In this wedding plan, we were tasked with trying to figure out an inexpensive secret garden wedding design that was cohesive and matched the couples desire to have a romantic, secret garden wedding that highlighted their love of their 3 golden retrievers- Howard, Katie, and Eleanor.

Here is what the bride, Ashlee, sent to us in her request:

“What a relief it would be to know someone else is helping to put a little thought / direction into our wedding date! 

It just feels like constantly I get sucked down Pinterest to hundreds of great ideas and then realize none of them truly feel cohesive enough. I thought I’d give myself a long engagement so I would have plenty of time to plan and now I’m worried I’ve just given myself a case of the indecisiveness.”

Wedding Information:

  1. Location- Fort Walton Beach at The WaterVue
  2. Date- October 2 2021
  3. Guest Count: 75-100
  4. Budget- $10,000- $12,000 with $3,000 already spent on Venue, $2,000 spent on Photographer and $1,000 spent on Videographer
  5. Style Preferences- a floral romantic secret garden feel but am worried about the floral cost to do so.
  6. Caterer- Carabba’s because the couple met while working there (a very personalized and inexpensive approach- I love it)
  7. Here is the twist! We have three golden retrievers who will be a part of our whole day and we really want to highlight our love for our goldies

Priorities

For this wedding cplan, the priorities are design, incorporating the dogs and budget. 

Budget Breakdown:

Venue: $2160

Food: $2,160

Florist: $1200

Music: $1200

Photo/video: $1200

Dress/ Attire: $960

Cake: $600

Misc. $360

Officiant: $360

Stationary: $360

Bar: $200

Decor/Rentals: $240

Gifts: $240

Hair and Makeup: $240

Transportation: $240

Hotel: $240

Venue: The WaterVue

The WaterVue in Fort Walton Beach is a gorgeous, all inclusive wedding venue right on the water that offers lots of options for couples including a decor package and DIY options for couples who wish to go that route. The Venue gives tons of information about their services on their website and a package with them includes the following:

  • 75-150: $3,600
  • 12 hours
  • Chairs
    • (134) 16” x 16” 
    • (18) bartsools
  • Tables
    • (16) 36” x 36”
    • (11) 42” x 30”
    • (3) 62” x 30”
    • (2) 60” x 30”
    • (12) 24” hightops
    • (1) 36”  round cake table
    • (1) 47” x 27” sweetheart table
  • Must include a day of coordinator or $500 for a WaterVue Coordinator
  • Must end at midnight and within 12 hours ($500 charge)
  • $300 for Day Prior (rehearsal)
  • $200 for Decoration Package
    • (27) Black 12” x 5” lanterns
    • Mr & Mrs Sign
    • Candelabra
    • Mr & Mrs Pillows
    • Just MArried Sign
    • Illuminated Love Sign
    • Shells
    • Wrought Iron Arch- ugly but maybe if florist can add flowers?
    • (5) Large Tassel Ornaments- ugly
    • Candle Holders- crystal ball
    • Candle Votives
    • Large Easels
    • Small Easels
    • Illuminated Cheers Sign
    • Illuminated Celebrations Sign
    • White LanternsLarge Black Lanterns
    • Wishing Tree w/ Cards
    • Good Wishes Sign

Total: $3,000

Photographer and Videographer:

Photographer: $2,000

Videographer: $1,000

Starting off for this wedding, we’re about $2,640 over budget. So let’s start to figure out if we can’t get this budget back on track.

Timeline:

12:00 pm- Venue Start Time- Vendors start Arriving

4:00 pm- Bride and Groom to be in Wedding Suites at Venue

4:30 pm- Guests start Arriving

5:00 pm- Ceremony

5:30 pm- Cocktail Hour/ Family Photos (200)

6:30 pm- SUNSET

6:30 pm- Reception/ INtroductions

6:35 pm- First Dance

6:40 pm- Toasts

6:55 pm- Blessing

7:00 pm- Dinner- have DJ release tables

8:00 pm- Parent Dances

8:10 pm- Open Dancing

9:00 pm- Cake Cutting

10:00 pm- Bouquet/Garter Toss

10:30 pm- Last Call

11:00pm- Event End Time- Exit

12:00 am- Venue End Time

Caterer:

