Crowdsourcing a Wedding

[Seatbelt]

Hey Playgrounders. My Fiancee and I have been talking about getting married for years. Every year we say we're going to do it next spring or next fall or whenver, and then it comes time to plan for it and we realize we haven't been able to save enough. Or something came up, or something.

So now we're looking in to ways to crowd fund some or all of the wedding. My better half is worried that members of her family might look down on it as an inappropriate way to raise revenue. I think it's an amazing idea. Folks have been able to crowd fund stupider things than a wedding.

Basically I'm asking if you, as a person, would consider contributing a dollar to a stranger's wedding (not necessarily mine). I also want to know what you would think of a relative or friend trying to do something like this?

[Aedilred]

Well, it doesn't seem a terrible idea, particularly if you have people contributing towards the cost of the wedding (and thus their own entertainment) rather than getting you a wedding gift.

On the other hand, if you're entirely dependent on crowdsourcing, you might fall quite short. Although you can do weddings on the cheap, assuming you don't want a bare-bones civil ceremony and drinks at your mum's house, they rapidly become very expensive, and you need a fair amount just to get started. Given that it's not your money, too, one might feel a moral compunction to spend the money on things the guests are actually going to get some benefit from - more on the entertainments, and less on the dress, say... but then, one of the best ways to cut costs on a wedding is to cut back on paid entertainments, so there's a bit of a conflict of interest there. If you're contributing your own cash as well then that's less of a problem, but there's still the issue of whether everything goes into one big pot, or whether you divide up the money in some way for different purposes, etc.

A lot of crowdsourcing is done on the principle that the investors get something back - whether they're getting a share of the profit, or pre-purchased stock, or just to see a cool movie or get to play a game or whatever. With a wedding, though, how do you cater for that? Do you invite all your contributors? Just those over a certain value? The more guests you have, the more expensive it will be, which goes back to the previous point as well.

A lot of people will probably agree with your prospective in-laws' assumed opinion, too. People can be funny when it comes to cash (I am, to be honest) and this sort of thing would probably leave some people feeling uncomfortable. When it comes to cash gifts on these occasions, it can be pretty awkward. You don't want people feeling obliged to contribute.

Would I consider contributing a dollar (or pound, in my case, I suppose) to a stranger's wedding? I'd consider it, but in all likelihood I probably wouldn't. It would largely depend on the circumstances: unless I'm in an unusually indiscriminate and philanthropic mood, I'd probably need a better reason to do so than a basic "we want to get married but don't want to/can't pay for it", but there'd be all sorts of things to consider.

But then, as you say, people have crowdfunded stupider things. If you sell it right, there's no reason it couldn't work.

[Don Julio Anejo]

I'm with the Nay crowd here. Now, I have absolutely nothing against weddings on the cheap: if they're done right. A beachfront wedding with maybe 20 guests (closest family and friends) would cost less than $5000 with all the arrangements, priest and caterer, plus another 2-3 for the dress and tuxedo and $700-1200 for a photographer. It's also classy, small and more intimate

On the other hand, it depends entirely on what your SO wants: weddings are typically a girl's dream. Us guys couldn't care any less. If she wants a lot of guests but you guys can't afford to spend $40-50k (what a typical lower-end wedding with lots of guests would cost), it depends if _she's_ okay with crowdsourcing it and the social stigma that would come with it.

Also, be prepared for criticism yourself: older generation may see it as your failure as a man to provide for a wedding. Depends how traditional/uptight the relatives are though.

[Seatbelt]

I will say that after browsing through various websites that general crowd sourcing it seems that most weddings don't get the contributions they expect. I think the most I saw was $500, the average was 4 contributors, and all but two of them were from family members (over maybe 20-25 contributors across multiple listings). Which is about what I'd expect, frankly. It would be super neato if people wanted to fund my wedding but I don't expect it without a gimmik and my story is not particularly unique or compelling. There are lots of poor grad student high school sweet hearts too broke to etc etc.

