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Beginner June 2021

Backyard Wedding or Venue?

Crystal Violet, on December 28, 2019 at 5:55 AM Posted in Wedding Reception 0 13

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Hi guys,

So, we started looking at venues, and even the cheapest ones were about 4k to JUST rent the space and then extra money for a tent, usually priced at around 6k. So, that was ALREADY 10k right there. Then throw in catering that is usually 70 dollars a plate MINIMUM, that's another 9 to 10k just for food. I was and still sort of am beginning to get super discouraged. My fiance's grandmother offered us her yard to get married and it seemed like a no brainier amazing offer at the time, but now researching tents, chairs, linens, tables, dancefloor. That comes up to be about 7k with some quotes of gotten. Maybe I'm just going with the wrong companies? Is there anything we can do to save costs, but cutting more people? Could we have a local restaurant cater for less than 60 dollars a person?

Do you think we should go back to looking at venues? At-least with not having to rent the space, we are saving 5k...I hope!!! Our budget is 15k for everything and I totally think it's possible, I just am not sure how yet. I think companies charge too much. The price is so high when you mention "wedding."

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13 Comments

Latest activity by Kari, on December 31, 2019 at 3:22 PM

Champion July 2019
Veronica · on December 28, 2019 at 7:57 AM
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A lot of it depends on where you live. My sister-in-law had her wedding in her backyard and she said it was just as expensive as as venue after renting everything you mentioned. I would gladly look up venues for you if I knew where the wedding is.
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Master May 2019
Chandra · on December 28, 2019 at 9:05 AM
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I'm not surprised. I've heard so many people say they thought backyard wouldn't cheaper but by the time you rent everything it's expensive.
You also have to take into consideration your guest list size compared to available restrooms, if any vendors need a generator or some other equipment to do their job.What kind of food options have you looked into? Bbq, mexican and Italian are generally much cheaper than $70/pp.
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Devoted October 2020
Carly · on December 28, 2019 at 9:30 AM
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Does that $4k venue include anything else? Tables, chairs? Are you allowed to use other caterers? Or do you have to use theirs?

You can definitely have food for less than $70 a person. Look up restaurants that cater in your area. Ezcatering.com is where I found mine. We’re paying around $500 to feed 50 people (not including cocktail hour - which will be another $200) but, it’s totally possible.
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Master October 2019
Meghan · on December 28, 2019 at 9:49 AM
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Have you tried looking at venues that don’t require tent rentals? Maybe look somewhere that has structures already built or a venue that has all-inclusive packages.
As the other girls said, backyard weddings turn out to be just as expensive as weddings at rented venues and they are a much bigger headache.
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Master November 2019
Mrs. S · on December 28, 2019 at 9:50 AM
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I’d look for a new venue. The backyard could be more expensive bc you still have to rent all the equipment, parking is a problem and you’ll need to rent extra bathrooms. We did a bbq buffet with servers and kept it classy and people loved it. It was cheaper than doing plated meals.
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Legend March 2017
Pirate & 60s Bride · on December 28, 2019 at 11:21 AM
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Backyard weddings are typically not cheaper and it’s terrible that most of the rented items aren’t even for beautiful decor! (Lighting, bathrooms, tables, heaters, etc)

