OK BC brides - with the provincial election talk coming to great heights and the HST threat (yes - it's a threat to me and my wedding budget) - how are you managing this?

With our wedding taking place in 2010 it's hard to imagine how it'll affect our budget. Needless to say - if it is going to go through it'll definitely be a damper on my pocket book.

For some things we're going to pay before July 1 - b/c our wedding is July 10. But for the venue, we're pretty hooped, so going to just work it into the already strict budget.

That's a great point Kimberly. The tax likely won't take effect so soon.

The HST is super scary, I've tried talking my FI into moving up the wedding to JUNE 2010 to avoid the HST, but no dice. Looks like I'll be stuck with HST grrrr.........

Yikes - Stacey...too bad he didn't agree to move things up a year!!!

I'm still workin' on him! lol but I doubt it.  I'm beginning to really like the 2011 idea.  But we are going to try to book and lock in prices as soon as we can, and see if we can negotiate with vendors regarding the HST.  (i.e. maybe they can give us an equivlent discount so it's like the HST isn't being charged)

The HST is going to add over $300 to our reception cost alone. :(  What's worse is that it will mainly hurt local restaurants and small businesses, and will put many entry-level jobs at risk.

I don't want to spam, but let's see if we can stop the HST on dining/eating out...

http://www2.nomealtax.ca/

As our wedding is in August, we've asked our reception venue to invoice us and we'll pre-pay our food costs on 130 guest. If we have a few more or less, we'll settle up through the beverage bill.

Grrrrrrrr HST!!

That's a good idea. I will have to see if our venue will let us do that as well... then again, they would be taking the hit as I'm sure they'd have to pay the difference for HST since the event itself takes place after it is brought in. I am still keeping my fingers crossed that the food service industry has some luck with their petition!

Please, if you haven't, sign the petition to keep the HST off restaurant bills!