Category Archives: Budget Wedding

Flowers for your flower girl

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Bridal flowers are not just for the bride, but also for the flower girls. How many do you have? That’s up to you. You generally have at least one. Then again, do you absolutely have to have one? That’s totally up to you. Anyway, I wanted to explore the different styles of flower girl flowers. The most common style is the basket, like the one below. Funny thing is, I think there is a difference between the flower girl baskets that you commonly see in magazines and the ones my mom did — the flowers. In magazines, movies and such, you usually see the baskets full of rose petals that the flower girl throws on the aisle, for the bride to walk over. But my mom did flower baskets with the flowers staying in the baskets. I know some Catholic churches would prefer the latter, for easier clean up.

And yes, the flower girl above was me. This is circa early 80s, at the very least. And by the looks of things, those flowers are silk, but who knows now.

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Wedding gifts and questions

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I had these very questions not long ago. What do you give when you don’t have much? What if the couple’s registry only asks for gifts $100 or more? What if they’re simply asking for cash? What if you’re just plain having a hard time and would like to attend, but feel weird about attending if you can’t give a “worthy” gift?

Photo by Flickr’s aspence61

Yeah, I know how you feel. I don’t know how some of you do it — going to wedding after wedding, buying gift after gift. Just about nothing is cheap in relationship to weddings, not even simply being a guest. There’s travel, there’s buying appropriate wear, there’s buying a gift. It’s not all, party, hearty, I know.

Shruti, whom you might remember from posts about weddings in Maine and St. Louis is contemplating this very topic, since she RSVP’ed to five weddings this fall before getting laid off recently. And I know there has got to be so many people in this boat right now. So, what to do?

I’ll share one tip I got from a very knowledgeable friend — my pastor’s wife! She once advised me to take a look at the couple’s registry and find out the color of their towels. Purchase the same (or similar) color towels (and comparable quality) at another store, for less. Everyone can always use more towels, right?

That’s a tip you can extend to different items, like picture frames, blankets, sheets, etc. Just because you don’t care to spend your hard-earned money at Macy’s, or Nordstrom’s or Pottery Barn doesn’t mean you don’t like your friend as much as any other wedding guest.

Photo by Flickr’s Graham310

Of course, if you know the couple really well, you could always go off the cuff the way this guy did. Heheh. A couple might appreciate the gift of free alcohol at their wedding — or not!

I also happened to stumble upon this idea, which I absolutely love:

Newlyweds receiving a wedding gift from Stacy Gerlich these days can expect a little disaster when they unwrap her present. The Los Angeles Fire Department captain forsakes the traditional toaster oven or personalized bric-a-brac, instead stuffing backpacks with goggles, bottled water, toilet paper and other earthquake-survival items.

“Ten out of 15 couples said it was the best gift they’ve ever received,” said Gerlich, who heads the department’s Community Emergency Response Training, a seven-week disaster-training program for city residents.

This really is a great idea, since couples are quick to buy all sorts of stuff, but always procrastinate when it comes to emergency kits or savings accounts. Yeah, yeah, I’m one of those people. If someone gave me an off-the-registry earthquake kit (or hurricane preparedness kit, or tornado kit, or snowstorm kit…if there is such thing), I think I might be really touched. Like….”Wow, you really care about me and want me to stick around for a while!” Heheh.

Anyway, I do want to emphasize that if you, as a guest, really shouldn’t be so worried about what you will give as a gift. That sort of negates the whole idea of gift-giving. The whole idea of a wedding has mutated into a sort of mutually-beneficial racket (we give you party, you give us extravagant gifts we pick out on our registry). If you’re really worried the bride or groom won’t like your gift, you might be better off just not going.

Wedding decoration ideas in the Ikea catalog

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I don’t know about anyone else, but the Ikea catalog that just seems to magically arrive without you’re doing anything is massively dangerous for me. There are always so many thinks you can see in your own home, am I right? Anyway, as I thumbed through every page, I saw various possibilities for a budget wedding. Follow me inside the catalog…

On page 334 and 335 of the catalog is Ikea’s vase offerings. All of them are really nice, with some lovely colors, but there are a few I’d really like to point you toward. I really like the BLOMSTER bowl, a glass, shallow bowl. They’re $9.99 each and can easily be filled with water to hold floating tea lights or candles and a few blossoms.

