Wedding bell budget blues

By JOANN JONES

Short of choosing the right mate — perhaps the toughest task is not spending too much on a wedding.

At 53, Pat Brunt decided to get married ... for the first time.

Faced with decisions about decorating a church for the wedding, renting a reception hall, going through menus and sending out invitations to their large families and all their friends, Brunt and her fianc , Bill Poyser, decided to elope.

“I just didn’t have the energy for all that,” she said, sighing.

Brunt, who works long hours as a supervisor in the quality assurance department at the Lordstown General Motors plant, turned to the Internet for information on weddings and stumbled upon one of her favorite places — Hocking Hills, located an hour southeast of Columbus.

“I wanted to get married in the park by the falls,” Brunt said. “I wanted more than a justice of the peace wedding.”

“I’ve been to Hocking Hills before, and it’s almost like a church,” she said, adding that the beauty of the area makes her feel close to God.

“It took God to create something like this,” she said.

Add the beauty of the area to a price of $375 for a small wedding with little planning, and that was all it took for Brunt and Poyser to make their decision.

“I don’t have to do any planning because Lisa from the Traveling Wedding Chapel at Hocking Hills is doing it all,” said Brunt, who is getting married on July 28. “I picked out my dress and told her the color of the flowers I wanted. They even have a photographer.”

Decisions, decisions

Many brides, however, want a traditional church wedding followed by a reception, and that translates to a lot of money and a lot of hard work. With today’s economy and the high prices of everything, couples planning weddings have numerous decisions to make in an effort to keep costs down.

“It takes a lot of organization and communication,” said Mona McNeely of Goshen Township, whose daughter, Stephanie Wilson, is getting married in December. She will marry Tony Cretello of Austintown at St. Patrick’s Church in Youngstown, but the trouble is, Wilson is going to school in Charleston, S.C.

“The big thing is shopping around to compare prices,” McNeely said. “The Internet was a very good source of information, and we did a lot of comparison shopping from Boardman to Alliance. When she comes home, we get as much done as we can.”

“With the photographers we had to take a close look at the packages and make sure we were comparing apples to apples,” she added.

The right flowers

Another way they plan to cut back on costs is to do many of the things, such as the programs and the favors, themselves. They also took a less traditional approach to the wedding flowers.

“We cut back on the flowers because Steph wanted something more rustic,” McNeely said. “We’re using pine and holly instead.”

McNeely said they shopped around and settled on Remember When of Damascus because their personnel would work with what her daughter wanted while other florists were suggesting she use more flowers.

“It’s important to find someone you’re comfortable working with, someone who understands what you want,” she said.

Reinforcements

That someone is often a wedding consultant, such as Pat Butto and her staff at The Party People in Canfield, who have planned weddings in the Mahoning Valley as well as in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and even Florida.

“Pat has 35 years in the business and a wealth of knowledge,” said her sister-in-law Marianne Butto, who works with her. “We’re the facilitators. We take the stress out of all the planning.

“What we’re finding is that people are making more selective decisions on where they’re allocating their budget,” Marianne Butto said. “They come in with their vision and when they find out costs, they decide what items are more important. We just interject creative ideas without making decisions and help establish a budget.

“Sometimes they cut back on flowers or change the type of plate at the place setting,” she added. “Then they take the additional money and invest it in another part of the wedding.”

The reception

Ceasar Aulizio of Aulizio’s Banquet and Catering Center in Warren said the economy has made the prices of everything go up, but his business hasn’t suffered because it can still offer competitive prices. Aulizio also has seven children and two step-children who work with him as well as other family members.

“We do a lot of different things so people can choose,” said Aulizio, who has been in the catering business for 40 years and worked with his father before that. “We’re the most competitive because we’re a family-run business and do most of the work ourselves.”

“When the economy slows down, we get busier because our prices are good and our food is excellent,” he said. “Even back in the ’80’s when the economy was down when Carter was president, our business was booming.”

Aulizio, who can accommodate up to 600 people on site and also does a lot of off-premise catering, said people still want a good party for a wedding or graduation and look for the most competitive prices.

Shelley Criswell of A La Cart Catering in Canfield said she hasn ’t noticed much of a change in people planning weddings and other events.

“We’re still busy seven days a week,” she said. “We’re scheduling a year to a year and a half in advance. If we have to raise prices, we do that at the beginning of the year.”

Criswell did say that the guest counts have been down a little.

“People aren’t coming from out of town because of gas prices,” she said.

The pictures

While having a beautiful wedding and good food and drink is important, preserving the wedding day with good photographs and videos is also important.

“Many couples see the photographer as the least of their worries,” said Fred Cockrill of Cockrill’s Studio in Alliance. “You pay a lot of money for the hall, the food, the cake, and the dress, but when it’s all over, what do you have left? The photographs and the video.

“The prices of weddings have gone up,” he added. “Things have really changed in the 19 years I’ve been in business. Back then I could have booked every weekend.”

Cockrill said many people bypass a real studio and employ a family member or friend with a good camera just to get pictures.

“What happens is that they photograph the whole thing, put it on a CD, and the photographer is done,” he said. “The work is put back on the bride and groom, they get a lesser quality, and there’s no adjustment for the images.

“But the couple has to think about things they really want.”

Cockrill, who said it’s usually only the bride and her mother who look at photography packages, has had to change styles in recent years.

“We used to do a proof book, but now we post the photos on a secure Web site,” he said. “That way, they can see every photograph, they can pick them out, and they get what they want.”

His packages are laid out in hourly increments so the couple can choose as little or as much as they want.