On the other hand there is crowdtilt. This website seems set up in such a way that it's not crowdsourcing per say. It seems.... well, it seems like if you're planning a group trip to vegas and you are in charge of throwing this amazing party for your friends, you get everyone coming to throw money in the pot and crowdtilt works like kickstarter for your party. You want x thousand dollars, your friends kick in either more than X and you throw your party or less than X and no money is collected.

It seems less like crowdfunding and more like... the community pot.

So how would you feel if you got a message from your friend saying "We're throwing this wedding. We anticipate needing some value of money to pull it off. In lieu of gifts we're asking for donations to fund the wedding. We humbly ask that you please go here and make a contribution that you seem fitting."

Or some language to that affect. How would that strike you? How would you feel if you got something like that but knew the likelihood of you being invited to the wedding was slim? Say because you're like a drinking buddy or part of the same gaming group but not best friends forever. If you contributed would you expect to be invited?

On a related note we are friends with an excellent photographer so we're not worried about paying for that. I've also seen that it is more and more common to "crowd source your album." Wherein you provide cheap cameras to the guests you can develop later, or you provide access to an FTP or something people can upload their own photos too.

[Tebryn]

I'd tell you to take it to a Justice of the Peace and throw a party instead. I'd be more inclined to pay for a party over your personal wedding. Throw a wedding when you can afford it.

[Seatbelt]

I probably should have mentioned that we're mostly talking about the reception. Maybe the dress.

We want to have a short'n'fast ceremony. We're not renting a huge church and my s/o is a singer, and she knows lots of musicians. So even if we need music we have an ample supply. The actual wedding-y bit is going to be pretty cheap.

[warty goblin]

I probably should have mentioned that we're mostly talking about the reception. Maybe the dress.

We want to have a short'n'fast ceremony. We're not renting a huge church and my s/o is a singer, and she knows lots of musicians. So even if we need music we have an ample supply. The actual wedding-y bit is going to be pretty cheap.
Congrats!

On topic, you're asking for money to have a nice party. At least for me, when it comes to things for which I'd be tempted to give up my discretionary income, other people having parties - however wonderful the occasion - is fairly low on the list. I mean it's not really a cause or anything like that, is it?

Besides, you can pull off a quite lovely get-together for very little cash out of pocket. I think my sister's total wedding expenses were $2,000, absolute tops. Had it at a friend's house, which meant it was a nice, homey space. The food was potluck, with main dish and bread provided by us, so it was a good meal and vastly cheaper than you can get catered*. Probably the best wedding I've been to, because the space was nice, and the stress levels were so low it felt like a celebration rather than a production. And aren't wedding receptions supposed to be celebrations after all?

*I worked at a lot of weddings during my years in food service. Having a catered reception, particularly with an open bar, is essentially a way to pump money out of your bank account into the restaurants, in exchange for really fairly pedestrian food and alcohol sold at 100% mark-up.

[Dallas-Dakota]

On a related note we are friends with an excellent photographer so we're not worried about paying for that.
Yeah, if he's excellent, and you're only friends and not superduper BFF's, he's still going to charge you. Perhaps at a friend-price, but beware that a good photographer will still charge.

You're asking him/her to work. Would you expect the caterer to work for free, because he's a friend? Would you expect the priest/whoever does the service to do it for free?

But the caterer needs to arrange a lot of food/drinks, etc and the priest needs to pay for the church, etc.?

The photographer needs to pay for his equipment(For some reason we don't get free new equipment every couple of years:smalltongue:), his time invested in learning new ways of photographing/keeping up to date/skilled, the time invested in preparing/talking to you about what you want.(Do you want specific group shots? Do you also want the reception photographed or just the ceremony? etc.), post-production(sorting the foto's, possible style-adding, possible photoshopping) and then he also needs to earn his bread and butter.

