This blog is written by Alice Robertson from TidyHome.info. Alice Robertson began her career in the home organization industry as a professional house cleaner. After cleaning and organizing her clients’ homes for years, she decided to open her own home organization business. She recently created tidyhome.info as a place to share the great cleaning and organizing advice she has developed over the years.
Home Wedding
If you’re in charge of turning someone’s home into a wedding headquarters, you already have your work cut out for you. However, if you’re trying to do it without breaking the bank, some real planning is necessary. The home needs to magically become the place where the wedding party will eat, sleep, hang out, get ready, and eventually get hitched, and where the guests will gather afterward. What’s more, the home also may need to house the bridal party’s family. Here are some tips for anyone planning this type of home-based wedding.
Rent a Tent
This rhyming suggestion tops the list. Having some tented outdoor space does a lot for your wedding venue. For one, it provides shelter from any inclement weather during the ceremony and/or reception. Beyond that, it provides a nice, shaded area for friends and family to hang out before the wedding. This is especially vital if space is limited inside the home. It doesn’t have to be expensive; here’s a good guide on pricing, sizing, and types of tenting.
Style the Arch with a New Pergola or Trellis
A home wedding needs a centerpiece under which the happy couple can say their vows. Did you know that you can get a pergola or trellis built and installed in a backyard for fairly cheap? Pergolas may run a couple thousand dollars (outside your price range perhaps), but according to HomeAdvisor, you can get a brand new trellis for around $400 to $900. Even cheaper are the prefab models, which can range from $10 to $100.
Create a Quick, Low-Cost Indoor Staging Area
At a true wedding HQ, the bridal party will get ready (hair, makeup, dress) right inside the home. This means you need to create a staging area. One low-cost option is to choose one less-used room in the home and clear it out. Rent a storage unit for the weekend and move everything there; you can get one of these for around $100 or less. Set up cheap folding tables and chairs and hang low-cost mirrors. This barebones setup is cheap and easy, and it can be spruced up with some floral arrangements and other inexpensive decorative elements.
Hire a Daily Cleaning Service
No matter what you think, the home — both inside and out — is going to get dirtier and more disgusting than you can even imagine. You can’t clean it up by yourself, and to be honest, the costs of buying cleaning supplies to handle a couple of days of wedding activity byproducts will be too much. So, hire a cleaning service. You may be able to negotiate a discount since you’ll be using them for multiple days. There are other ways to make this very affordable.
Skip the Catering Service
Catering for just the reception alone runs the average couple up to $4,000 on average, with top catering services charging more than $10,000 — it’s a huge expense. If you’re planning a wedding at a home that is going to serve as headquarters for the party and family to meet, hang, and live for a few days, then the costs to feed everyone can become exorbitant.
Skip the formal catering; instead, handle the food yourself. For wedding prep and hangouts, order takeout and grab finger foods at the grocery store. For the wedding reception, consider some of these low-cost food ideas, such as a build-your-own-taco bar or BBQ.
The main things you need to cover as someone planning a home wedding HQ are feeding people, making sure the outdoor venue is decorative and dry, providing space to get ready indoors, and making sure the headquarters stays spotless throughout the wedding weekend. This can all be done without busting budgets if you plan ahead and think smart.
Photo by Wu Jianxiong on Unsplash