As a Wedding Planner and Stylist, I'm a lover of love, an absolute romantic, and I'm always meeting newly engaged couples, or excited brides-to-be with their fiancees, mum or bridesmaids. I love hearing the story of how couples met, the way the proposal went down, seeing the ring and talking about all your ideas for your Wedding. It's an exciting time, and because I love bringing ideas to life and creating a wedding that is designed to suit you, I get excited as well!
But it can also be overwhelmed knowing where to event start, and having no idea about the realistic costs.
For those that don't know me, I'm Lisa Ferguson and I plan and create gorgeous Weddings in Christchurch, New Zealand and throughout the South Island. I'm experienced designing and setting up Weddings at venues, marquees and private properties, and have also worked in locations around the world. The Event Boutique is known for our elegant style, and creating beautiful Weddings thoughtfully designed to suit each and every couple.
Feedback from our couples, is that by working with us...
"You'll have a Wedding that's better than you imagined!"
Weddings are all about celebrating your own love story, and in my opinion, there’s nothing more romantic than that!
Your Wedding day is a big deal, and will essentially be the biggest party of your life, celebrating with all your favourite people! So it’s totally natural to desire a beautiful wedding, especially after the excitement and adrenalin rush from the moment of your engagement and looking at all the beautiful images in magazines, Pinterest images, and starting to imagine the wedding of your dreams.
I meet with those who have lots of ideas, and some who don’t know where to start, and many simply don't know how to pull all their ideas together and source all the items to create a cohesive look, so know they want to work with a Stylist. The common factor is they all want a beautiful wedding and are looking for help. All the couples I’ve worked with who loved the look of the weddings we’d created, were thrilled to learn we could take care of everything they needed - from hire furniture & decor, to designing custom stationery, florals and full setup. And those that wanted extra support we offer Wedding Co-ordination or take care of the whole lot to Plan and Style their day!
The number one question everyone asks is:
“We’d love to find out what having a beautiful wedding will cost”
To give you an exact price, there are so many options we do need to talk through your requirements. However I understand when you're first looking into the cost of Wedding Styling, you're often just wanting an idea of what it actually costs.
HIRE BOOKINGS
Interestingly we’ve had feedback that couples love how beautiful our weddings look, but some don’t get in touch because they think we’ll be too expensive. However this isn’t the case, as if we help create a hire booking for self-setup the total spends have ranged from $950-$4500, and this can include your venue florals and bridal party florals. Hire Bookings are ideal for those who have access to your venue the day before the wedding, have a few friends and family that can help setup your venue, or if you venue offers a setup service. And for Hire Bookings we can help guide you through recommendations, select hire items and decor to suit your style and venue, calculate quantities and provide any advice specific to what you want to achieve.
WEDDING STYLING
We totally understand all the options and ideas can leave you feeling overwhelmed. So with our styling service, we’ll view your images and Pinterest Boards, talk through what you want and love and give you a quote to bring your wedding to life.
We can pull your ideas together and create a styling concept and mood board, draw up floor plan options to suit your venue, to designing your ceremony setting and reception table-scapes. We'll calculate the quantity of decor for table styling, and supply all the hire and design elements to create your gorgeous wedding. We can create all your gorgeous fresh florals from ceremony and reception to suspended features and bridal party florals.
This is the ultimate service as by trusting in our experience this will remove any stress. We'll take care of all the gorgeous details, so you can relax and focus on organising all the other things. When we're doing the setup and pack-down, this means on your wedding day, you can fully relax and enjoy sipping champagne and getting ready, knowing we’re setting up your venue beautifully (and will pack it all away when it’s over)
All quotes are custom quoted to suit what each couple wants. But to give you a realistic guideline, based on previous couples weddings, the total spends have ranged from $6500-$15,000 - but the average spend whether a cocktail style wedding which requires more furniture, or a dining style wedding is $8500.
And keep in mind this total spend includes everything from all hire products such as ceremony furniture, reception decor, to custom signage, and all venue, ceremony and bridal party florals....to delivery and setup, then pack-down...so you don’t need to do a thing!
MARQUEE WEDDINGS
Of course each couples total spend varies depending on their individual needs. The largest spends have been fully styled marquee weddings as they always need everything provided, from all the furniture to dinnerware, glassware and full styling. So these spends have ranged from $12,000- $25,500.
For more information about marquee weddings, I've written another dedicated blog post that also includes a link to download an example quote.
WEDDING PLANNING & CO-ORDINATION
Many clients have wanted additional support and booked us for Wedding Planning and/or Co-ordination, which you can read more about these service and pricing HERE.
