re: Wedding Planning - UPDATED

I got married in April at White Oak Plantation and they had both outside and inside options in case of weather. We did both the wedding and reception there. They do have their own in house catering and alcohol, but I was impressed with all of it. It was actually really nice that they took care of everything and gave us less to worry about.

Faculty Club is actually a great option, but I believe it does not hold a large amount. Lod Cook is also another good option but they get you on caterer and booze.

One thing that I priced out was buying my own booze and hiring four or five bartenders which was still cheaper than going through the caterer - by a lot.

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Seriously, $55K?

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You'd be surprised at how little $55k gets you, even with an invite list half that size.

Ours is going to run about that amount, if not a little more, for an invite list of 200 or so. And we aren't going all out, in fact we have been making efforts to make things cheaper as we plan.

Of course, just being in New Orleans alone raises the cost significantly, which blows.

White oak has been one of the better option so far, definitely.

I'll definitely try to keep everyone updated, especially if I get to keep the 400 person guest list. I'm always up for a good challenge and only spending $55K seems like a pretty good challenge to me!

Sorry, can't humor another person blindly supporting the wedding/industrial complex. You will have an entire lifetime (g-d willing) to entertain with your soon-to-be spouse, you don't have to accomplish 5 years' worth in one damn night. The short answer is if you have to economize on price for a 400 person event, you can't afford it.

I'm familiar with certain cultural groups that have a tradition of huge wedding attendance, but most of those traditions also involve shared financial burden for the wedding across a very large extended family, or a tradition of cooperative wedding production (i.e., one segment of the family hosts guests in their homes, another segment handles the food, another covers the entertainment). But on a standard, modern Southern cost share, this event is the equivalent of the yearly salary of some of your attendees (let's face it, all 400 aren't OT ballers).

I know some Mardi Gras krewes that have balls with fewer than 400 attendees, LOL.

I suggest reverse-engineering this thing: what is your max budget? Find a venue & caterer you really love. See how many people you can afford to host at a location & with food/drink that make you happiest. If it's 50 ppl, so be it.

Then, once you're settled, you can have 1,001 dinner parties, barbecues, poolside blowouts, boozy brunches, etc with various combinations of your friends. That $55K will keep you entertaining in a lavish fashion for years to come.

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I know someone who had their reception at the LA State Museum

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This is where we are having our reception. 200 person guest-list. Expect 150 or so. Caterer is in charge of booze, though they are letting me bring about 30 gallons of homebrew.

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White Oak is great

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My wife and I were going to get married here, beautiful venue and the staff was great.

In the end we looked at the cost, realized we were having this big wedding for other people and not us, and decided to go get married on the beach in Mexico and save $20K.

If I wasn't so concerned about January Louisiana weather, I bet there would be a ton of options for an outdoor reception. I did however price out what it would take to rent tents, chairs, tables, etc. to put on an outdoor reception myself. Unfortunately, The price to do that yourself equals the price it would take to just pay somebody (a venue) to take host. The big kicker and that comparison is that, me renting it, I am responsible for putting it up and tearing it down, and getting it back to the rental place.