Being a wedding photographer, it's incredibly stressfull as every ''perfect'' moment also needs a perfect photograph to capture it. And getting all the unique moments photographed perfectly is tough. They're not going to happen again. (unless you're ballsy and have the guts(sometimes you have to) to ask if they can put on the ring again for the picture, so to say(how you ask that is a skill on it's own).

They're working. Don't expect them to work for you for free just because you're friends.


I've also seen that it is more and more common to "crowd source your album." Wherein you provide cheap cameras to the guests you can develop later, or you provide access to an FTP or something people can upload their own photos too.
You really want half of your guests standing up and down and into the aisle so half of your wedding can be filled with flashes instead of people enjoying your wedding.(Not to mention that you'l also be distracted with being blinded instead of focussing on the person you're committing the rest of your life to, at that moment. You don't want that)

Not to mention that only a tenth, at most, will be really use-able. And you'l have to sort (through) those hundreds, sometimes thousands(especially when you encourage everybody to take pictures and upload it to one album) of pictures.. When you want to be on your honeymoon/enjoy your time as freshlyweds.


So for all who thought that was TL-DR:
A wedding is a unique happy moment, for you and your guests: Invest in that moment instead of taking a lot away from the happy moment so you can spare some money. Get a real photographer.

The only way a real photographer will do it for free/real cheap for you if (s)he comes towards you, offering it.

Sorry for the rant guys, as a photographer and a extrovert, the amount of friends I have (who don't really know me, my real friends know better) who ask for me to photograph their event for free is too high. Then again, being a photographer is romanticized profession, so it's to be expected...)
_________

And speaking from personal experience, having been to a wedding which was only partly crowdsourced(partly with money, partly with friends working at the wedding): It was a happy wedding, but the quality was bad. The translator was bad. Me 'n a mate fixed up the sound and lighting equipment last minute because nobody had done it(the delivery guy delivered it, the DJ didn't do it as he wasn't asked to, he was just asked to DJ for a couple of hours for cheap) as a favor to the groom. People will do the favor/job you ask them to do, nothing more. Conclusion: Just don't. But if you do it, make sure you have everything organised perfectly.(And you won't, it's impossible)

Then again, for helping out the groom got me a glass of 30 year old single malt Scotch Whiskey which was not on the open bar menu, so go ahead I say.:smalltongue:

[GnomeFighter]

If you want to get married you need Justice of the Peace/Registrar or equivalent in your country and a venue. You could do it for £500 tops. Even cheaper if you are religious. The rest of the spending is just a waste if you can't afford it. If you can you can have a realy nice day, but if you can't it is not needed.

Dresses/Venues/Suits are all just trying to get you to spend money on stuff you will never use again.

Food/Drink/Music etc is just blowing lots of money on a party for other people. You end up feeding people you don't even like. For many of them it is the best meal they have all year and you go in to debt for years to pay for it.

Photographs are something that realy get to me. They costs massive amounts and you never look at them again. We looked at ours once when they arrived, we got one printed that hangs on the wall and thats it. They are in a book somewhere (In storage I think).

Sorry if I sound miserable but I have quite I have very tradtional views on marrage that the important bit (The actualy getting married) gets lost and people end up massively in debt for a party for others. I don't like the £4k we ended up spending, which we could afford, but that could have been better spent on a house deposit. I also don't like the number of people I know who won't get married because they don't have $$$$$ and put the need for a party above the importance of the actual marrage.

[Jay R]

Hey Playgrounders. My Fiancee and I have been talking about getting married for years. Every year we say we're going to do it next spring or next fall or whenver, and then it comes time to plan for it and we realize we haven't been able to save enough. Or something came up, or something.

You have three choices:

1. Decide whether getting married is more important to you that tonight's movie, dinner out, new book or new game. Do that every day.

