Wedding Season

I always love hearing how my friends are choosing to Live Large with Less and today's post comes from Charlene who attended one of my classes last summer. As we head into wedding season I thought others might appreciate her story.

"Getting married has never shown up on my “to do” life list yet, here I am, getting married. And as I’m learning, my beloved’s lukewarm interest in the planning is pretty typical of groomsmen everywhere. I’m naturally inclined to be an organizer and planner, always starting well in advance of typical timelines, usually thorough. And now, cheap. This wedding business can quickly get out of hand. Neither Dave nor I want a huge pagent of a wedding but we both want a great experience for ourselves and for our guests. A memorable party that has to walk some slippery slopes between informal and formal, between traditional and ours.

As things we are supposed to do and how much it costs to get them accomplished are piling up, one of the aspects I’m currently wrestling with is the rentals. There are some minimal things to rent even if we are skipping the string quartet, the DJs and the chocolate fountains. We need: Tables, Chairs, Dishes, Glasses, Flatware, Tableclothes, and Napkins. Without getting into the possible tent rental (”in case it rains”) and the outdoor dance floor (who can resist dancing to our iPod wedding playlist?), we are looking at paying about $700. For things we’ll use once. For things we’ll have to set up ourselves. Dave suggested using plastic plates instead. You know, he emphasized at my stunned look, the really nice ones. As I started looking into rental prices I started entertaining the plastics possibility. Turns out they are rather expensive too. I’m not being el impossibly cheapo bride. They seriously cost as much as cheaper ceramic plates. Which got me thinking…

What would the costs be if instead of renting 75 place settings, we bought them, along with tableclothes and napkins. Turns out, buying is neglibly more expensive than renting. Which got me thinking…

Why not buy our own linens and tableware? And then, rent them out to friends and family for their big events? We’ll buy them for about $1000 instead of renting for $700. And then we’ll gladly rent them out for … what? $200 per event. We could recoup our costs to some extent and still have some useable plates and napkins in the future. And our friends and family would save their own big bucks by renting from us at a great bargain price.

Am I getting too cheap? Or am I clever beyond belief?"