  • Carrabas
    • Grilled Salmon and Chicken Marsala (100)
      • Caesar Salad
      • Broccoli
      • Garlic MAshed Potatoes
      • Bread/ olive Oil ← anyway we can put on tables before hand?
      • Fresh Baked Cookies ← love this! Don’t need as much cake, just need to figure out how to serve them…
    • Serving Chafing Dishes
    • $2,595 for 100 guests
    • $2,018 for 75 guests ← try to get as close to 75 guests as possible! $27pp
    • No servers- must be a serve your own buffet line
    • Doesn’t include plates, cups, napkins, linens, silverware, etc. will need to rent

Total: $2,018 for 75 guests

Day Of Coordinator:

This venue requires a day of coordinator. If you don’t have a day of coordinator, theirs is $500. Most Day of Coordination would be anywhere between $300-$2,000 for this service. When looking for Day of Coordinator, what you’ll want for this event is someone who is able to set up your decorations. You have a lot of decorations that aren’t typical for events since we’re not going with a traditional caterer but instead Carraba’s. So you’ll want someone who is able to seat it all up especially the plates, silverware, cups and the chaffing dishes with the meals since I don’t think those are not included in the catering or venue. You would also need them to put the linens on tables and I don’t know if the venue sets up the tables prior to your event, but you will need someone who is able to do that as well. 

Talk with the venue to see what they are able to do with their Day of Coordination, otherwise you will have to find someone else. With all the set up that you have to do, it may be more than the $500 set by the venue.

Total: $500

Venue Design:

For this wedding Ashlee wants a floral romantic secret garden feel but is worried about the floral costs and the wood paneling of the very beach-esk wedding venue. Some of the best ways to keep your floral costs down are to repurpose items and to source the vases you need from thrift shops and garage sales instead of renting from the florist or buying online. 

For a secret garden feel wedding ideally there would be tons of fairy lights and greenery. So, while it’s pretty simple, I would go for white, green and black as my color choices with maybe some blush thrown in. I chose black as the accent or “pop” color instead of gold since the chairs that the venue provides look to be a silver color. In order to save money, I want to use the items that the venue offers so that we don’t have to rent them elsewhere. 

Another thing that makes a secret garden wedding a secret garden wedding is the florals and lights tend to be hanging. This can cost tons of money and time to set up even if you were to do it yourself. Ideally, I would love to have an arch that has hanging florals- wisteria and hanging amaranthus being the flowers that I typically see for hanging arrangements- that can be repurposed into our reception design inside the venue.

Overall Decor:

In my ideal design for Ashlee’s wedding, I would want fairy lights covering the interior walls of the venue. This is great for photographers since it brings in a lot of extra light they can use. I would also want to have hanging wisteria blossoms with the fairy lights around the venue. I am unsure as to what the venue allows as they have not returned my emails on what they allow us to do in the venue. So you’ll get ideas that hopefully are doable.

For the fairy lights, I want a warm 2.8K-3K light. I chose these fairy lights from amazon that are $14 per 9.8 feet. To cover the walls that are surrounded by the deck you would need about 12 of them for around 170$ total. The wisteria garland to cover the tops of the fairy lights would be an additional $100 for the bare minimum coverage.

This would be an additional look and absolutely not necessary for the overall design, however since the wood paneling in the venue seemed a concern, this is one way of reducing that look without too much extra costs.

Overall total: $270

Signs:

For signs for your food, beverages, cookies, welcome table, etc. I would use spray painted black frames found at goodwill, thrift stores or garage sales and use chalkboard paint on the glass to make a makeshift chalkboard sign. Then chalk the names that you need.

For food, I’d use a bigger sign to be able to write the whole list of food items at the front of the buffet instead of individually marking them. 

The signs you will need:

  • Bar sign
  • Welcome table sign 
  • Card Sign
  • Buffet Sign

Layout:

For the layout, I used my favorite event layout program: All Seated.

Layout option 1
Secret Garden Wedding Layout
Layout Option 2
In Case of Rain Layout

Tablescape:

For the table scape, I’d choose an ivory linen covering the tables or a sand linen with a white chiffon runner for a little extra depth. For the florals, I would first start collecting clear vases and jars to use as containers for the florals. Since we have a limited budget for florals and design, I think using smaller and more abundant arrangements that you can easily do yourself would be the most cost effective option. I’m thinking something like these floral arrangements:

Just a couple stems of white roses, spray roses, lisianthus and other favorite white flowers in each small clear vase or jars (mix matched from items you find in thrift stores or garage sales) with one sprig of eucalyptus or other greenery you want to add in that color. I’d estimate around 50 or so small clear glass vases would fill out your tables the best. 

