How I Planned My Small Winter Wedding
Planning a Small Wedding
The day of your wedding is special, beautiful, and precious but in the grand scheme of life it is still just one single day! This one single day will go by in the blink of an eye and become a distant faded memory only memorialized by wedding video and photos taken.
To Hire a Wedding Planner or Not?
Let me start by saying that if you are going to have a large wedding of 30+ people then hire a wedding planner because it could get beyond your control.
My wedding was small with less than 30 people so most everything involving planning and prep was easily self managed. However on the day of my wedding time seemed to be the enemy as everything seemed to speed up and I didn’t get much time to really enjoy the day like I had when I was a guest at other peoples weddings, when time seemed to move so slow. I ended up needing help from my bridesmaids the night before getting all of my party favors ready and biodegradable fake snow that needed to be individually packaged for each guest.
On the day of my wedding I found myself needing help coordinating and communicating the venue staff during the time I was having my hair and makeup done and was inaccessible. If you want to do your wedding without a planner make sure you have someone who is not a part of the wedding party step up and be your assistant. Which thankfully Kristen, my brothers soon to be wife was there to rescue the day and step in as my pseudo wedding planner and she did an amazing job of coordinating the arrival of my wedding cake and relaying messages for me to the venue staff.
Cost Saving Tip: For small weddings of 30 or fewer guests don’t hire a wedding planner ask a friend to step in and help coordinate things on the day of the wedding.
How I saved money on my wedding
- I didn’t hire a wedding planner
- I chose a venue that wouldn’t need any extra decorations and was beautiful on its own
- I paid for half of my bridesmaids hair and makeup
- I chose a brunch wedding vs night time wedding
- I used wedding favor paper wild flower embedded hearts as seating name tags ($10.00 for 25)
- I ordered wooden made snow flake decorations as wedding favors and left one at each place mat setting ($23.50 for 20)
- I didn’t rent or buy the extra cake stand and candelabra
- I didn’t waste money on cake cutting utensils or place mat settings
- I didn’t buy or rent extra decorations for the ceremony or reception
- I didn’t buy floral arrangements
- I didn’t buy center pieces such as candles
- Anything that was offered for free by the venue coordinator I opted to use.
- My venue reception organizer/employee allowed me to use for free a beautiful cake stand and candelabras
- I didn’t hassle with floral arrangements or floral center pieces and live flowers.
How I didn’t save money!
There were certain elements of my wedding I wasn’t quit willing to budge on to save money. These were the three most expensive elements of my wedding.
- My wedding venue
- My wedding dress
- My photographer. I fell in love with Jos’s photo gallery and had to have him for my wedding!
Cost Saving Tip: Rent your dress or groom suit instead of buying them.
What Exactly is involved in planning a Wedding?
- Venue
- Decorations
- Dress/suite
- Vendors
- Catering/Food
- Music
- Cake
- Floral
- Transportation/guest room accommodations
- Photographer
- Day of wedding Timeline
Process
- start price and date checking venues and vendors
- Keep a word document of the venues and vendors costs for comparison
- Once vendors are selected, contracts signed, and deposits paid list their contact information on a word document that will also have your “day of wedding timeline”. So you can print them out together. You will want your vendor contact information on the day of your wedding in the event of any last minute questions, emergencies, or needs.
- Your venue should send you a wedding packet full of recommended vendors and costs for food items and so forth.
- Book your date and pay your deposit with your vendors.
Venue Selection
Disclosure I do not recommend Timberline Lodge as a wedding venue. The entire experience was beyond awful and maddening. It started out promising and pleasant because we had one event coordinator that made arrangements and promises to us and then she left without notice and everything after that went downhill. Our wedding planning was handed over to someone else who was less cooperative. Everything was a battle leading up to our wedding day with issues of unprofessional behavior, “creative accounting”, which could have resulted in us being over charged if we hadn’t sent their invoice to our personal accountant for verification. Timberline staff created more problems on the day of our wedding. On the day of our wedding we arrived to be placed into public bathrooms where employees had free access and would rudely walk in and took some food items. The employees broke and lost my wedding cake topper and then the event coordinator tried to deny it and call me a liar. The timberline head event coordinator manager was present the day of my wedding and came to see me (in the bathrooms) at my request because I wanted to clarify something and she rudely insulted me in front of my wedding party and became hostile toward me after one of her employees had promised that I could use biodegradable fake snow in the ceremony room.