2. Decide whether your real goal is to bind yourselves together for life, or to throw a big party.

3. Ask total strangers to pay for a party for you.

My recommendation is option 2: get married immediately, without a big party. Then start planning your big fifth anniversary reception, and save money with that in mind.

[razark]

Would you expect the priest/whoever does the service to do it for free?
A friend of mine recently performed a wedding. His price: he got to eat at the reception.

@Seatbelt:
Depending on where you are, it can be done very cheap. If you're anywhere near me, bring me the license and let me sign it. You're married.
(To make it even cheaper, I'll give you a dollar if you let me do it. It's even better than free.)

[Seatbelt]

Yeah, if he's excellent, and you're only friends and not superduper BFF's, he's still going to charge you. Perhaps at a friend-price, but beware that a good photographer will still charge.

You're asking him/her to work. Would you expect the caterer to work for free, because he's a friend? Would you expect the priest/whoever does the service to do it for free?

I never said we asked him to do it, nor did I say that I expected it was going to be free. Just that I wasn't worried about paying for it.


You really want half of your guests standing up and down and into the aisle so half of your wedding can be filled with flashes instead of people enjoying your wedding.(Not to mention that you'l also be distracted with being blinded instead of focussing on the person you're committing the rest of your life to, at that moment. You don't want that)

Not to mention that only a tenth, at most, will be really use-able. And you'l have to sort (through) those hundreds, sometimes thousands(especially when you encourage everybody to take pictures and upload it to one album) of pictures.. When you want to be on your honeymoon/enjoy your time as freshlyweds.

I was at a wedding that did this. They provided cameras at the reception, after the wedding ceremony. The guests all seemed to have fun with it (I know I did) and they posted the pictures when they felt like it, not during their honeymoon. That would be silly. They got a lot of neat interesting pictures - and a little research shows that people seem to be less excited about the canned perfect moments that photographers grab.




We have talked about the justice of the peace option and we've decided that just doing it for the sake of being married is a non-option. We have both decided we want to throw the party.

To the people suggesting savings - we've tried. Really. She works part time and goes to grad school. I make a decent wage but I pay about 1100 in bills and I'm planning on going back to school in the fall as a non-degree seeking student, to buff up my stats before applying to grad school. So no financial aid.

We've talked about pot luck too but the assorted family members we've talked to have all said they've been there done that and while everyone said it was very nice, behind backs they all talked about how cheap and tacky it seemed and how everyone was generally unhappy.

Plus i've worked in catering. I don't want to cater my own wedding.

[razark]

...how everyone was generally unhappy.
When it comes down to it, it really doesn't matter how "everyone" feels about it or how happy they are. There's only two people that you really need to please. It's your wedding, and you should feel free to do it however you want to do it.

[Karoht]

Hi.
I'm pulling off a pretty awesome wedding on less than 8 grand in October. Half of that is the honeymoon.
I also do event planning and management.
I have experience in event management and catering.

What is your actual budget currently, and how much money are we talking about 'raising' via some form of crowdsourcing?

Have you looked into budget saving measures such as crowdsourcing the dress (wife to be plus friends and family help make the dress together) or food? Potluck weddings are becoming more and more popular these days, especially if there is barbeque involved. Fondue is astonishingly cheap on a per person cost, though messy. How many people are you considering trying to feed? Do you have a rough guestlist yet?

Decorations can be expensive, can be cheap too. Sometimes it is better to pay that little bit extra for a prettier venue and a better caterer, so that those details don't have to be paid for yourself, or are handled by someone else.


Now, as for fundraising.
During the wedding, if you set up a wishing well you will garner some donations. You can try and rely on those donations after the fact to cover some costs, but it is hard to say what you might get from it.
If you want to hold an engagement party, you can try to garner those donations ahead of time. Plus, some people might be able to attend the engagement party but not the wedding, so this does present a second opportunity for some people to attend. You can also have a larger guest list at the engagement party, and have a smaller one at the wedding itself.

