Since most churches will decorate the altar for Christmas, you can skip the cost of floral arrangements for the church if you decide to get married during the month of December. Most churches have beautiful and elaborate decorations to celebrate the season.
Meaveen, a bride of ours who was married the first weekend in January, was able to capitalize on her church’s and reception site’s decorating for added ambiance. Those of you who have been with us for a while know that I’m a huge fan of Christmas and have been known to decorate with multiple trees. Well, I kind of have to do that since I’ve been collecting ornaments since I was thirteen… Anyways, I really liked the multiple Christmas tree display that St. Catherine’s of Sweden Church had decorating their altar.
And the Grand Hall at the Priory looked especially regal with the large Christmas trees flanking the entrance and the even larger tree behind the bridal table.
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My friend Dana sent me an interesting list today. She called it the Best of Olan Mills Photography and it was a riot. Stop by the list of the day to see what had Paul laughing out loud.
On a more serious note, I’ve been compiling a list of topics for the blog. Since we’re now into the “slow season”, I’ll be able to post more often. For some reason, January, February and March just aren’t the busy popular wedding months like October and September.
For those of you interested, here are the most popular wedding months for Pennsylvania according to Bridal Bargains Book:
Most popular months
- October (by FAR! We book up for October dates at least 18-24 months in advance. This year’s hot date? Oct. 18th)
- June
- September
Least popular months
- January
- March
- February
Side note from the years of experience amassed by Paul & Cyndy: If you want a high turnout rate for your wedding, go with a date in February or March. Since there are no other weddings to compete with and football season is over, your invitees have a relatively free schedule. Our past brides report that attendance was in the 90-95% range when a wedding occurred in an off month.
Just a thought…
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One of the easiest and most effective ways to save money on a wedding is to change your date to a Friday or Sunday or schedule your wedding during the off season. Typically most people get married during the months of May, June, July, August, September, and October with October being the most popular time in Pittsburgh. June and July are tied for second. These Saturdays during these months tend to book up over a year in advance.
However, most people don’t think to get married on a Friday or Sunday during the busy season. For 2006, we only had 7 weddings take place on a Friday or Sunday and only 9 take place on a Saturday during January-April and November-December. To encourage business during the slow times we, and many other wedding-related businesses, offer substantial savings for customers that book off-season weddings. Currently the discount for Paul Meyer Photography is $400 for these slower periods.
Other vendors that we know of also offer discounts. I have heard of a reception site that gives free apetizers for Sunday weddings and another that takes a discount of $5/plate for off times.
It pays to explore different date/day alternatives!
Here’s a photo from an April wedding. It was warm enough where the couple and guests didn’t need coats or jackets:
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