Get Peace of Mind
When you work with The Event Boutique, we’ll provide guidance every step of the way, which removes any stress, guesswork and sense of overwhelm, knowing we’re there to support and help you.
The real cost of a Beautiful Styled Wedding
This article should give you a guideline about the cost of working with us to create a beautiful Wedding. There are so many options, all depending what each couple wants, needs and loves, what is available at the venue and what is important to you. Keep in mind when you work with us we take care of everything, so you don't have to deal with a range of suppliers, and this ensures everything is carefully chosen to work perfectly together. Your total spend for Wedding Styling, includes all hire products from furniture to decor, personalised signage, to ceremony, venue & bridal party florals....and we will often revise a quote numerous times as we talk through what you most want, and adjust the items included until you're totally happy with the spend. Throughout this you'll have our guidance and advice, and of course we deliver and setup your venue beautifully, then pack it all away. So you don’t need to figure anything out, or do a thing!
I completely understand all the options and deciding what's best for you, can be daunting.
If you would love to speak with me about what you would love for your wedding get in touch. I can provide guidance about all the options, suggest ideas and put together a complete price for what it will cost for us to give you an utterly beautiful wedding.
Get in touch via our contact page.
Lisa xx
3 TIPS TO HAVE THE WEDDING OF YOUR DREAMS
(and not break the bank)
No 1: Make sure you don’t over-spend, by creating a budget!
Getting caught up in the desire for a beautiful wedding and over-spending is so common, that a 2019 survey* showed a whopping 51% of couples, in hindsight, wish they hadn’t overspent on their wedding day. Results showed only 55% had set a wedding budget, with 32% of those completely blowing their budget.
Of course, it’s not surprising many couples either blow their budget, or when all the costs are added up, realise they’ve over-spent, as decisions for a wedding are usually made with the heart, not the head. And it’s so easy to get caught up in the moment, wanting a beautiful day, and forgetting to consider the financial impact of your decisions. The most common cause of over-spending is by not having a budget in place to start with. Therefore it’s crucial to set a budget early on. Once you’ve set an estimated budget, you can keep an accurate track of where you’ll be spending your money as you get quotes and book your suppliers. Setting a budget right from the start, also allows you the freedom to be flexible throughout the planning process, by prioritising based on what is most important and adjusting where you can make savings.
* Survey undertaken by 1000 people, by Pure Profile.
No 2: Reign in your expectations and don’t expect a Pinterest Wedding!
The reality is all those dream weddings and stunning images you see on Pinterest, usually cost hundreds of thousands. We always ask couples to create a Pinterest Board for inspiration, as this helps give an insight into the couples style and an understanding of what they love. We use their boards as a reference to identify the common threads, colour palettes, styling ideas, and from this, we create a personalised styling concept.
Pinterest is fantastic to use as a tool, to save and show suppliers ideas you love. But unless you have a massive budget, don’t set yourself up for disappointment, by expecting to have a replica wedding, of the Pinterest images you’ve saved.
So it’s important to understand this and be realistic, because Pinterest is like shopping without a price tag! Let go of the need to control or figure everything out yourself, and trust your suppliers to advise you on the reality of what they can create, based on knowing all the products available, and how they can best maximise the amount or budget you have to spend.
No. 3: Allocate your spending wisely, decide whether to save or splurge!
When it comes to your wedding, you can definitely save in some areas, and splurge in others. It’s always worth giving careful consideration into what’s most important to you, and prioritising your spends, for where you want to achieve the maximum impact, and allocate wisely.
But let’s talk about florals. If you’re having an outdoor ceremony in a stunning location, you may not need much styling, which can allow you to splurge on lush florals on your bridal table; or save costs by re-purposing your ceremony flowers and having them moved to your reception; moving your ceremony backdrop to behind the bridal table, or moving a floral garland from your arch to sit on the bridal table.
When it comes to saving on décor, it’s worth checking if your venue has anything, as some venues have a selection of products available, that are often free to use.
So discuss ideas with all your suppliers, and see what they can suggest, as this will help you save or splurge and get the maximum from your spend.
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If you'd like to download this article, click here and input your email address, and you'll receive the article along with all the following:
Link to download our FREE Wedding Planning Guide, packed with over 55 pages of advice.
A complete Wedding Planning Checklist
List of recommended Canterbury Vendors (we love and trust)
Why choose a Stylist or Planner
If you'd love to find out more about having us help create a Wedding that's perfect for you, and just as gorgeous as you wish for, get in touch and book a free meeting, via phone, zoom or at our Sydenham Showroom. Lisa x