My advice:
Throw a potluck engagement party. Get as many people there as you can. Especially anyone who you can't fit onto the wedding guestlist. Put out a wishing well just like you would at a wedding.
Either potluck, or do fondue and cocktails with a cheaply priced cash bar.
Please follow all regulations regarding the sale and service of alcohol in your area.
Best of luck.

[Emmerask]

Hey Playgrounders. My Fiancee and I have been talking about getting married for years. Every year we say we're going to do it next spring or next fall or whenver, and then it comes time to plan for it and we realize we haven't been able to save enough. Or something came up, or something.

So now we're looking in to ways to crowd fund some or all of the wedding. My better half is worried that members of her family might look down on it as an inappropriate way to raise revenue. I think it's an amazing idea. Folks have been able to crowd fund stupider things than a wedding.

Basically I'm asking if you, as a person, would consider contributing a dollar to a stranger's wedding (not necessarily mine). I also want to know what you would think of a relative or friend trying to do something like this?

The main thing for crowd funding to work is incentive for others to actually give you money.
Either it is something a group of people always wanted to be done/build/whatever or they get something out of it or both.

While for you it is a very important day of your life strangers won´t get anything out of it (well the feeling of having done something nice for someone) but that doesn´t seem to be enough looking at other crowd funding wedding successes.

So what you need to find is some incentive for others to actually crowd fund your wedding.
Maybe give a part of the bridal bouquet to everyone donating 25$ or something like that.
Maybe a nice picture?
Something you can craft?
A selfmade song for donators as mp3 thanking them?
I duno something ^^

Or use some of the other advice regarding none crowd funded weddings :smallwink:

Best of luck in any case

[Anarion]

I would point out that traditionally, the parents of the bride would be contributing money here. Of course, I have absolutely no idea how any of your families are doing, but I don't think it would be untoward for either of you to go "hey Mom, Dad, we want to get married, can we all get the family together and throw a nice wedding?"

My Mom made her own dress, which saved quite a bit money and might be something that someone in your family could do. Consider asking an aunt or grandmother if none of your parents sew.

You could also use your house, your parents' house, or her parents' house, whatever has the nicest venue. People have already suggested a potluck, though personally if I were going to splurge anywhere, it would be on the food because good food will get a lot of other things forgiven and it's just awesome anyway.

Also, you don't have to have the wedding and the party together. Why not get married for the tax benefits, throw a small family gathering now, and throw a big party when you're done with graduate school and have a job that can afford something more lavish?

[Taffimai]

So how would you feel if you got a message from your friend saying "We're throwing this wedding. We anticipate needing some value of money to pull it off. In lieu of gifts we're asking for donations to fund the wedding. We humbly ask that you please go here and make a contribution that you seem fitting."

Or some language to that affect. How would that strike you?

I would have no problem donating the money I would otherwise put towards a gift, just like I have no problem donating to a "diper fund" instead of buying my friend an actual present for her newborn.


How would you feel if you got something like that but knew the likelihood of you being invited to the wedding was slim? Say because you're like a drinking buddy or part of the same gaming group but not best friends forever. If you contributed would you expect to be invited?

I don't know about your culture, but I have never ever bought a present for someone's wedding unless I was invited to said wedding/the reception. Therefore, I wouldn't contribute towards it unless I knew I was going to be there. In fact, I would consider it in very bad taste, like you were trying to take advantage of me ("I'm not a close enough friend to be invited, but I'm good enough to foot the bill? Yeah, right!").

I agree with what someone above me said: if you can't afford a big party right now, get married without it and save up to have one for the Xth anniversary. It sounds like at this point, your money is better spent on your studies anyway.

[Seatbelt]

I appreciate everyone posting even if I don't necessarily like all the responses. The input either way is valuable (even if sometimes a little discouraging). We've been together 8 years at this point so the idea of finally getting married is exciting. But we're still putting out feelers and researching and gathering information. So thanks all. :)