Happy Friday everyone!   I saw this post from Groomsadvice.com and thought I would share…

Hey Everyone!  I recently read this narrative from a mother of the bride (MoB) which I thought I would pass along.  She’s describing how she saved money by making vendors compete.  I hope it gives you some wedding savings ideas!

I like to think most brides try to get a little crafty for their wedding, and that those same brides don’t have a stock pile of craft supplies ar0und.  Well, that’s definitely my scenario.  For example, I am going to make our rehearsal dinner invitations.  No, they will not be anything super fancy but I am going to borrow my office’s paper cutter for the weekend.  Sure, I could buy a paper cutter… but when am I going to use it again?  I also might use one of our printers to run the invites off.  Yes, I do have a printer at home but the one at the office is quicker and I won’t use up all of our ink!

If your office isn’t equipped with useful tools, or your wedding usage would not be encouraged, then check with your friends and family.  You might be surprised as to what their offices have and they can borrow.  Now, don’t go all re-con to get the materials, and don’t get greedy with what you take.  You won’t be able to pay for your wedding if you get fired!  I will definitely ask my office manager if I can borrow the paper cutter for the weekend… if he says no maybe I will just bring everything into the office and stay late one day.

First and foremost, I need to say: forgoing wedding favors is a really easy way to cut wedding costs.  At the end of the night, your guests don’t really want a little picture frame or candle.  If you really do want to distribute a thank-you-something, then why not make it edible?  And, why not make it yourself?  Sure, you will need to do a test run to make sure the recipes works, but here are few easy, inexpensive, edible favor ideas:

Pie Pops

Cookies

Fudge

Yogurt Covered Pretzels

I went to a friend’s wedding this weekend and she had a really great guest book.  She and her fiance made a photo book/guest book out of their engagement photos which lead me to do some research…

Apparently, you can easily and inexpensively get a really nice book of your photos online (check out Shutterfly or MyPublisher for two examples).  What a great present idea for parents!

I’ve been looking for ways to make our wedding really fun.  One inexpensive option is wedding games.  Here are some game ideas which I am excited to try out:

Treasure hunt/Musical Chairs:

Get together a group of people, and chairs for everyone except one person and put all the chairs on the dance floor.  Each participant is given a card with an item to find in the reception hall (a piece of fruit from the buffet, your grandma’s shoe, a groomsman’s boutonniere, etc).  While participants search for their items, have competition music playing.  The last person back, who doesn’t have a chair, will have to do chores for the bride and groom for a year.

Kiss for a Dare:

Instead of guests clinking their glasses or ringing a bell to make the bride and groom kiss, put dares or tasks on each of the tables.   If the table would like to see you kiss, they will have to do what is on the card.  Please customize cards for every table, so that the kids table has to do the funky chicken and not take shots of vodka.

Garter Relay:

Make two teams of male participants.  Teams will flip a coin to see who goes first.  Each team will line up across from a chair.  Participants will pick a number between 1-10 to see who sits in the chair first.  Each subsequent participant must race to the chair and put a garter on the person sitting in the chair, once they do they will switch places.  The garter-wearer will run back to the front of the line, remove the garter and hand it to the next participant.  The team with the fastest time wins.

Wedding dresses, wedding decorations, and wedding flowers can all be very expensive but the heartbreak is that most wedding items will only be used on your actual wedding day.  There are a lot of opportunities out there to share, borrow, or purchase already used wedding items beyond using the family wedding dress.

I was recently contemplating place cards and whether I wanted folded stand alone place cards or if I wanted single flat cards that would need a place card holder.  My first thought was to just google “place card holders”, well actually my very first thought was to google “black river rock place card holders” but those don’t exist.  I didn’t like the prices of the other place card holders which I found, so I then jumped over to the classified section of Weddingbee.  No one on Weddingbee was selling what I wanted, so I hit Ebay and then finally Craigslist.  While I didn’t necessarily find exactly what I was looking for, I know that new items will be posted regularly and the good stuff can get picked up really quickly.