Table Decor:

For the flowers, you can use realtor fake, your choice. The real ones you can order from trader Joes or a local grocery store. You’d need probably something like 10 bundles of white spray roses, 5 bundles of regular roses and like 5 bundles of any other type of white flowers that you like. Plus like 10 bundles of greenery. This will give you plenty of flowers and just fill up the containers you have been collecting with water and cut the flowers down to appropriate size and plop them in the containers the day before your wedding (you can ask family members or your girls to help) and box them up to move them to venue on wedding day. You can also ask for a quote from your florist on how much it would cost for them to do this as well in case it’s around the same cost.  For flowers like this you can estimate it costing about $300 to do it yourself, plus the cost of the clear vases which I’m hoping you could find over the next year to be around $1-$2 each for a total of $100.

Table Flower total: $400

Putting candles on the tables would be awesome, a mixture of high candles and low votives would look fantastic with the design. Think low clear or silver votives and higher led candles. If the venue provides these, I love the black lanterns that they have and think it would be great with your romantic secret garden look. With the design package being $200, it might be worth it if you also love their illuminated signs and can put around the venue as you wish. 

For your table numbers and seating chart, I’d suggest these gorgeous acrylic numbers, you only need 7 of them for $35. And for the sign, I love this template that works with the design and you just need to get it printed on a foam board at Staples or Office Depot for $50. 

Tableware:

Since linens, plates, cups, napkins, silverware, etc. does not come included with Carraba’s catering menu, we definitely need to think about those types of rentals. I wasn’t able to find any event rental companies in the area that I thought had good deals for the china. Plus when renting those items you have to think about transportation and cleaning the items before returning them. So I decided that it might be easiest to have plasticware for the diner option.

The plastic wear I found I thought was pretty and added a little extra to the design. I would actually use the plastic plates in the table design. No chargers, as those are an additional cost we don’t need to have. And have them with the linen napkins (can be white or green- your preference) at the tables for your guests to grab prior to going to the buffet. This will help with reducing the number of disposables that you need since if you have them at the buffet station instead of at the table your guests who go up to get seconds from the buffet won’t just grab another (there won’t be another to grab). 

You’ll need one set of these plates for your guest count for a total of $80. As well the silverware to go with it.  Be sure to keep the smaller plates separate at the dessert table for when your guests go to get dessert. 

If you can get real white plates, silverware and goblets, that is preferable as it makes a better impact on design looks, however be sure to think about how you are getting them to and from the wedding and if you need to clean them before returning.

For Napkin fold, I would suggest a cumberbun fold with a dark green napkin. If you decide to go with a white napkin, I would suggest a waterfall fold. 

For cups, I would have a set of nice disposable cups for maybe using at the table if you have someone who is able to pour ice water at the tables. And then using less nice regular clear plastic tumblers for the bar and at a water station.  For a guest count of 75-100 guests for  you will need around 600 disposable cups total (this is an average based on cup usage, you’ll probably have left overs but better to be safe than sorry). Total for cups: 3 packs of nice: $75, 3 packs of tumblers: $75. Total: $150

Welcome Table:

Use the welcome table to show off your love of your pups! Have photos of you and your dogs on the table- I’d suggest in black frames (you can spray paint frames you find at goodwill!). You can even use a couple of the clear vases with flowers in it from the table decor to add a bit of flowers here too. 

For your guest book, I’d go with a large picture frame of you both and your pups with a large mat around for your guests to sign. Maybe even the photo you sent me! They’re so freakin’ adorable!!

Personal Florals: 

For the personal florals, just do a wild bouquet of white and greenery and get your girls small bouquets similar to yours. The groomsmen can have boutonnieres too. Repurpose your and their bouquets to put some around the venue for additional flowers (secret gardens deserve flowers everywhere)

Your typical personal floral costs around the following: 

Brides Bouquet: $150

Bridesmaid Bouquets: $50- $75 each 

Boutonnieres: $15 ea. 

Corsages: $30 ea. 

Assuming you have 4 girls and 4 guys you’d be looking at around $600 for personal flowers.

