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Planning a Wedding Is No Piece of Cake
by By ADAM McNAUGHTON
A wedding day is meant to be one of the best days in a person's life, but finding a way to pay for it and not go bankrupt in difficult economic times can be tough.
During the 2010 Spring Wedding Expo at Shawnee Inn on Sunday, dozens of brides came to find the flowers, cakes, music and other special touches to make their wedding days perfect — but now more than ever, they were also looking to stretch their budgets.
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Melanie Frassinelli runs Melanie's Florals in Stroudsburg. She said that this is one of the most challenging times she has seen in her 10 years in the floral business. The choice of where to spend money in a wedding is a very personal decision, but it is becoming tougher than it has been in past years.
"For a lot of people I think it's about making the choices that are important to them," Frassinelli said. "Having great flowers at your wedding might be a priority or having an open bar might be a priority. Where in the past more people might have paid to have both, these days people are making a choice about what is most important to them."
Amber Bonser traveled from her home in Bethlehem to the wedding expo, hoping to put together some of the details for her wedding this October. She said she plans to make wedding reception centerpieces herself to save money and thankfully one part of her wedding is already set — after she won a free limosine service on her wedding day as one of the expo's door prizes.
"It's a lot of work if you're planning it yourself," Bonser said. "With the economy the way it is you can't really go all out for everything. You have to be smart and I'm lucky to have friends in my wedding party to help me with a lot of the planning."
The economy took a bite out of wedding spending last year, down about 8 percent in 2009 compared to 2008 — but the median cost of a wedding is still about $17,500, according to a survey by the wedding Web site www.the
knot.com. But even in a down economy, people continue to get married and the wedding industry can weather recessions, vendors at the wedding expo said.
"I was worried a bit last year about the economy and how it was going to effect business, but after it was all over I'd say business was pretty much the same," said Mary Lininger, of Merry's Custom Cakes in Stroudsburg. "I do about 300 cakes per year and that was the same last year as well."
One store that has seen wedding-related business stay strong is Walmart. Lyn Tuche is a cake decorator at Walmart in East Stroudsburg. During the expo she showed some of the cake designs and wedding reception supplies that can be bought at Walmart to help cut a wedding's cost.
"It's very inexpensive and it's very much something that more people are turning to for their weddings," she said.
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