What about a brunch wedding? Or, have you looked at a Sun-Thur evening wedding? Both are a LOT cheaper.
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Dedicated December 2020
KK77 · on December 28, 2019 at 10:30 PM
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A backyard wedding can happen if you are an organized person and can have someone or someone's to coordinate things. I would do a cost comparison - write everything down that you will need and get pricing compared to an all inclusive. Different areas of the country can swing wildly on the price. Where I am at in Western Montana, venues are ExpensiVe, especially with the destination weddings that happen. We will get married and have our reception in the pasture. We have family coming from all over, some with their campers so we will have an area for them to camp. Already arranged the portapotties, the table and chair rental, and the DJ. The food will be BBQ from a local restaurant. Open bar with a good liquor. We will feed 100 people for under $7K.
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Dedicated October 2019
Aleah · on December 29, 2019 at 9:59 AM
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We had a backyard wedding. Our wedding was less than 10k as well, but we did do a lot of DIY. I believe the chairs were like 150$ to rent and the tables I think boosted that to about 350$ but we didn’t have to buy as many because we also had a couple picnic tables my dad built for the wedding to save money. We had a rustic theme so it was perfect. We had jeromes cater our wedding which is a local restaurant with country food it was about 800$ and drinks were only like 15$ maybe (we had a dry wedding) we just had sodas/waters/tea/punch. And our plates and whatnot we got from amazon it was 60$. Our dj was 250$ we had him for just 2 hours and our photographer was 400$ we had her for I think 3.5 hours.
It’s doable but a lot of diy and searching. We may have gotten lucky with ours.
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Beginner June 2021
Crystal Violet · on December 31, 2019 at 7:02 AM
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You're the first person to have something positive to say. I'm so nervous that this could be a huge headache and a disaster.
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Dedicated October 2019
Aleah · on December 31, 2019 at 7:07 AM
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However you do plan to do your wedding is sure to cause a headache, it just comes with it unfortunately. The thing that kept me sane is the support I had from my husband and my dad. When everyone else was too stressed to keep planning or talking they surprisingly never ran out of ideas, and always listened to what I had to say. I hope you have someone that you can talk/plan with that’s reliable and don’t give up through the process. My mom gave up a month in due to anxiety. She still helped, all the way through but at her own pace which was understandable.
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Dedicated October 2019
Aleah · on December 31, 2019 at 7:14 AM
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Also I thought my wedding was going to be a disaster as well. The day before the wedding it was saying it would rain during the wedding, I cried so much but like I said my husband and my dad was calm about it all and had solutions. It did rain on my wedding, but it was a small continuous sprinkle and actually I ended up loving it because it looked really romantic everywhere and the preacher was talking about how a soaked knot is much harder to break. The guests liked it to, none of them pulled out their umbrellas (it was that light). We had a swing around porch that we decorated and ate under. My dad considered building a rustic shelter and us decorate it but the porch ended up being where we ate because we didn’t have time. But it was perfect and looked great decorated. Would you have backup if it were to rain?
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Expert October 2020
Haley · on December 31, 2019 at 2:11 PM
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I considered this as well because my FH family lives on a large piece of land but honestly I didn't want to deal with it. and my DREAM venue, I needed to rent a tent PLUS pay the cost to rent the venue. and you only had the venue from like 8am-10pm, so I'd have to pay extra for the tent to be set up and removed all in 1 day. It was a lot.
We eventually decided on a winery that supplied the tent, table, chairs, and bartenders for around $4k. My catering is BBQ and will be about $15/person for 120 people.
I'll end up spending just under $15k on everything.
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Master May 2020
Kari · on December 31, 2019 at 3:22 PM
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Before actually getting engaged and looking at costs, I LOVED the idea of a backyard wedding and I kept wishing I knew someone with a beautiful property where we could get married. I kept thinking, "Weddings don't need to be so expensive, people are just ridiculous!"

Then we got engaged, and started looking at venues and I was shocked by how much rentals were. The cost to rent a tent, tables, and chairs for 60 guests was nearly $4000! When we factored in the cost of rentals and the complexity of dealing with multiple vendors, it made a lot more sense for us to go with a more "complete package" wedding venue, instead of trying to DIY our own event on someone's property.

A lot of people think you can save money by DIY, hosting at home, buying linens instead of renting, etc but you need to realize all of that takes time too. If you can save $100 by buying napkins instead of renting, but you need to research where to buy them, pre-wash them when they come, fold them, set them up, collect them after, wash them again, and then store or donate them, is that worth it? My FH and I both have good jobs so unless the cost savings far exceeds the time we put in, we aren't going to make our wedding more work for ourselves. We aren't going to try to save $100 by picking up a task that is going to take us five hours, but if we can shave $1000 off the cost of our wedding with a couple hours of labor, then its worth it.
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