Another option is to talk to your venue.  Your church, hotel, or catering company probably have event items that they would happily let you use.  Or, they can put you in touch with other people hosting events that might be willing to share or sell you decorations or flowers.

After my quest for place card holders, I’m excited and re-rejuvenated to purchase used wedding items.  No one will know that they were used before AND they will cost considerably less money.  Good  luck with your searching!

Let’s face it, weddings are an “industry”.  If you add the word wedding to anything the price jacks right up, like wedding cake versus just cake.  The only way to really fight the “industry” is to do things yourself, and the queen of do it yourself is Martha Stewart.  Yes, I know you’ve probably seen her weddings magazine and everything looks very lavish and expensive; however, she also has a really great do it yourself center.  Now, I must caution you from my own experience, do it yourself does not always mean cheaper!  Budget and shop around for your supplies and don’t go over the top.   Take invitations for example, by the time you have your envelopes and paper, rubber stamp, ink and embellishment set you might have spent more money than if you had just ordered your own invitations off of Etsy.  And, don’t attempt anything out of your league- it will be twice as expensive to have to re-buy or re-make things because your first run through was a disaster.  Always ask yourself “what would Martha do” not “what could Martha do”.

There is a saying, “be prepared for the unexpected” and unfortunately the unexpected can be expensive.  I’m not indicating that you will end up like this couple.  What I am saying, is don’t completely max out your budget because you don’t know what adjustments you might need to make down the line.  For example, do you have a rain plan?  Or, does your organized transportation have back-up in case something goes wrong like a flat tire?  And then there is the complete random like an infestation of bees and needing to call someone to remove the hive or run to the store for bee keeper outfits… or a polar bear blocking your entrance?

I was reading an article with wedding savings tips. It wasn’t a very exciting article, so I’m not even going to bother sending you to it (remember… that’s my job… filter out all the useless wedding advice and just give you the good stuff!), but there was one quote I just had to share. In the article, one of the brides being interview says this:

“Pick three to five things and do those things very well. That was the best advice anyone ever gave me.”

I don’t know about “best wedding advice possible” status, but the more I think about this little comment, the more I really like it. At the end of the day, no one is really going to remember your wedding for all the little details. They’ll probably just blur together in one big memory from all sorts of weddings past. Heck, even as a wedding junkie, when I look back on any one specific wedding, I see a big blur of an image and can rarely pick out one specific detail.

However, in a few cases, I think back on weddings I’ve attended and remember one or two precise details that were incredible. For example, my roommate from sophomore year had the most incredible lobster bisque I’ve ever tasted. It was to die for. In fact, it was so great that every time I’m in South Jersey, I still go by that restaurant where she had the reception and order it. It’s incredible.

In another example, I’ll absolutely never forget the gardens where my cousin got married. You’ve never seen so many beautiful flowers everywhere. If a little bird landed on my outstretched finger and started singing to me, I would have been 100% positive I was in a Disney movie. As of right now, I’m only 98% positive.

So when you think about your wedding priorities and where you need to best budget your limited monetary resources, consider spending more money on the things that people are going to absolutely remember. Just off the cuff, I’m thinking things like food, venue, and music. No one is going to remember if your open bar served Grey Goose instead of Smirnoff, but they’ll remember if they ate the most deliciously tender lamp chops instead of a lukewarm chicken breast. No one is going to remember if you get married in a hotel ballroom in the Ritz instead of the Marriott (a hotel ballroom is a hotel ballroom… besides, it’s all about the decorations!), but they’ll remember if you got married in a luxurious private mansion instead of a hotel ballroom. And no one is going to remember if your DJ played the Electric Slide instead of the YMCA, but they’ll remember if the best 80’s cover band in the city rocked out the wedding reception for four straight hours.

The point is, spend money where it counts, and do those things really well. The rest is just small stuff. Appetizers. Flowers. Lights. They’re all important, but they’re not necessarily memorable. So if you have to be concious of your budget, think about how you best spend where it counts most.