Tag Archives: wedding planning

Wedding Venue: Boone Hall Plantation and Gardens

by on September 9, 2012

 

Boone Hall Plantation

1235 Longpoint Road
Mount Pleasant, SC 29464
(843) 884-4371
View their website
 

Average Cost: $25,000

*Average cost for THIS venue is calculated by figuring a 125-person guest list for a Saturday night ceremony/reception using an outside caterer. Transportation to venue, entertainment, decorations, linens, chairs, and flowers are not included. Average price includes gratuity and state sales tax. Price is rounded up to the nearest thousand.

How it breaks down:

Facility Rental Fee: Location fees range from $1,500-$5,000. All rentals include a gate attendant for the evening of the event, complimentary parking for all guests, indoor restroom facilities, limited electricity, tiki torches lit along the Avenue of Oaks and a scheduled rehearsal time the day before. For more info on each location, click here to view the Boone Hall plantation event guide. There are various locations to choose from within the Boone Hall Plantation, and you can choose to combine locations as well. An example of the fees are as follows:

Front Lawn: $3,000
Front Lawn and Cotton Dock: $5,000

 

Food: You are allowed to use your own outside vendors for catering. On average, you can expect to pay $100/pp and up for a plated, multi-course dinner with alcohol.

More Stats:

Space Type: Outside/some covered

Bridal Suite: Space is available to change in

Size: Can accomodate weddings up to 500 people depending on location choice. For example, the Boone Hall Plantation Cotton Dock can hold 175-200 people for a seated event with out a dance floor, a 150 with a dance floor, and up to 300 for a mingling function. The dock that overlooks the creek can hold 100 chairs.

Food Service Type: Must bring in catering (they also offer a Boone Hall Farms Market catering service)

Parking: All guests must park in the main parking area near the Plantation House.

How Will Grandma Get There? The plantation is located 7 miles from downtown Charleston. There are tons of hotels available in the area. However, if this is a destination wedding you will most likely have to arrange for a shuttle or other transportation. For Charleston travel tips, check out this 36 Hours in Charleston from the NYTimes.

 Party On! All events must end by 11 p.m., and guests must be off the premises by midnight.

The Report:

Boone Hall, which dates back to 1861, is one of the oldest working plantations in the United States. Once known for cotton and pecans, they still grow crops such as strawberries, pumpkins, and tomatoes. The Antebellum plantation, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is known for it’s “Avenue of Oaks,” which is a 3/4 mile stretch of 68-year-old giant live oaks draped with Spanish moss. While it’s making the news lately because Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds had their wedding there, it has also appeared on Days of Our Lives and The Notebook.

 

 Woman Getting Married Says:

The plantation is obviously gorgeous. I mean, who wouldn’t want to get married in a place with 68-year-old oaks? My main issue with strictly outdoor venues (or partially covered) such as these is that it gets pricey…and fast. Because there is limited electricity, it means you have to bring most things in, such as a kitchen for the caterers and all the stuff that goes along with it. That means they’ll normally charge you more than if you were getting married in a place that was equipped with a kitchen already. However, with a rustic and historical location like this, you’ll save money on decor vs. a plain banquet room that needs a lot of design. Another positive note is that this venue is only 7 miles from downtown Charleston, which is a huge bonus for couples looking for a destination wedding spot that has a ton of charm to offer out of town guests. I’ve never been to Charleston but it’s on top of my list! Overall, this venue is worth checking out.

 

Photo by Virgil Bunao via Style Me Pretty

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Daily Registry: Dinnerware

by on July 1, 2010

One of the best parts about registering for me has been picking out fun yet practical items that will allow me to actually entertain like a grownup. For years I had mix and match, crappy plates and glasses that were sort of embarassing to bring out when guests came over. But when you’re twenty-something, how many people are you actually ENTERTAINING anyway? Now that I’m in my 30′s, I seem to be more interested in setting a nice table for company then I am about using a takeout box as a plate. When I moved to a new city a year ago, FH and I went to Costco and got a nice, relatively cheap set of porcelain plates that have actually served (that’s a pun) us well. But when I started this registry process, I was still pretty excited about registering for some nice china with a fun, vintage-y pattern. I went to Macy’s (one of the stores I’m registered at) and found a great Villeroy and Boch pattern that both FH and I really liked (pictured below). I added 12 dinner and salad plates to the registry, and decided to skip on the bowls. Out of curiosity, I went back to review our registry list and decided to add up just how much this place setting would end up costing. The grand total? Close to $1,000!

Did I really want to own $1,000 worth of dinner and salad plates? To me, it just seemed a bit excessive. And what if I broke one down the road? It turns out I feel the same way about dinnerware that I do wine glasses: I want nice ones, but I don’t want to be mad if I or someone else breaks one. And the price for me to get mad at is over $20 each.

The pricey dinnerware?  It’s now off my plate (yes, another pun). I am going to stick with my Costco, porcelain, white dinnerware (which happens to be the same material the more expensive plates are made out of) and it’s going to look just as nice on a dinner table than its’ pricier counterpart.

My advice? You should definitely have a nice set of dinnerware, but it doesn’t have to break anybody’s bank. You can never go wrong with white, and there are always ways to dress it up or down. For example, if you love vintage shopping, pick up a set of fun salad plates or bowls when you see some. A lot of vintage stores sell porcelain and china plates for $7 or less. So does Etsy.com And if you stick with one or two color schemes, you can mix and match your plates and end up with a unique dinnerware collection that costs less and actually has a story behind it.

Looking for an everyday dinnerware collection that you can dress up as well? Go with a white porcelain one like Pottery Barn’s below.

PRODUCT: Suppertime 16-piece Dinnerware Set

PRICE: $64.00

DETAILS:

Set a quick and easy table for four with our complete boxed set of versatile white porcelain dishes.

