The Wedding Blog

Okay, so there was a last minute contender in the Hills Community Center, as suggested by Don's mom, which can seat 300 and rents out for $175. Other than that, First Avenue didn't call back, and neither did the Lone Tree American Legion despite multiple calls or emails to each. So we're down to the Highlander vs. WCC. I decided to think this all through on an obscenely long post, so as to get a better handle on where I stand with each.

Here's how they stack up:

Rent - Highlander is $1000 for the room rental, Hills is $175. Hills will not require a security guard, nor dictate where we get our booze or food.

At first blush, it seemed like a no-brainer, but there's a few things the Highlander includes which Hills does not. First, it includes minions. Hotel employees to set up the tables, serve stuff, and whisk things away when we're done. I'm told we have sufficient nieces and nephews for that, but as Nelle pointed out, I'd still want to be there to supervise. That said, I might be willing to do that if we can get a comparable space for a reduced cost. However, it also includes dishes, tablecloths, silverware, glasses, etc. So I did a little comparison to see what these items cost. Again, estimates based on 175 people showing up.

The tables at the CC are the long square type, not the round ones like at Old Brick. So although Don's niece Maria offered to go in with me on tablecloths, we wouldn't be able to use the same ones. Aero has them for $5.50 each. Figure 8 people to a table, we need 22 tables. That's $124.00 to rent tablecloths. I didn't price napkins.

If I wanted to compare apples to apples, I'd look at the rental prices of Aero china, which has 10 plates for $5.45, meaning we'd need to spend $96 on the main plate, and I didn't even price the small plates for bread or salads. However, although I'm willing to spend the time to supervise "insodus and exodus," the idea of spending my wedding night doing dishes, or waiting around to supervise while others do them and pack them up to drop them off, is right out.

So I priced plastic instead. I saw realistic-looking plastic silverware at Hobby Lobby for $4.99 for a box of 8. That's $110 for silverware, without allowing for drops - so say $130. We can get extra forks for the cake - I believe it was 20 forks for $4.99 (though I'm shakier on that figure), so say $44 for the dessert forks, plus $130 for the regular silverware, making $175.00 all told. Plastic big plates online run 18 for $15.49 if you want a china-like plate, or 20 for $5.48 if you want the regular kind. Let's use the cheap estimate (even though I'd probably want the nice ones) and budget $55 for plates.

There are small plates for bread and salad as well, which I haven't priced, so guesstimate $35 for those. That pops the total up to $265 for dishes and silverware.

Glassware is also needed. I presume we'd want at least one round's worth of champagne glasses, three cups per person for beer (people always leave those suckers around) and maybe one round of wine glasses (fewer people drinking it, but they'll still leave them around). That means I need 175 plastic champagne glasses, about 500 beer/regular cups, and 175 plastic wine glasses. Champagne glasses are online for $7.99 a 10/pack, regular glasses for $3.99 for 25, and wine glasses for $6.99 per 20. Doing the math, it appears we'd spend $285 in plastic cups. That added to the total of $265 for the dishes makes $550 in tableware. That seems like a bit much, although it could be right 'cause I've looked at 10 different websites and I'm not seeing much cheaper. But say I could find it in person at about another 25% off. We're still looking at $412 for dinnerware, added to the $124 for the tablecloths, and we're up to $536. Add in twenty bucks or so for napkins, and call it $550.

Add that to the $175 for basic room rental, and we're starting to look more like this:

Highlander - $1000, HCC - $725

There are a couple of other things as well: Don and I get a complimentary room at the Highlander. Not so much the Hills Community Center - at least, not one with a bed. . . .

We'll leave that alone.

So now we have to acquire transportation either back home or to an IC hotel, either at an inconvenience cost to one of our friends (yep, I'd hitch a ride in my wedding dress) or - what? another limo?

Further, while the Highlander has gone downhill from when I last used it (think reduction from Mariott level to the basic budget hotel level), it's still fairly decent in terms of decor, we'll only have to do centerpieces plus maybe a little bit of room decoration. HCC needs some bling. This will mean a couple of hundred bucks or so in tulle and decorations.

