venue provides some of the floral and stationary so we are able to save on those vendors as well. Bare bones sounds inexpensive up front but once you add all the vendors fees, taxes and tips into the equation you start running into a more expensive situation than if they are all together.

I did a bare bone. I selected my venue that came with table and chairs. But I have a separate decorator, caterer, photographer, dj--- everything. I also have a coordinator.... I like that I was able to choose who I wanted according to what I knew about them. So I really like that fact. For me the bare bone was a lot less expensive. We did have some family friends that knew people that was able to help out. So the DJ is a friends of FH brother so he gave us a great rate, the photographer is a friend of mine once again a great rate, The lady doing the cake ( by the way she is absolutely amazing) a 3 tier cake w/ a bride and groom cake to keep $225 and she is a friend of mine. The decorations are from a lady who has a small business and is friends with my Aunt. My aunt has a great eye for detail and making things look a million times better. And the catering-- well I am a very picky eater ( I DONT EAT everyones cooking ) so I needed a cater that I could trust to do things exactly how I wanted so when it came down to eat My family is known for cooking. So they decided that they would do the food. Being a bride on a budget I wanted an elegant wedding without spending 10k plus..... I am 10 days away.. so I am almost there to see my vision come to life.... Good luck with your decision....

View Quoted Comment Oh wow. Hats off to you. For us the Dj will be FH’s cousin, the baker is my MIL, FH & MIL know of a caterer, and I might have a friend who knows a florist. Even with those possible vendors i still feel stressed lol, not to say wedding planning isn’t stressful. I guess the parts im stressing over (without having a wedding planner/coordinator) is who is going to setup/break down, decorate (Me and my mom are the ones in the family who has the eye for making things look great and decorating nicely but i want to designate that to someone else, preferably not all my family to have to work). Also who is going to help serve/cut the cake/clean up.

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I absolutely feel you on that... That was my big thing also I wanted them to be able to enjoy the day without having to do a whole bunch of work. So I do have a coordinator which is a friend of mine that is going to make sure that all my wishes are completed without having to ask me during the wedding. As far as the setup we will be doing that ourselves with my Aunts and bridal party help. I figured it was something fun that we could do... And the breakdown is actually included with the rental of the venue so we don't have to do that. Since my mom and dad are in charge of food they have selected a few people to help with the serving....

All inclusive is nice if I had the money for it. I had a bare bones wedding and had to find the vendors and do the centerpieces myself and even had to buy alcohol myself. My friend had an all inclusive wedding and hers was much less stress. However... Hers also cost more than my wedding and I had way more people than she did.

All of the all-inclusive venues we looked at were WAY out of our budget. So, we're doing bare bones.

But actually, that is working better for us anyway. I'm super organized, and I like being very hands on with this. I'm not stressed out by having to do a bunch of research. It reminds me of being in college/grad school. And I'm finding way better deals than if we had gone with an all-inclusive venue.

The other thing I didn't like about the all-inclusives was the fact that I would have little control over my choice of vendors. Each place had a list of "preferred" vendors, which I found out meant that I had to use the ones on the list. It has certainly been more work doing it my way, but me and FH have had total control over who we hire, and that is a great feeling!

I'm not knocking all-inclusives, because there is a great argument for those kinds of places. It just wasn't going to work for us, and we're happy with our decision.

If you don't go with an all inclusive venue, look into a wedding planner - not just a day of coordinator, but a full planner. I wanted to do as little of the heavy lifting as possible, but I found all-inclusive venues to be out of my budget, or if they were in my budget, had such a low maximum guest count at that price point that it wasn't worth it.

Getting a planner meant I have no more work than I would have with an all-inclusive venue, since you still have to make all the final decisions, and I am able to have a super personalized wedding in budget. My planner manages my budget - including how her fee fits in, finds all my vendors, manages the contracts, makes sure I am on schedule with the planning, and has taken care of literally everything so all I have to do is look at the options she gives me and pick one. She also only suggests vendors, like florists or djs, that fit with my, and my fiance's, vibe and vision. We would have just eloped if I had to do it by myself.

If you use this site to find a planner, read the lowest rated reviews first so you have an idea of what to ask them about (and honestly it's pretty hilarious to see some of the back and forth there) and then set up meetings or calls with a couple different ones to see what you like best. Obviously all planners are different, but so do your research and read the fine print in the contract since I know plenty of people on here have had a very different experience than I have.

Anyway, just another thing to consider if you don't go with an all-inclusive venue. For context, my budget is $30,000 in Nashville and my planner is $5,500. We got engaged in March 2018 and are getting married in January 2020 so that's almost 2 years of service from her.

Sorry this is long - good luck!

We wanted to find a venue that would be as inclusive as possible. And thankfully we found one under budget for roughly $15k. Our venue provides, catering, bartending, tables/chairs, linens, etc. The staff will manage the delivery of cake and additional rentals. They'll even flip the hall during cocktail hour. My FH and I each have a staff member assigned to us during photos/cocktail hour to make sure we're fed .

All we have to do is show up and have fun. The only outside vendors that need to coordinate with the venue is the DJ and photographer.

Thanks everyone for your opinions and thoughts! We are touring the inclusive venue tomorrow, and bare bones hall on Monday. On paper the inclusive venue is the cheapest I have found near me. Based on their information online, the venue would cost in the range of 15k-18k for 150ppl. Personally I wanted our budget to be 20k, but FH and MIL dont agree with that number.

Will update after getting quotes

View Quoted Comment I would definitely have to research an affordable wedding planner. Im pretty good at party planning, but ik wedding planning takes party planning to a whole other level. I definitely need a day of coordinator (whether its a family friend, or i hire someone) but I will see how i can get by with wedding planning myself. I feel worried that the overall expense might put me way over budget with a planner added in.