Sara is a professional wedding planner full of great wedding planning advice and practical ideas. If you are recently engaged and feeling a bit overwhelmed by the wedding planning process, Sara’s seminar is for you.

Details on the March 4 event below!

In her own words: “We both come from military families that were stationed in Jacksonville, and we met many years ago in high school. We were reunited in college, and when we started planning our wedding, we knew we wanted to have it close to home. We chose the New Bern Country Club because it is such a romantic and classy location, and we love the Old South feel of the archway of trees that line the drive.”

In her words: ”What was important to us was choosing an outdoor ceremony site that was visually striking and choosing a reception site that had enough room for a good dance floor, space enough that people were not sitting on top of each other, and one that was also nice inside. When we looked at my parent’s home in Winding River Plantation, we realized we could have the wedding ceremony and reception all within a mile of each other. The ceremony site was beautiful, right on Winding River with a salt marsh view. It was perfect! Very peaceful, Southern, serene, and a great place to commit our lives to each other. Plus, it was cool that parts of Jurrasic Park were filmed there!”

Quite often, I get inquiries from brides who have the most outrageously impossible budget numbers in them. It’s true that most people don’t plan their own weddings multiple times, so the learning curve for most brides is steep and merciless. But when I see brides-to-be with a total wedding budget of $5000 for 120 people, I do a double take.

When most brides become engaged, they immediately entertain grand visions of their wedding—and they should! It is, after all, the most special day of a new couple’s life.

But as is human nature, there is often a huge disconnect between fantasy and reality. In fact, most weddings go over budget by 45%. So go ahead, envision your ideal wedding. Then sit down with your groom, parents, and any other folks involved in making budgetary decisions for your wedding, and plan logically. Approach your wedding budgeting as if you were running a business.

There are numerous wedding budgeting resources available online for free, so I won’t go into those here. I will, however, offer some general guidelines for determining what different aspects of your wedding will cost.

One of the most realistic methods of calculating the true cost of your dream wedding is to follow these steps:

1)    Create a checklist of all the items in your dream wedding vision (a good comprehensive list is found here).

2)    Assign a preliminary budget amount to each item. Keep in mind that you may have some items on your list that will be less expensive than others. For example, you may decide to go with casual beach wedding attire as opposed to a formal, full-on designer wedding gown.

3)    Get estimates from your preferred vendors for each of these items, then assign an over or under amount to each item on the list.

4)    In the end, if you are over your budgeted amount, it’s time to make some realistic and often difficult choices. One of the ways to make these choices without going crazy is to think of your wedding as consisting of element “groups,” each group traditionally accounting for a percentage of wedding cost.

5)    Your reception is by far the most expensive element group of your wedding day.  Generally, the reception accounts for 50% of your total wedding budget and includes items such as venue and rentals, food and service, beverages, and cake. A sit-down plated dinner can run anywhere from $25 to $60 per person. Buffets, on the other hand, can be substantially less. Also, if you plan to host an open bar for your guests, you can plan on anywhere from $20-$40 per person.

6)    As a rule of thumb, these wedding element groups will run about 10% of the total budget. This includes:

• Your wedding attire
• Flowers and décor
• Photography and video
• Music

Other elements of your wedding can come in at an even lower percentage of your budget and include:

• Ceremony and officiant (2%)
• Wedding party gifts and favors (3%)
• Invitations and postage (2%)
• Wedding rings (depending on your taste!) (2%)
• Transportation (1%)

7)    As you go through this process, you’ll find that your wedding elements fall into one of three categories: must have, don’t need, and can go either way. Scratch through the “don’t need” items and budget amounts first. Recalculate the total, and see where you are.

8)    If you are still over budget, you can take funds from the “under budget” items on your list and reassign them to the “over budget” items. Or decide if you can afford to boost your budget to accommodate the remaining items. If not, then you’ll have to make more tough decisions about the “can go either way” items.

10)   If you are under budget, congratulations! Get to planning! And be sure to share this budget list with your planner.

A logical planning approach to your wedding budget will ensure extra joy for everyone involved in your wedding day.

We’ll take you and your groom on chauffeured limousine tours of Crystal Coast wedding venues. You’ll meet over 40 Crystal Coast wedding vendors in a relaxed, intimate wedding showcase–no endless rows of pipe and drape booths with no time to talk to vendors. To top it off, you’ll rock it out at our After Party, complete with fully catered dinner, drinks, DJ, dancing, great prizes, and fun!

And that’s all for one low ticket price. Tickets are on sale now. Purchase your tickets online and save 20% off the at-the-door price. Come plan your wedding with us–and have a fun weekend at the beach!

Check it out. And turn up the volume.

If you’re planning a Wilmington destination wedding, this is the wedding showcase for you. We have a weekend full of cool wedding planning events planned for you and your groom: limousine-chauffeured tours of area event venues, a spectacular wedding showcase featuring Wilmington’s finest wedding vendors at the Hilton Wilmington Riverside, and a rousing After Party with food, drink, music, and dancing at Saint Thomas Preservation Hall.

Make it a romantic weekend for you and your groom! Come experience the magic of Wilmington–and plan your destination wedding at the same time.

Fortunately, we found a new home, just down the road, with the Coral Bay Club. And we’re thrilled to announce that the Club will be our home in January for our fourth annual Salon!

Tickets go on sale in mid-November, so make plans now to come visit. After all, it’s not your average bridal show!

In her words: ”We met at Ballyhoos in Emerald Isle, NC, and we’ve always loved the beach. But when it came down to it, we decided on a church wedding. Our ceremony was at Broad Street Christian Church in historic downtown New Bern. We had our wedding party portraits made in front of Tryon Palace. After the beautiful ceremony, we danced the night away at at our reception held at Bridge Pointe Hotel and Marina with nothing but windows overlooking the beautiful marina. In keeping with the season, I chose fushia pink and lime green as my color scheme. Star gazer lilies, white cala lilies, hydrangeas and green buttons were my main selections for the floral arrangements.”

This portrait series features Crystal Coast Bride Kaitlyn Tyson from Greenville, NC, who was maried on July 9, 2011.  Harker’s Island native and photographer, Beth Gillikin, was behind the lens. Beth grew up in the shadow of the Cape Lookout lighthouse and specializes in Cape Lookout portraits and weddings. Visit the Cape Lookout National Seashore web site  for information on accessibility and wedding permits.