Wendy Albrecht and her fiancé, Paul Zollner, set their wedding dresses budget earlier this summer at $8,000.
Since they'd both been impacted by salary cuts and wage freezes during the recession, they decided to go with what they considered a fairly reasonable budget.
"I felt more insecure, so I thought I should just save and not really spend too much," Albrecht said.
With that budget, Albrecht, 41, and Zollner, 49, both of Longmont, assumed they could still have their dream wedding with 100 of their closest family and friends. But after talking with several vendors, they soon realized that their budget wouldn't come close to covering all the items on their wish list.
"To do it somewhat traditionally, even frugal, it looks like $10,000 is what we're going to have to be at," Albrecht said.
Yet even after bumping up their budget, Albrecht and Zollner will have to re-envision their wedding. Now they're planning a more informal ceremony with a barbecue instead of prime rib, an iPod instead of a band and yard games instead of formal dancing.
Albrecht and other Boulder County brides are still feeling the recession. Many are uncertain about their new family's job security and would rather save money for a rainy day than host a lavish celebration.
Though the average wedding cost increased by 23 percent from 2009 to 2010, first and second quarter numbers for 2011 show that average costs have dropped back down to mid-recession levels, according to the Wedding Report's quarterly study.
Another survey conducted by Brides magazine found that average wedding costs dropped from $28,082 in 2009 to $26,501 in 2011.
The decline points to a continued level of uncertainty among couples who still want to get married but also want so save.
Because Boulder and other parts of Colorado often are the site for destination weddings, the cost decline hasn't been as drastic locally, some area business owners say. But
Sarah Cioni, owner of Painted Primrose, prepares roses for clients. Despite the ongoing recession, Cioni says weddings are "recession proof," noting her business keeps growing year over year. ( MARTY CAIVANO )
since 2009, Boulder County business owners have noticed a few distinct wedding trends coming out of the recession -- and they are implementing new ideas and services to keep their businesses growing.
Smaller, more intimate weddings
Brooke Hill founded The Celebration Studio in 2009, and said her new business has grown every year since then. In 2011, she estimated that about 90 percent of her clients' budgets were $35,000 or more, and went as high as $200,000.
Hill said many of the weddings she planned in 2011 were destination weddings.
"The destination weddings have smaller guest counts, but couples want to make it worthwhile for their guests to be at the wedding," Hill said.
She said she noticed more couples choosing Fridays or Sundays, instead of the traditional Saturdays, because many venues offer discounted rates for those days. Hill also noticed that couples were opting to hire her for the day of the wedding only, and did the actual wedding planning themselves.
In addition to couples with larger budgets, Hill said she worked with plenty of do-it-yourself brides. One client used different sized votive candles as centerpieces to cut her floral costs. Other clients choose venues that allowed them to bring in their own food and alcohol, which cut costs significantly.
"You can still have a nice cheap wedding dresses and it doesn't necessarily come off to your guests that you're trying to have a budget wedding," Hill said.
Another planner, Honey Ahijevych of Seize the Day event planners, said most of her clients' budgets in 2010 were about $5,000 to $10,000 below the national average.
"The elaborate, over-the-top weddings are a thing of the past right now for some people," Ahijevych said. "People are going for simple, earthy, understated weddings because they just don't have the money now."
She agreed that there are still some couples with money for an expensive wedding, but that she hasn't worked with many budgets in the middle of the spectrum.
"It's more of a case of the haves and the have-nots," she said. "There's a huge gap between people who have a lot of money (for weddings) and the rest of the population who just don't have it."
During the 2011 wedding season, Seize the Day planned about half the number of the weddings it planned in 2010. Ahijevych saw three brides postpone their weddings or cancel them altogether because they simply couldn't afford to make it happen.
Ahijevych cut her prices and added more services, and her staff is working harder than ever to scour vendors for the best value or lowest cost to fit into clients' budgets.
But her bookings for 2012 are back to pre-recession levels, and Ahijevych said she feels that this is the turning point for weddings.
"Everybody's getting confidence back now, and next year will be when people feel, 'We can do this. We don't need to be scared anymore,'" she said.
Optimism about 2012 weddings
The national average for spending on wedding photography and videography is around $4,000, according to the Wedding Report. In Boulder County, there are countless wedding photographers who offer different prices and packages.
Erin Cox, a Louisville-based wedding photographer, said that competition for photographers has become increasingly steep in recent years. Many couples are opting to ask their friends or family members to take their wedding pictures for little to no cost.
Instead of competing with a dozen professional photographers in the area, Cox now vies with hundreds of semi-professionals and amateurs. The saturated photography market gives brides greater flexibility in the price and quality of their photos.
Cox charges between $3,500 and $5,000 depending on the amount of time she spends with a couple and the services they request. Since the recession, Cox said she's seen many brides spend less on photography, and end up regretting it later.
"It's something you can never get back," Cox said. "It's the one thing you shouldn't risk on your wedding day."
Nadine Zhou owns Boulder Bridal, a small wedding dress shop with prices ranging from $2,000 to $5,000. Zhou and her staff do all of the alterations in the store, and pride themselves on being more personal than wedding dress chain stores.
Her business has been steady, but Zhou said she hasn't seen much growth in the last five years. She said brides' dress budgets have dropped so low that often she doesn't have a dress to fit their needs.
And yet, she said, it doesn't take much to convince them to spend more on a dress. Once brides put into perspective a $2,000 dress when the rest of their wedding costs 10 times that amount, they're willing to give a little more to look and feel good, she said.
"If they find a dress they love and it's not too much over the budget, they're still going to buy it," Zhou said. "To most brides, the wedding dress is the most important. It's the centerpiece of your wedding. Everybody focuses on the bride and you have to look fabulous."
The Painted Primrose, a Boulder florist, opened at the height of the recession. Sarah Cioni has three wedding seasons behind her, and said she's seen huge growth in her business.
"Part of me wants to say that weddings are recession proof," she said. "Because my first year I did 30, last year was 50 something and this year it's 65. It just keeps growing."
Paying for the wedding
While some Boulder weddings stuck to a strict budget in the last three years, many spent without restrain. Part of the ambivalent nature of the industry may be in part due to who provides the funding for the wedding.
Many parents are offering their children finite amounts of wedding help because they themselves may have fallen victim to the recession. Amy Van Pelt and her husband paid for more than half of their September wedding.
"My father gave me a very set amount, and that was it," Van Pelt, 29, said.
Because they were spending their own money, Van Pelt said she scoured the area for the best deals on everything from the venue to programs and place cards. She paid her photographer in cash to get a discount, and kept her eye out for coupons to craft supply stores.
Van Pelt is one of many brides who learned that they can save money and have their dream wedding, too. Even though she planned on a budget, Van Pelt and other brides found that it didn't impact the quality of her special day.
"Of course I wish I had an unlimited budget," she said. "But I definitely could say that mine was just as good as any of those."
