4 Common Wedding Planning Myths: Busted

Photo by The Leitzingers

The internet is a dubious character when it comes to lending out unrealistic wedding planning advice.

Time and time again, our community of wedding planners must work to break down and reset expectations that our clients have developed through advice columns not written by wedding planners, watching television shows, or looking at Pinterest.

Take the advice of an experienced wedding planner; we promise we won’t lead you astray!

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myth 1: THE AVERAGE WEDDING BUDGET IS 30K

Out of all the wedding planning myths that exist, we find this one to be most unsavory for our couples. I cannot tell you how many times our couples come to an initial consultation with us, tell us what they believe their budget is, and then give us their list of expectations that are to come from this budget.

When we ask them how they chose that number, almost every single time, we hear the response, “We looked up what the average cost of a wedding was, and the internet told us $30k.” This is when the let- down starts...

The truth is, the average cost of a wedding varies very directly with a) the city and state you are getting married in; b) the amount of guests you plan to seat (centerpieces), feed (catering), and serve beverages to (bartending); c) the types of vendors you are looking to book and d) the quality of the vendors you are looking to book.

Do you see how that might be too many variables? Our recommendation? Hire a wedding planner! They will be able to assess your guest count, scope out your project size, account for your expectations, and then give you an educated estimate based off your needs and the industry averages for each of your vendor types in your local city/state.

If you’re in the Dallas, Fort Worth, or Surrounding Texas Areas, reach out to our expert team today!

myth 2: ALL Pinterest WEDDINGS ARE REAL

Pinterest is the modern couple’s QUEEN when it comes to design inspiration, and we understand why. In fact, we use it ourselves to communicate with our clients about what design styles exist and which ones they resonate with.

However, it’s often during this process that we begin the education process on how few of the wedding examples seen on Pinterest are actually real documented weddings vs. photo shoots. Specifically, those beautiful “tablescapes” you see with 8-12 candles, chargers, dinner plates, extravagant wine and water goblets, menu cards, place cards, and specialty linens and napkins- those are extremely expensive.

All those pieces must be rented and can cost anywhere from $40-$60 per table setting. When you do the math, you’ll start to understand how quickly your table-top rental budget can be blown!

myth 3: SAVE MONEY ON YOUR CAKE WITH FOAM LAYERS

I don’t know where and I don’t know why, but someplace, in a deep dark corner of the internet, someone is suggesting to our couples that they can save money on their wedding cake by having a baker decorate foam layers for extravagance and using a sheet cake to serve their guests from.

This is a huge misunderstanding concerning how wedding cake bakers price out their services, and we are here to educate you otherwise.

If you’ve ever looked into wedding cake prices, you’ll start to realize that bakers will give you an upfront estimate of something like $6-$12 per slice. To get an exact quote on a cake, you’ll need to attend a cake consult where you choose things like number of servings, cake flavors, and design of your cake.

The design aspect here is key. Depending on what type of icing mediums, pastry skills, and decorating techniques you request, the time and labor your baker will have to spend on your cake will vary.

And as we all know, time is money, so the more difficult your cake is to create, the more your cake will cost per slice. In other words, if you are asking your baker to provide your slices in sheet form vs. circular/stacked tin form, the cost of those ingredients (flour, sugar, milk, eggs) doesn’t change; you will still be paying the price of the time it takes your baker to create something beautiful. You may as well have them do it to an actual wedding cake shape.  

myth 4: Faux Florals ARE CHEAPER

The idea that faux or paper flowers are cheaper than the real things is a popular misconception held by many of our incoming clients.

The truth of it is, if you are planning on purchasing faux flowers for your wedding, first you might consider taking a trip to Michaels, the craft store.

The artificial flower section is inviting at first until you look down at a price tag. It isn’t too long before you realize just how expensive a couple stems, or a “bushel” of a faux flower can really cost you: $9-$20 per piece.

When you compare this to the price a true florist can get you at wholesale, and then consider the fact that you will thereafter have far too many faux flowers to keep in your home of one single color palette, ALONG with the burden of having to purchase vases, arrange said flowers into vases, and transport the vases to and from your wedding venue yourself? You will realize how quickly the value of hiring a real florist increases for you.  

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Planning a wedding is a huge scope of a project to take on alone. Don’t trust the internet to help you!

Hire someone experienced to guide you through it- someone who can tailor their advice to your specific needs. Just like love is not, one size fits all, neither is wedding planning. Trust that an expert who may cost you up-front, will ultimately be the one who saves you in the long run!

If you’re in the Dallas, Fort Worth, or Surrounding Texas Areas, reach out to our expert team today!

How to Successfully Plan Your Wedding in COVID Times

Photo by The Leitzingers

​If you were planning to get married in 2020 or 2021 and are holding steady on your desire to celebrate your wedding with all your friends and family regardless of COVID-19, right on!