Design and Flower total: $1,800

Music:

For music, I’d look into DJ’s for your wedding. They’re the most cost effective music option for weddings with ceremony, cocktail hour and reception included. You’ll need 6 hours of DJ time for ceremony, cocktail hour, dinner and reception. No uplights. Probably will need a mic for the officiant. They’ll probably need 2 set ups: one for ceremony and one for reception. Since the dock space at your venue doesn’t look large enough to fit 100 guests (I may be wrong, check with venue) you’ll probably need to have your ceremony at the beach nearby.  I wouldn’t get chairs for your beach ceremony but I would try to get an arch. Either the one from your venue if you are allowed or get another one and add wisteria flowers to it.

Destin DJ’s: $1200 

On The Edge Entertainment: $1200

Affordable Djs and Wedding Photographers $935

For this example, I’d go with Affordable DJ’s as they are the most affordable option at $935 for 6 hours of Dj and 2 set ups with mic, dance lights and no uplights.

Cake:

For the cake, we’ve already got fresh baked cookies included with the quote from Carrabas so I would get a small cake to save money and let your guests eat the cookies instead of providing enough cake for everyone. I’d say a 2 tier cake would be best. 

A 2 tier cake typically serves about 30 guests. The small tier serving around 10 and the lower tier serving 20. If you want to save the top layer as your anniversary cake, you may have to get a 3 tier but that will serve 50-75 guests and with the cookies, you’ll definitely have a lot of extra cake and cookies at the end of the night.

For a 2 tiered cake it would be around $255

For the cake, I contacted Chef Heidi McAnulla  with Bake My Day Gourmet. Chef Heidi had great reviews, was within price and very responsive! With Bake My Day Gourmet there is a $300 minimum for all deliveries. 

For cakes, I think the delivery is important to have from the professionals since traveling with cakes is difficult. However, if we are trying to save money, since we have plenty of time to set up in the venue, if you have someone who is responsible that can pick up the cake on the wedding day that would be fine too.

To highlight the love of your goldies, I’d get a custom cake topper with them on it: Cost: $90-$355

You’ll probably want two Cookie stands to hold the cookies for guests and one cake stand for cake to put  in the middle of your table.

Total cost of Cake: $425

Officiant:

Since we went over budget on the venue, photographer and videographer, I think the best course of action would be to find a friend or family member willing to help that is a notary or ordained minister or is willing to become a notary or ordained minister. I think having someone close to you perform the ceremony is not only something that can save you money but it’s also a fun memory for you and your loved ones to treasure.

If for some reason, you don’t want a friend or family member to be your officiant, there are affordable options in the Fort Walton Beach area that could be good! These include Forever I Do Weddings or Weddings by Webster. Both come in at around $250.

Total: $0 or $250

Hair and Makeup:

For Hair and Makeup, you won’t be able to afford everyone’s looks with your budget, but you can do yours! Try to find someone who will travel to your location and do a bridal hairstyle and makeup for around $200. You should be able to find someone, the artists I reached out to have yet to get back to me. Will update blog once they do 😉

Total: $240

Transportation:

Let’s use our own transportation or get an uber so that you can reduce costs. 

Total: $0

Hotel:

If you don’t live nearby, get a hotel. And by nearby, I mean like 20 minutes or less. There are some gorgeous Air BNB’s nearby. From initial look these Air BNBs which house up to 6 guests look to be about $300-$400 for a Friday Night and Saturday night stay (Check-in Friday, Checkout Sunday).

Hotel: $300

Stationary:

For the stationary design, I would go for a boho look with mainly white and some greenery and flowers like this stationary design for $25. For your wedding you will need a save the date, RSVP, and Wedding Invitation. I would not get a menu, program or escort cards. For the seating chart, I included it above in the design section. Then get them printed at VistaPrint or another cheap online printing place. I use Vistaprint because they have great sales every so often, get on their mailing list to stay up to date with their promotions so that you can purchase the invitation suite when there’s a sale going on. 

As I’ve said before, be sure not to print for the number of guests you are inviting but instead for the number of addresses that they will be sent to. To know this number, you should have your guest list already created in a spreadsheet with their names and addresses on it. I’d estimate you would probably need about 50-60 invites for a guest count of 100. 

Your estimated costs would be:

Invitations: $65

Save the Dates: $65

Design: $25

Envelopes: $100

Stamps: $80

Total for stationary: $335

Pet Sitting: Furry Ventures

Since you want to have your pups a big part of your day, you are going to have to have someone with them for the entire day. They need to be walked, loved, fed, watered throughout your day and I absolutely do not suggest having a friend or family member be responsible for them. It’s not going to work out to where everyone is happy without any drama.