On the same page, at the end of that top row is the SNARTIG (sorry, I have no umlauts) vase. This vase has a narrow mouth, so you can’t have too many flowers in it, but picture it with some food coloring-dyed water (matching your colors, of course, with a white Casablanca lily or a similarly thin-stemmed, big blooming flower. Nice, huh? This vase is only 79 cents each.

Below it, in the middle of the second row, is also called a BLOMSTER vase, but this one is a bit cheaper at $3.99, with a small mouth, but a very round, almost apple like shape. I’d say you should also go with some big bloom flowers for this vase, also — maybe a hydrangea or even a fully matured rose bloom. The flowers in this picture are also very nice; I think those are baby roses, but I could be wrong.

Next to that picture is the BLADET bowl, which is $12.99. It’s a bowl, so you’ll have no trouble putting things in it. The arrangement here is interesting — they appear to be flowering roots in rocks — but I would suggest something a little more flashy if you want it to be a reception centerpiece. Maybe colored water, maybe colored rocks? Shoot, you could even put a stack of Granny Smith apples or plums in there, depending on your color.

In the bottom row, at both ends, are more traditional vases. The BLADET vase is the most expensive of the bunch at $14.99, and its apparently 11 inches tall, which is not bad at all. There are so many possibilities for a vase like this.

Many possibilities for a vase like the second one that caught my eye — the VASEN vase. Its 8 inches tall, and costs $1.49 each. I think this one might be the best deal of the bunch, really. It’s got that interesting hour-glass shape and a wide mouth. And its cheap!

A couple pages over is Ikea’s candle page. I really liked this section too and I think there are so many possibilities with these candle holders — especially when you combine them with the vases. :)

The KARABODA lantern is really nice. It’s made of glass and steel, is 11 inches tall and goes for $2.99 each. I like the texturing on the outside. However, I wonder if the handle on top gets hot?

The STOCKHOLM candelabra is really nice. It’s pricey at $39.99, so maybe this would be something nice to decorate the cake table or sign-in table with. If you do use this candelabra, I think it would be very easy to decorate the foot of it with some flowers.

Check out the HALLARE tealight holder. I know that there are some who like the idea of the long guest tables that hold many on both sides of the table, rather than the round tables that have been in fashion for so long. A tealight set up like these would be ideal for ambiance along each side of the table. This tealight holder is 22 inches long. I can also see it being used on a round table, maybe 3 of them in a triangle, but with all the stuff put on a round table, there may not be enough room.

Next to the tealights is the GALEJ candleholder. I really like these. They’re 9 inches tall and are $3.99 each. You can simply add a tealight with your color, or maybe add a blossom of some kind for a little pizzazz — I think I’ve seen a gerber daisy used with a candle holder like this one.

Need to cut down on your wedding costs? Get away and get married!

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Photo by Flickr’s willshoot

I’m a big fan of personal finance stories in the Washington Post, so I was pretty interested in this article recently that some brides are saving money by having a destination wedding. To me, that seems counterintuitive — wouldn’t having your wedding somewhere else make the costs skyrocket? But I make sense of the entire paradox — eventually.

The biggest cost of a wedding is people — bridesmaids, groomsmen, sponsors, guests. Most people would invite everyone and their mommas, daddies, nieces and nephews, if you think about it. So by having your wedding in some exotic locale, say Maui like in the photo above, you end up pre-excluding some because a lot of people usually can’t afford to fly somewhere, put themselves up in a hotel, and give you a gift. That’s just reality.

From the article:

These unromantic downers are forcing couples to take a hard look at what they’re spending on their special day. In many cases, the new economic reality means downsized ambitions. Couples are scaling back on their guest lists, replacing filet mignon with chicken, and crossing out honeymoon plans to Italy because of the sinking value of the dollar. Some are choosing exotic destination weddings instead of hometown fetes to keep their guest numbers low. Others are making small cuts where they can: getting professionals to print invitations but stuffing envelopes themselves or replacing expensive peonies with cheaper roses.

