Saturday, December 19, 2009

Riding in Style

To be honest, transportation was the bottom of my priority list. I figured we'll get there somehow and it wasn't the top of my list of things to splurge on. Well, then I realized we have a pretty large wedding party with a couple different photo spots. So we really needed to find something that would get everyone from point A to point B to point C, D, E and F.

I don't want to spend the wedding day stressing over a bridesmaid or groomsman or the groom or myself not getting to the church or photos. So I did what I always do. I started to research. Since booking our photographer I tried to relax on the type A personality and slow down on who I contact. When it comes to transportation though, I really just wanted a good price and something that would hold all of the wedding party, our immediate families, the photographers, videographer and ourselves. That is on big group! We are looking at about 22-24 people!

I had no clue how much transportation would cost, but since everything wedding related seems high in Newport I thought $1,000 would work. I contacted about 15 transportation companies, most of whom returned my e-mails. I had quotes for limos, buses, hummers, party buses, and trolleys. Most companies gave quotes for a few different types of transportation. Prices ranged from $780.00-$1,650.00. Each quote includes transportation for at least 22 people. Most did not include gratuity. To be honest, we thought we'd just go for the cheapest choice.

It wasn't until after all the research that I realized we could afford my secret dream choice of transportation- the Newport Wedding Trolley. I originally thought they would be the most expensive or out of our budget, but it turns out they were under our budget! the trolley just screams classic Newport. It has the same color scheme of red and green as the RIPTA (Rhode Island Public Transportation Authority) trolleys we took in Newport during our college years. Our first date included a red and green Newport Trolley. I was beyond excited to get a quote for $900.00 for the four hours we needed. It wasn't the cheapest option we had intended on going for, but it was still under our budget.
I sent an e-mail to the Newport Wedding Trolley asking for a time to meet. I also sent an itinerary for our wedding day with the stops we plan on making. I wanted to confirm that it was ok to have multiple stops before we went any further.
Well to my surprise, I receievd an e-mail letting us know that it was fine to have multiple stops for photos. I was also told that we could get the trolley for $800.00 since all of our locations are local and within a short distance! Without even trying, we saved $200 off our wedding budget! Tip isn't included in the $800.00, but we did expect that.
Although, I did spend quite some time researching and contacting companies, this was such an easy choice for us.

Was there something you thought was out of your budget, but ended up being more reasonably priced?

2 comments:

Nicole-Lynn said...

How neat! Love the trolley! Even better you were under budget. Transportation is not the top of our priority list either :)

honey my heart said...

hooray for the trolley! we rode one on our wedding day, it fit so many people and it was too fun :)