So my suggestion to you would be to get an event dog sitting company like Furry Ventures! They’re great because they have pick up and drop off services, watch your dogs throughout the day and make sure that they and you are happy. They’ll walk them down the aisle if you need or be there to grab them and take them off stage if need be. They also are great at making sure that your pups are photogenic by bringing toys and treats to get them looking at the right direction for the camera. 

Once the ceremony is over, and all your photos are taken and everyone has loved on your pups, they’ll make sure that they get back home safe and sound and you won’t have to worry about anything! 

Best part of Furry Ventures is that they are nationwide having originated in Tampa FL and focusing on Florida and Georgia Events!

Your quote with them depends on the level of involvement you want at the wedding and number of hours that they need to watch your pups.

Attire:

This wedding design that I put together for Ashlee, is what I would call a beach or garden party attire feel. You can actually use those terms to explain to guests what to wear: summer dresses and Summer Suits. Or you could class it up to a cocktail attire if desired.

 For the wedding dress design, I would choose one that is lighter and more casual. Maybe an A-line instead of a ballgown dress. 

For Suits for the guys, I’d make it more casual: Black pants, white shirt, black floral tie and suspenders. I don’t think the jacket would be super important, except maybe if you wanted to have the groom standout from his guys. I love the addition of a floral tie, either for all the groomsmen and groom or just the groom with solid black ties/bowties for the groomsmen. 

For the girls’ dresses, I would go for a mixture of neutral kinda grayish colors. Thankfully, with the color scheme chosen, you could actually do anything for the bridesmaids. There is no rule out there saying that they need to be in the same colors as your wedding pallet. Since it’s a very neutral wedding color palette, we could do pretty much anything. 

For your dress try and one under $500 as you’ll need probably around $200 for alterations. For a suit you’ll be looking at around $200.

Total: $900

Bar:

You’ll need a bartender for your event. If the venue provides one, go for them. If not, try to find an affordable one. For your drinks, I would highly suggest having a couple of pre-made cocktails ready to pour for your bartender along with a mixture of beer and wine options. The pre-made cocktails or “signature drinks” will help reduce the amount of time that the bartender spends on making alcoholic beverages and will reduce the wait that your guests experience at the bar.

For a Secret Garden Wedding, I’m feeling  light alcoholic beverages like mojito or some sort of refreshing beverage. There is actually a drink called the secret garden on pinterest that is a mixture of elderflower, lime, gin, and cucumbers where you shake it and add a little tonic on top. Sounds delicious and perfect for the event!

For the event you’ll need about 6 cases of beer, 14 bottles of red, 14 bottles of white, and 7 750 ml bottles of hard liquor of your choice with most going towards the premade signature cocktails. An estimated total for this would be about $700, however since your family owns a liquor store, I am sure you could get a better deal!

Final Thoughts:

While I wasn’t able to get this wedding back on track cost wise, I think that it will still be an absolutely gorgeous wedding for about $14,000- $15,000 total. By doing a lot of DIY in the decor part of the wedding, Ashlee should be able to create a gorgeous design for less than $2,000 by finding cheap bud vases as she goes along this upcoming year and finding cheap frames that she can spray paint black.  

The hardest part about this design was in making sure that she had everything that she needed for her guests like plates, cups, napkins, etc. With a “drop off” caterer like Carraba’s there isn’t much in terms of rentals that comes with the food. However, since it’s a sentimental item, I’d definitely use them over a traditional caterer any day.

When planning a wedding with a non-traditional wedding caterer, it’s important to go over all the items that you would typically see with the traditional wedding caterer and make sure that you have plans for them. It can be tricky but in the end, it can totally be worth it cost wise and memories wise. Just be sure that the Day of Coordinator is up to the challenge and gets there the second that the venue rental starts so that they have plenty of time to set up. 

When going this route, whether or not the venue requires it, I would definitely spend the money on getting a Day of Coordinator that can help you set up and stay on top of your timeline for you. With lots of DIY elements in this wedding, you and your family will not have enough time to deal with it and they will save you tons of stress come your big day.

I hope this helps give you a path along your wedding plans Ashlee and helps other brides looking for similar ideas to create a wedding plan that works for them!

As always, Be sure to let me know if you have a wedding planning request by emailing me at info@event-slayer.com with your location, budget, guest count, styling preferences and any tricky planning requirements!

Looking for more wedding plans, check out this Wizarding Wedding Plan.

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