…skip

Richard Markel, director of the Association for Wedding Professionals International, estimates that couples are spending $1,500 less this year on the average $28,000 wedding.

Tough times also are hitting wedding vendors: photographers, caterers, planners. “People are coming in with smaller budgets, but we’re trying to make the most of what they have to still give them a special experience, and if that means losing $100 to $150 for us because of the cost of a better quality of meat, that’s okay for us,” said Dan Capobianco, president of American Catering in Centreville.

Experts say there are many ways to cut wedding costs. “This is the time to prioritize what you need and realize that there is always something in your budget” to economize, Markel said.

The article continues on to say that hometown celebrations often come with guest lists of 200, 300 or more, but when it comes to destination weddings, it mind end up being 50. That’s a lot of $100 dinners you’re cutting from your wedding budget. Read the whole thing its very enlightening.

Anyway, there’s another plus. If you bring your wedding to one of these resorts, chances are you won’t need decorations. I know, I know, as a former wedding decorator I shouldn’t be advocating for no decorations. But I’m also in love with the beauty of nature. And if you’ve got a view like the one from the pictured Maui wedding, you really don’t want any flowers distracting from the simple beauty of your surroundings.

8/8/08 Wedding Giveaway

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I came across this contest while doing my early morning (as in 11:40 a.m., heheh) surfing of sites. I don’t know about you, but the offer of free anything rocks. But a free wedding? You could spend all your money on your honeymoon and your future home! How great would that be?

Anyway, its not just any wedding of course. The contest is sponsored by TheKnot and Eight O’Clock Coffee (never heard of ‘em) and is for a wedding in Southhampton, NY on that auspicious date (which falls on a Friday) with a reception for up to 100 guests and decorated by (apparently) celebrity decorator Evette Rios.

I don’t know if a Southern California girl like myself would want a wedding in Southhampton, but hey — I’m just the messenger. Catch is the contest ends next weekend on May 31 and you have to write an essay about why you should win this contest. Oh, and you can only enter once. Anyway, if anyone from this site wins the contest — let me know! I’d love to hear about it.

Save a buck, get your own vases

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Ever wonder where florists get those amazing vases — you know, the type that you’ve seen here, with all sorts of flowers inside of them? Well, there’s obviously a variety of places where you can get such vases, but if you’re looking for a cheap place to find them online, I’ve got the site for you.

If you love eBay, you’re in luck — HJK Imports has glass vases in just about any shape, color and size your wedding-crazed mind could possibly dream up. For example, if you really love the cylinder vases, HJK has a batch of 18, 6-inch by 6-inch vases at the Buy It Now price of $90. That’s $5 a piece. That’s a steal.

There’s a batch of trumpet vases available for even cheaper — $72 for 18 15-inch vases. Dude!

I doubt you could get a better price even at a wholesale brick-and-mortar shop. Even Amazon doesn’t have deals like this.

Here’s a close up of one of the vases, from a past post. I’m pretty sure that most of the vases that my mom bought have been trumpet vases, but in my opinion, cylinders are just as good as trumpets, especially since you can put more in a cylinder than simply water or flowers — you could put apples in them, or even pretty colored paper. Shoot, that’s a good idea….


Anyway, HJK Imports also has a non eBay website here. If you peruse their site carefully, you’ll see that they will be in Vegas for a trade show soon, and will be selling off all the merchandise they bring with them for more than 50% off their catalog prices. They simply don’t want to have to bring their stuff back with them, but their laziness can be your gain.

If you were wondering how I came upon this site, it was actually passed on to me by the bride I was a bridesmaid for a few years ago. She found the vases on her own and my mom agreed to use the vases for the arrangements. When my mom saw the quality of the vases, my mom urged me to find out who she got them from. Heheh.

So if this is the look you want for your wedding, but don’t want to pay the marked-up price for the vases your florist will provide, see if s/he will work with you — buy the vases on your own and give them to him/her to put the arrangements in. Depending on the florist and his/her markup, you can save as much as $1,000, I should think.