We get it. COVID spits on you, you spit back. Well hopefully not; it should be said Artisan Rose Event Co. highly discourages spitting, ever again, not even with a face mask on.

But seriously, if you are considering moving forward all sails ahead, there are some cold hard truths and implications that anyone who is planning a wedding for 2021 should understand.

The biggest of these truths is the umbrella over all we will discuss down below: your wedding will look different than you imagined. Now let’s break that down:​

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Changes To Your Layout and Guest List

While there is no way of telling when/if/how capacity limits will affect your wedding day, there is one thing that we can almost guarantee will be with for a while and that is that the 6ft rule is one of the best defenses we have against the spread of this virus.

With that being said, in the scenario that capacity percentage restrictions are lifted and only the 6ft rule remains, re-working your layout to find a new “6ft capacity” may be the best way to estimate how many guests you can safely invite to your wedding. Below is an example of what we mean.

Guest Safety

It’s important to understand that public perception of the safety measures taken at your wedding will affect the number of guests who decide to attend. There will be guests who either fear for their own health, fear for the health of a loved one they are regularly in contact with, or fear for public backlash they may receive for attending a large gathering during this time.

If you plan to move forward with your wedding, and safety is a priority for you, we highly recommend you let your guests know this by A) providing guests with onsite, day-of, fail-safes and B) communicating what types of precautions you will have for them in a note with your invitation. This will allow your guests to assess the risk themselves as they consider RSVPing to your wedding.

What kinds of fail-safes are we talking about? We are talking about ways to protect your guests in case there are attendees at your wedding who may be carriers of the virus and do not know it. The minimum has already been mentioned, and that is, adjusting your layout so that small groups are sat 6ft or more apart from each other. Other suggestions include:

• Place decorative, on-theme bottles of hand sanitizer at each table for regular use by guests.

• Include custom or non-custom face mask coverings for guests to grab and wear throughout the evening.

• Setting masks out on a “favor” table for guests to grab themselves encourages them to go ahead and take that extra measure if they want to. It can also make for incredibly memorable wedding favors and photos to tell your kids/grandkids about how you got married during COVID-19.

• Assign ushers or staff members to hold doors open for guests as they move from space to space; otherwise, use door stops to keep them propped.

• Eliminate sign in booklets- unless you are encouraging guests to use their own pen, which may be done through signage.

• Use microphones on stands instead of hand-held ones.

• Ditch the send-off bubbles: again, SPITTING IS NOT CONDONED by Artisan Rose Event Co.

The point is, there are ways to mitigate risk, and if you are planning on implementing any extra safety measures at all- you should let your guests know! We are sure they will appreciate it.

Catering Precautions

Catering is such a huge player on your wedding day. In most situations, they are the ones dressing your guest tables, serving your appetizers, entrees, and desserts, and working your bar service. They touch almost everything your guests touch! So naturally, we wanted to talk to them about how they plan to minimize risk for their COVID-19 events. Here is what some of the leading local caterers had to say:

• Passed appetizers should probably be replaced by chef-attended appetizer stations, instead.

• Self-serve buffets and beverage stations should be replaced by either a one-sided buffet line in which a gloved staff member serves you, or by a plated dinner service. (Note that one-sided buffet lines will increase the time it takes for all guests to be served.)

• Pre-setting guest tables with exposed water glasses, dinner plates, and utensils may increase the risk of contamination.

• Rolling silverware inside napkins will also help minimize the risk of utensil contamination.

• Disposable beverage cups at the bar will help minimize the handling of contaminated drinking glasses.

You should know that depending on the types of changes you are making, your catering costs could change drastically. Remember, catering cost is typically a function of guests, staff, and dinnerware/barware rentals.

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If you made it through this blog post, and you are feeling less convinced about your decision to move forward than before, let us offer some encouraging truths as well:

The guests who decide to attend your wedding, despite all the risks, are going to be there for you and they are going to be there for a good time. These are the types of guests that will add the most positive and most genuine type of energy to your event.

There is also something to be said, quite frankly about the unknown end-date to this global pandemic. Some scientists are estimating a total of two years before a vaccine is found, tested, manufactured, and widely distributed.

If you choose to postpone again, who is to say the new date you are choosing will be any better than the one you’ve already chosen. I’ve used this line before to promote the decision to postpone (man, how things change), but you can take the power back from this uncertainty by accepting that things may look different; you may lose some guests; but the show will go on and you will get married regardless!

The choice is obviously yours. Just know that Artisan Rose Event Co. will always encourage you to promote safety over preference and to focus on the aspects of a wedding celebration that matter most to you.

If that means you need to wait to have your dream wedding with your entire guest list, then let's postpone to 2021. If it means we party like it's 2019, then know that we will do everything we can to set you up for success while also protecting the health and safety of our own team.

This post was written on 2/1/2021 and may become obsolete as more information regarding COVID-19 is released.