  • Dinner Plate: 10.5″ diameter, 1″ high
  • Salad Plate: 8″ diameter, 1″ high
  • Soup Bowl: 6″ diameter, 2.5″ high; 19 fluid ounces
  • Mug: 5″ wide x 4″ deep x 4″ high; 10 fluid ounces
  • Set includes four each of dinner plates, salad plates, soup bowls and mugs.
  • Microwave and dishwasher safe.
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Bridesmaid Dresses: Vera Wang

by on June 22, 2010

As of last week, I was still searching for bridesmaid dresses. I knew what I wanted, but just wasn’t finding it. And if I did find it, it was either too expensive or took as long as 17 weeks to be made! Honestly, I think I could learn to make a dress in that time.

Since I wanted the bridesmaid dresses to be under $200, I didn’t even think of checking out Vera Wang. I assumed that if Nicole Miller and Monique Lhullier dresses were too expensive, Vera Wang was going to be outrageous. Well, you know what they say when you assume things. It has to do with an ass, you, and me.

After looking at the umpteenth bridesmaid dress late one night last week, I somehow found myself on VeraWang.com. And guess what? The dresses were amazing and UNDER $200. They also come in a great selection of colors, and only take 10 weeks to get to your bridesmaids. I gave my 6 bridesmaids the choice between two dresses, both in the same color, but two different styles and one was cheaper than the other. While I actually would have chosen to first one for myself, they all seem to love the strapless one, both pictured below. That one happened to be $220…still a great deal I think for Vera.

The Megan (20M12) in Chiffon, $180

The Tina (26M07), $220

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How to Plan a Wedding in a Week, Pt. 1

by on June 7, 2010

As some of you may know, I’ve been having some problems getting the whole wedding planning process started. Even though I got engaged in November, up until this past Friday I had no venue. While some of this can be blamed on the fact that I didn’t even know what city I wanted to get married in, the main reason we’re so behind is because the one venue we finally decided on in April fell through. Without getting into the boring details, the venue was basically holding out giving us a contract because they were waiting for a bigger event to come through. When we told them we had to have an answer so I could start doing things that involved actual planning (like sending save the dates) for our fall wedding, they told us we’d be better off finding another place.  Lovely, eh? That news meant that if I didn’t find another venue within the next two weeks, we would have to postpone the wedding to next year.

After some major brainstorming by my mom and I, we found a place that seemed to be under our noses the entire time. We reached out to them, told them our time constaint, and the negotiations began. When it started looking like this wedding might actually happen, I decided to fly down to my hometown for  10 days to meet the caterers, see the venue, and sign the contract.

Because I don’t plan on coming down again until a month before the wedding (for the shower), I’ve decided to essentially plan the majority of the wedding in the 10 days I’m down here. With 4 months to go until the wedding, I’m definitely on a tight schedule. So far I’ve been down here 5 days, which means I have 5 more days left.

As soon as I got here, I toured the venue and met with the caterers, who run the venue. After two days of negotiations, we were able to work out  the food, alcohol, and price details, along with the date. As soon as that was finalized, I was able to jump in and start the bulk of the planning. Here’s a recap of what I’ve done so far.

Order  Save the Dates

Luckily, I had already selected a great Etsy designer a few months ago when I thought we had the other venue booked. I sent her my ideas, and we finalized a design within a few weeks. She knew my details were pending, so I tried to stay in touch with any updates. After finalizing today using the WeddingWindow.com guest manager, I calculated how many we would need and gave her the go ahead to print them and overnight them to me. I went to Office  Depot today to buy address labels for them, and hope to have those printed out by tomorrow.

Buy a wedding dress

I went to NYC in March and went with two of my girlfriends to try on what felt like 1,000 wedding dresses. While I found one or two I liked, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted. Plus, I wanted to wait until I had a venue booked so I could have an idea of what kind of dress would work well in it. I found a local wedding store that sold a few designers I liked, and we made an appointment to go in last Friday. Without thinking we would actually find one that day, I picked out several dresses that were part of a leftover Memorial Day sale, and fell in love with a gorgeous Atelier Aimée 2008 dress, and instantly knew it was the one. My mom and I looked at each other, agreed that nothing could compare to it, and bought it for half price, along with a veil. We couldn’t believe it.

Contact photographers/hair & makeup artists/musicians

With a lot of online research and several referrals, I have reached out to several potential photographers, hair/makeup artists, and entertainment companies that handles bands and DJ’s. So far I’ve scheduled an appointment with a photographer on Tuesday, and hope to have a meeting with several musicians this week. I just started getting price quotes from hair/makeup artists, and when I find one that doesn’t seem outrageous (no luck yet), I’ll try to set up that meeting for later this week. My main worry right now is being able to find a band/dj I like, and hope that my research will lead me to some good people.

Find bridesmaid dresses

I had formally asked two of my  friends to be my bridesmaids a month ago, but wanted to wait until I saw my  sister and two sister-in-laws in person to ask them.  I also decided to include my oldest friend a couple weeks ago, and asked her over brunch today. With everybody in the know and a wedding date booked, the quest for bridesmaid dresses has begun. I’ve been to SO many online stores looking through various designers (Amsale, Nicole Miller, BCBG, Jenny Woo, BCBG, Ann Taylor, etc.) and haven’t found anything that knocked my socks  off.  I’m sure EVERY bride says this, but I really want to get something that’s a) under $200, and b) something that the girls will actually want to wear again. It’s not easy. So far the only dress I’ve found that I somewhat like is a  Melissa Sweet dress, and I hope to check that out on Tuesday at a local salon here.

So far, that’s it. Phew! There’s lots more to do,  so I’ll post updates as they come!

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