Baked Stuffed Chicken

Making baked Stuffed Chicken on this dreary winter day.

Buy my CD Cookbook $12 over 250 pages with BONUS Magic Pan Recipes!!  Makes a great shower gift too!!

View this and my other online recipes at Doreen's Kitchen.

Chicagoland Brides, everything a bride may need.

WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER ChicagolandBrides.com

Most photographer’s charge about $450 to shoot a wedding. This does not include the proof’s, CD, or actual photo’s.

You could adjust this by interviewing several photography students at local colleges. Contact the instructors regarding this, and perhaps they can recommend someone or tell their students that they can gain experience by doing this.  If you hire a student, figure on spending about $150 for this. Because they will have access to various expensive editing equipment as well as digital camera’s, it should not be ignored. Request that you see their portfolio so you can get an idea of their style.

It’s important that the student photographer supply you with a CD of the rough cut of photo’s taken as well as a CD of their finished edited product. If they will not be downloading to a laptop the day of your event to burn the rough cut CD, ask them to start emailing all the jpegs, OR ask one of your guests if they can bring a laptop to have it downloaded to, and a CD made on the spot as well.

After you have the final CD, you can then pick the photo’s you like, and upload to various websites. I suggest taking advantage of Walgreen’s Photo. You can create an account, upload jpegs, create a photo book for sale, and your guests can access this to have photo’s printed if they want at a Walgreen’s near them.

Here is a list of photo’s that should be taken:

1.       Interior/Exterior of Church, reception location

2.       Bride getting ready

3.       Wedding Cake (before cutting and obviously during the cutting)

4.       Guests arriving

5.       Floral shots

6.       Ceremony shots (inquire if flash is allowed, if not, then a digital camera with a large aperature opening is needed; about a f1.2 or so) These shots should include walking down the aisle, groom at altar, unity candle, ring exchange, kissing the bride.

7.       After the ceremony BEFORE everyone leaves, the photographer should start with the large group of the wedding party and work their way down. Start with bride, groom, bridal party, parents, pastor. Then parents leave the shot, then bridal party leave the shot, then the pastor leaves the shot so it’s now just the bride and groom

8.       Close ups (macro is needed) of rings, bible, candles.

9.       Bride and Groom leaving the church for rice tossing

10.   Vehicles

11.   Arrival at reception

12.   Receiving line

13.   Announcement of Mr & Mrs and their entrance

14.   Music

15.   Food shots, candid guest shots at reception

16.   First dance

17.   Garder and boquete toss

18.   Bride and Groom leaving for honeymoon

Don’t forget to mention on your invitations that if guests are going to be shooting with their cell phones, to please email photo’s to you.

You COULD also purchase for about $10 a piece, disposable camera’s for guests to use. Keep in mind the processing and developing of these could be between $10 - $20 MORE (so you can get the CD). If you can afford to take this costly risk, do so, and depend on whatever your guests take photo’s of.

You can also rent a photo booth that has different options for your reception. They charge roughly $600 and up for this.

Other photography and video suggestions can be found on my site: ChicagolandBrides.com/PHOTOGRAPHER

Inexpensive Receptions

Figuring out your guest list can be daunting.  You should figure out your budget for your event. If you’re on a limited budget, which in today’s economy many of us are, determining the amount of guests to invite based on cost per person is very important. Many can hardly afford to pay their rent/mortgage let alone host a wedding reception. What you have to figure out is, after your monthly expenses are met, just HOW MUCH disposable income will you have to host this? Don’t break the bank!!!

For example, if you have only $500 to spend on your “reception” don’t invite 500 people as that would leave you with the cost of $1 per person. That wouldn’t even cover the cost of coffee with cream and sugar in a paper cup.

Your cost should cover everything a guest may eat, drink, and what they are using to eat and drink with. Who is serving the food and beverage, and how much is that?  Are you renting a space? Are you going to serve on paper or plastic plates? Are you having a coffee and punch service, or a bar service? How much will hiring a bartender/server for this? How much is the liquor? How much is ice? How much are glasses? Don’t forget that if you are serving liquor it’s advisable to have extra insurance for this.

Let’s say that you can spend $5 per person. This would mean that on a budget of $500 for the reception, you could invite 100 people.  What if you have to invite more people because of large families? You would then have to figure out a menu that will allow you to do so, OR, forgo a menu all together and stick with the bare necessities.

You could keep it very simple, and forgo a bar service as well as a sit down reception. If you have your wedding AFTER lunch time and well before the dinner hour, you could just serve a simple coffee and punch service with your wedding cake. On your invitations you could state “light refreshment and cake served afterwards”. This tells your guests that they should make it a point to eat their lunch before attending, and that the reception will not carry over into the dinner hour, and that no, there will not be a bar service. There is nothing wrong with this, to keep it very simple. Not everyone has a gazillion dollars to spend on a wedding. If your guests expect more, it says a lot about the company you keep and how you strive to impress them (while breaking your own personal budget to live and pay your normal bills).

Is it more important to have a large guest list because you are “expected” to or because you WANT to? What do you think your guests “expect” to eat and drink? If you feel that they expect a high rolling affair and for you to pay for it, what does that say about your guests?

A wedding and reception is to celebrate the event, not to impress your guests. 

Figure if you stick with the “light refreshment and cake served afterwards” and only want to spend $500 for this you have to add in certain other costs.

1.       How much is it to rent the location? Does this include tables and chairs? Is there a self service kitchen? (most venue’s cost $400 and up, so it would make a good point to find out if your church offers a room with kitchen facilities that you could access; some offer it for free or for a small cost that you will have to figure out the cost per person).

2.       How much will your paper products cost? This should include garbage bags, paper plates and napkins, table cloths, coffee and beverage cups, paper towels, soap. (take a small notebook and price these items at dollar stores and other places like Sam’s club or Costco) On the average, figure about $1 per person or more. If you want to keep it low, have just table cloths on your coffee table and cake table and have chairs for the guests to sit if they want.

3.       How much will it cost to have someone set this up for you and serve food and beverage, as well as clean up afterwards? Do you have a reliable waitress or waiter that can do this for you? You could also post on bulletin boards at college’s to have a student set up and serve/clean for this. As it would be a short service, figure paying about $50 for this.

4.       How much will beverages cost? If you stick with coffee and punch, figure that it will cost about $1 per person.

5.       How much will your cake cost? Most wedding cakes cost $350 or more. You could keep it very simple by having just a small cake for the bride and groom to cut, with either various cookies or a sheet cake for the guests. If you go this route, figure that it will cost about $2 per person for this.

6.       Now your cost is about $4 per person for all of the above (not including hiring someone to serve).  $500 - $50 (server) = $450 divided by $4 per person = 112 people you can invite. If you are going to have other foods, this guest list should be lower.

WELCOME

I hope you will like this blog. For much more information, please visit my website Chicagoland Brides

If you have any questions, please feel free to EMAIL me as well.