All told, the savings is not that significant to use the HCC rent-wise. In fact, I'd put it in about a dead heat. Now, I do need to figure in the booze difference and food difference. But if I go with the plan I outlined below, the food is not so significantly different from using our own caterer. It's really booze prices that pop things up.

First, who will be drinking what? I would say that out of a crowd of 175, some of whom are underage or not really drinkers, we can presume 100 will be drinking beer. Maybe 30 will be drinking wine. There are about 100 10-oz servings of beer in a keg. So presume three kegs of beer (three beers apiece). Wine bottles have about 4 servings each, so say 23 bottles of wine. And if we did a champagne round for probably 150 guests, at 5 servings per bottle, we're looking at about 30 bottles of wine.

Okay, a keg at the Highlander is $195. I haven't done a kegger in years, but I'm pretty sure it's still around $90 somewhere at the grocery store. For three kegs, that's $270 through the grocery store, $585 through the Highlander, a $315difference. Yes, I know I'm seriously underestimating the amount of beer if this were a theater party, but we have relatives too and they'll need to drive, and a bunch of them are underage, and we're not in college. So with 100 guests at three beers apiece is 300 cups of beer, divided by 100 would be 3 kegs. Wine through the Highlander is about $18 per bottle, and I know we can get a decent bottle at the grocery store for about $10 on sale. That's $8 per bottle difference. At 23 bottles, that's a $184 difference. The Highlander's champagne is $15 per bottle. I can get something off at the grocery store, but not a lot. Say $10 per bottle again - I am not going with totally cheap champagne. That's a $150 difference. So total guestimated booze differential is $649, less if we do the hospitality room idea.


BTW - of course, if we do that idea it would only be for the wedding party and close friends. Basically, those of us who would go to the shower and have provided the liquor. We're not opening an alternate bar per se. Just cutting down on the cost for those of us semi-professional alcoholics theater people. Here's how I envision it: Provide one round of champagne and the three kegs. The rest is a cash bar. That makes the booze tab around $435. We have 23 bottles of wine and a few bottles of assorted liquor in the hospitality room, plus Guiness for Don and Killian's for Nelle. Those of us who provided the wine/liquor/good beer at the shower - again probably theater people - can avail themselves of the goodies. We'll let some others in on it, depending on the relationship, but it will not be widely announced. Most of the people we don't let in on it will be perfectly happy with the "normal" beer the Highlander is serving for 175 per keg (that hurts to type it), so will not really care anyway. But we can pull down the booze differential by $210 for the wine, plus get what we really wanted to drink anyway.

To sum it all up, I think the real difference in using the two spaces is about $650 or $450 if we do the Hospitality room. That's significant. But what would I pay to not have to drive down to Hills in the morning to set up tables and decorate the room, rather than just popping by the Highlander to throw up the centerpieces before going to get my hair done, my dress on and a zillion details worked out? More importantly, what would I pay when the reception's over not to have to worry about stuff getting cleaned and put back, or sit there until it is? Finally, we're all from Iowa City, but I've got Chicago people coming in and they could get lost in the boondocks at night. Nelle commented that we could lose theater friends if it's in Hills, though I've seen them drive much farther than 10 miles for free liquor and food. Also, we'd have real china and silverware. We'd be able to stay on-site.

I'm going to run these numbers by Don, but I'm still thinking the Highlander is the way to go. Thoughts?

UPDATE:

A little searching on the web and I'm told keg costs could be closer to $100, even through the grocery store, since we'd have to haul ice, etc.

Oh, and it hasn't gone unnoticed that the total cost of the shindig at dinner will stand at about $5000 between rent, food at about $10 a head, and these liqur calculations. That's not even adding in decorations and stuff, the church, the flowers, photos, the tuxes, the honeymoon, etc. So we're probably looking at ten grand by the time we're all done.

Given that's about double the price of a really nice vacation to get married somewhere spectacular with just the two of us, even with a basic bouquet, a nice but simple dress, and our own booze bill . . . . I must really like you guys. Actually, its more that I think Don's life is worth at least that much, since I've been told by all that he'd get killed if I whisked him away and got married without the family. I think the rest of you would be satisfied if we came back afterward and had a really big TTT.