Additionally if you don’t have room reservations with them then your options for getting ready for a grooms and bridal suite are their two lower level bathrooms which the public and staff have access to and blatantly and rudely walk in on. My experience was that of their poor professionalism experienced with both the event coordinating staff and employees.
I started to look at different venues that held meaning to us and after much deliberation decided on Timberline Lodge in Oregon (This is where Eric first taught me how to snowboard). Then I contacted their event coordinator and began the processes of date selections. I ended up doing a cost analysis of the available dates of weekend vs weekday and evening vs morning wedding options. I finally decided on New Year’s Eve 2016 morning brunch wedding in their Barlow room. We signed a contract and paid a deposit to hold our date. Then they sent us a food menu and our welcome packet to help us coordinate and begin choosing vendors that they recommended.
- I called all of the recommended vendors in my wedding packet but could hardly get a hold of anyone or have anyone return my phone calls. So be prepared to look on wedding wire and the wedding knot web sites for help finding wedding vendors.
Accommodation Tip: Unfortunately the event coordinating staff of T-lodge didn’t bother to remind me or mention renting a room for accommodations the 8 months in advanced when I booked our wedding date and by the time I realized it was too late and they were booked solid for rooms. I was horribly disappointed that they didn’t hold a bridal suite for those getting married at their location.
There is usually a site fee to use the location for your wedding and some venues charge a minimum food service fee. One venue I looked at only charged a food service fee and no site fee however they didn’t offer venues for small weddings and they didn’t have a reception area.
Time of Year and Venue Location
I knew that I wanted a winter wedding and I chose New Year’s Eve for our wedding date for several reasons but mostly it was the most cost effective and it was the last available date they had. By planning my New Year’s Eve wedding for a brunch wedding it helped people feel safer driving in snow during the day light hours.
Cost Saving Tip: I planned my wedding for a morning brunch wedding and it saved us a lot of money.
A few draw backs to winter weddings I understood and knew that my venue selection and time of year would automatically stop a lot of people from coming to my winter wedding, because having been born and raised in Oregon I already knew the deep rooted PNW fear of driving in the snow!! So on the morning of my wedding I received text messages apologizing for not wanting to drive up in the snow.
- It wasn’t just the guests who were afraid of driving to my destination wedding. It was horribly difficult finding vendors to come to my venue for music, hair and makeup, and to marry us because most of them didn’t want to drive in the snow. I only found someone willing to do my hair, makeup, and marry us in November/December because so many vendors were canceling on me.
Catering/Food
I largely chose my venue because it was an all-inclusive venue with food catered on location. This was important to us as we would be driving into Oregon from out of state (most of our friends and family being in Oregon) and our venue was on Mt. Hood with limited access.
Cost Saving Tip: I have seen affordable alternatives such as self-catering your own wedding with Costco entrees which I would have loved to have done except we simply couldn’t organize this at our destination wedding.
Dress/Suite/bridesmaids
Cost Saving Tips
- We bought Eric’s suit at sears for $150.00
- I allowed my bridesmaids to choose among themselves what color dresses and shoes they should wear. I wanted my bridesmaids to feel good in what they were wearing and not constrain them to some immature nonsense of trying to pick out what they wear.
- I went to several dress shops until I put on the dress that felt the best and it just so happen that the dress owner was AMAZING! And discounted the dress while throwing in the veil and earings for free.
- I wore a pair of red leather boots that I already owned.
