Audra Lowe: When you first get in engage, your overwhelmed with joy, got a lot of excitement going on but then when it comes down to getting down the business and starting the whole planning process. There are a lot of different feelings that come into play. We’re talking of mainly about the stress.
So here to help you avoid some of the most stressful situations when it comes to dealing with your budget is celebrity wedding planner and author Donnie Brown. He’s the author of the book “Donnie Brown Weddings: From the Couture to the Cake”. Welcome back. Good to have you here.
Donnie Brown: Audra, thanks for having me.
Audra Lowe: I love this book. You’re looking very dapper on the cover here.
Donnie Brown: Thank you.
Audra Lowe: Very slushy as always.
Donnie Brown: Thank you.
Audra Lowe: It took you year and a half to write the book right?
Donnie Brown: Year and a half and then a lot longer to find somebody that wanted to publish it, but I think you know how that goes.
Audra Lowe: It’s here now though.
Donnie Brown: It’s here now.
Audra Lowe: And you’re helping millions of brides out their save. This is the stuff that I wish I knew beforehand when you’re planning your wedding about saving money and the hidden costs that are involved and one of them that you mentioned in the book was the service charge and their gratuity for catering of the food and beverage. They slide it in their, right?
Donnie Brown: Oh gosh, they slide it in there and you need to know this, when you go in and they say okay, it’s going to be $85.00 a plate then and another $35.00 for alcohol then they are going to do another 20% to 22% service charging gratuity then tax.
Audra Lowe: On that total? Is that right?
Donnie Brown: On top of it.
Audra Lowe: Which is crazy.
Donnie Brown: So if it’s a $100.00, you can add another $30.00 per every 100 approximately.
Audra Lowe: And I love the gratuity to 20% to 22 % that you’re paying right off the top without before they even know.
Donnie Brown: As if they had no ant marked up everything to begin with.
Audra Lowe: Another hidden cost is also and something that most people don’t think about; framing and matting of the picture that you’re going to have you know throughout your wedding.
Donnie Brown: That’s right You go the photographer, you get your portrait done for the wedding, note but what’s in there is this beautiful 24 about 20 portrait but nobody says anything about the matting and framing in a glass, and that can be $400.00, $600.00, $800.00, $1000, it depends on the frame you want, very expensive.
Audra Lowe: Yeah exactly. You think your getting buy was just a simple photo upfront but different story.
Donnie Brown: No.
Audra Lowe: Also the alternations not just for the ladies but for the men. Those costs creep up and you don’t really think about every single time you go in you got to pay.
Donnie Brown: That’s exactly right and so be very careful about letting your wife fluctuate between the time that you first fit and the last fitting because every time it flexes it all and women should be very careful to look out for their water weight gain on their monthly cycle because that has a huge impact on the gown fit.
Audra Lowe: Right, right.
Donnie Brown: So and every time it can be, a 100 it could be a 1000.
Audra Lowe: That could ruin a friendship because they are like, ‘I didn’t know I have to pay off this extra money each time I come in’ but you got to tell everybody too.
Donnie Brown: Of course you do. Nothing’s free in this world.
Audra Lowe: Yeah, nothing’s free especially not the bar. There is another hidden cost there, it’s called consider consumption versus package bar. What exactly that does mean?
Donnie Brown: This is one of the thorns in my side. Consumption is if they estimate, let’s say they estimate $25.00 a person in alcohol. You pay that upfront but what you don’t know is that they are going to put a mark down next to every beverage that they serve all night long and at the end of the night you’re going to get a bill if they didn’t estimate properly and I’ve had clients that have a $5000.00 bill added at the end of the night. You want to talk about tears of not joy.
Audra Lowe: Exactly.
Donnie Brown: From a bride.
Audra Lowe: And you got to tell them obviously after the day of their wedding because you can’t walk away and say you know, two days later.
Donnie Brown: That’s right. Now package bar is a different story because they’ll do an estimation and say it’s so much per hour and then it doesn’t matter how much your guest drink. You have nothing else to spend. It will be a little more expensive upfront but not merely what consumption could end up being.
Audra Lowe: Exactly. Oh that’s just a little bit of what you’ll find in this book. Thank you so much Donnie and good luck to you.
Donnie Brown: Thank you for having me.
Audra Lowe: Congratulations. Thanks for coming back and if you guys ready to planning your wedding or you know somebody else who is you want to pick up Donnie’s book, it’s called “Donnie Brown Weddings: From the Couture to the Cake” and inside of that book, you’ll find your entire time line laid out for you and advise on setting your budget.
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