- I used a gray wool wrap for outdoor pictures that I already owned
Hair and Makeup Stylists
I used Wedding wire/the knot to contact many stylists all of whom either weren’t available or were too afraid to drive up to Mt. Hood on my wedding day. I finally found a hair stylists who recommended a makeup artists and they both showed up promptly to the lodge the morning of my wedding.
- Plan for at least 1 hour per person to get hair and makeup done and give two hours for bridal makeup and hair
On the day of our wedding the lodge staff allowed us early access to the bathrooms/bridal suite to start our hair and makeup. I hired one person to do makeup and another person to do hair to cut down the prep time in half so while one person was having their hair done the others could be having makeup done. Since my wedding was an early start brunch wedding I wanted to make sure there was ample time for my bridesmaids and I to have our hair and makeup completed.
Cost Saving Tip: Make sure and clarify upfront before you agree to hire your beauticians what the “Final” cost is. One of the beauticians had a hidden charge for traveling up to T-lodge while the other beautician did not have any hidden charges.
Decorating/Wedding Favors
When you are planning your own wedding or using a wedding planner you will need to think about Cake stands, candelabras, banners, balloons, flowers, and wedding center pieces. You can either use what is rented or provided by your Venue or you can arrange to rent them from a third party.
Additionally you will need access to your venue to set up. Most venues will give you the evening before if no other events are taking place. Timberline lodge only allows for a 2 hour decorating window prior to your wedding which doesn’t work because if you are the bride then you are in having your hair and makeup done.
Placement Tags/Wedding Favors: What I ended up doing was buying tags that had wild flower seeds embedded into them and using them as seat markers by placing people’s names on them and laying them out on the tables. I found a pack of 30 for less than $10.00 with S&H online.
Cost Saving Tip: To save money I didn’t rent or buy anything that wasn’t provided by the Venue. My cake stand and candelabras in the picture below were provided last minute, free of charge by the organizing employee that was present the day of my wedding. I custom ordered my cake topper off of Etsy instead of buying it at the Bakery or Michael’s craft store.
Etsy Cake Topper “You are my greatest adventure” $40.00
My wedding cake topper was 1st broken by a T-lodge employee when removing it from the cake, and was later Lost by that same employee. I had to argue with the event coordinator to find it or refund my money. The coordinator didn’t believe me when I informed her that her staff had broken it and lost it and eventually refunded my money for the cake topper.
My Wedding favors were wooden winter snow flakes with our name and wedding date on them that I bought on Etsy.
Etsy Wooden Snow Flake Wedding Favors
Florists
You could choose to go with live flowers but they are a pain in the A$$. After having been a bridesmaid a month earlier with live wedding flowers I was so relieved and thankful for my own wedding to not have to deal with the issues facing using living flowers.
The problems of using live flowers: There are extra costs of delivery the day of the wedding, renting or buying the flower vases to keep them fresh looking while having your hair and makeup done, you have to be careful about preserving your bouquets and not crushing the live flowers when you put them down. I remember someone chasing after my friend after the wedding trying to figure out if she was going to buy the bouquet vases or return them because they weren’t hers!!
I chose to go Eco friendly on my wedding day and save money by not doing floral arrangements and for my wedding bouquet and wedding party I bought forever flowers aka Eco Flowers made of sustainable materials such as old book pages. I bought my three bridesmaid bouquets on clearance for $60, which is the normal price of one bouquet!!!
Then I ran into some minor trouble ordering my bridal bouquet…
I highly recommend buying your Eco Flowers months in advance because they will never go bad!! When I went to order my bouquet, one month before my wedding, they were no longer accepting bridal bouquet orders and were sold out of the bouquet I originally wanted. So I had to place a custom order and all worked out in the end!!
Cake/Delivery
Make sure to go to a few different bakeries, especially if your bakery is included in your venue price, to do taste testing.
Ask if the delivery is free or extra!
My wedding venue would have included the price of a wedding cake if I had chosen to go with their bakery. This was not an option for us being out of state because I wanted to sample the cake before committing to pay for something except their bakery wasn’t willing to mail us samples. Eric has had cupcakes mailed to us from one of our favorite bakeries in Oregon so I knew that it was possible but their bakery wasn’t willing to do it. After much negotiating/arguing the T-lodge coordinator finally agreed to uphold the original promise made to me to allow me to use my own bakery and subtract the price from the venue charges. I chose Beaverton Bakery because I have eaten their delicious cake before and couldn’t see going with any other bakery. I placed my order with the bakery then they lost my order and I was able to verify and pay for it a few weeks before arriving to Oregon for our wedding.
For most weddings the cake needs to be delivered if it hasn’t been arranged by your venue event coordinator. I was lucky and my wedding efficient, Theresa Tuffli was AMAZING by allowing us to have our wedding cake delivered to her house and then she drove it up to Timberline Lodge for us which saved us a lot of money on delivery cost by the bakery.
Wedding Rehearsal
What is a wedding rehearsal exactly? It apparently is where you as the bride, groom, and wedding party get a chance to practice the motions of entering and exiting your wedding ceremony room and where to stand once you enter the room. Afterwards you can all go have dinner together which is rehearsal dinner!
Theresa Tuffli was sick before our wedding, my wedding party couldn’t make it up to Timberline lodge the night before, and we got up to Mt. Hood extremely late the night before our wedding and couldn’t have made a rehearsal ceremony anyway. Thankfully Theresa Tuffli had also performed my best friend’s wedding a month earlier. Thankfully I had attended that wedding rehearsal so we chose not to have our own wedding rehearsal. Theresa Tuffli will come up the night before your wedding to your venue location and practice with your wedding party where to stand and how to enter the room.
Day of the wedding Time frame
You will need to keep track of where you need to be by making a time line for the day of the wedding.
Wedding Day Time Line
6:30 am Hair and makeup bridesmaid #1
I had a hairstylist and separate makeup artist so these time lines were pretty accurate having two separate stylists!
7:00 am Hair and Makeup Bridesmaid #2
7:30 am Hair only- bridesmaid #3
8:00 am Bridal hair and makeup
9:00 am Vendors arrive (Cake)
9:30 am Dress
We ran out of time before the wedding to take pictures!
10:00 am Bride and Groom photos
10:25 am wedding party and Family photos. Wedding party waits at bottom of stairs. Below ravens nest. Photo with mountain in background.
10:30 am Doors open Guests arrive- pre ceremony music starts
11:00 am Invite time
11:15 am Ceremony Begins
11: 45 am Ceremony Ends
11:50 am Cocktail hour/ Photos<—- I purposefully planned this cocktail hour in the event that we ran out of time in the morning for photos and it worked out because that is exactly what happen!
While everyone was enjoying our cocktail hour we were off taking pictures Finally!!!!
12:30 pm brunch starts
1:15 pm Toasts
1:30 pm Cake cutting dessert
1:45 pm Wedding game
We missed out on our post wedding photos because Eric ran off after his brother who forgot his back pack
2:30 pm Depart wedding venue/ chair lift pictures (the magic mile)
VENDORS
| Name | Number | Email/web site | Cost | ||
| Photographer | Jos | http://www.josstudios.com/ | $4,200 | ||
| Beaverton Bakery | Molly | (503)-941-2259 | Beavertonbakery.com | $200 | |
| Harpist | Bethany Evans | $450.00 | |||
| Venue | Timberline Lodge | Site Fee $1,050
Food/Beverage Minimum $2,450 |
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| Wedding efficient | Theresa Tuffli | $300 | |||
| Decorations |
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| Hair and Makeup | Hair
Hannah Bemrose
Makeup Stacy Lowe |
$95 bridal hair
$55 Bridesmaids hair Bridal makeup ($85) Bridesmaids ($50 +$10 lashes) +$40 travel fee |